A Montreal family is outraged their five-year-old daughter will receive no specialized treatment for her autism despite a government assessment that she is a high-priority case.
Lynn Buchanan and Sam Kuhn and their supporters protested Wednesday morning outside the St-Henri metro station to draw attention to the serious shortage of services for children with autism.
Buchanan and Kuhn say they tried to get help for their daughter Charlotte at a very young age, when they first noticed she needed extra help.
"We started seeing signs of autism just after she was 18 months old," said Buchanan.
But an official diagnosis took more than two-and-a-half years, and the help that was initially offered was limited.
"They said that because she'd be entering kindergarten that she could expect 20 hours of therapy prior to entering kindergarten and she was placed on a high priority. But nothing... nothing. Absolutely nothing," said Kuhn.
Charlotte's behaviour and socialization skills improved with a year in daycare, but she does not speak and she needs intensive speech therapy to help her learn how to communicate.
"Early intervention is really critical and she's been completely denied that," said Buchanan.
Now, at age five and in school, her parents have been told her priority status has changed.
"She is now considered low priority for service and she would get no therapy," said Buchanan. "She would get instead a group session on behavioural issues."
Kuhn says the reason offered for his daughter's change in status makes no sense.
"I was told that what they're doing, is by taking her off the list, they're shortening the list for other children," he said.
The family did not take that sitting down.
They have filed a complaint ombudspeople at both the Intellectual Deficiency Readaptation Centre (CRDIQ) and the Western Montreal Readaptation Centre (CROM).
