Students' rights versus limited means

Under two federal laws -- the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, both passed in the 1970s and revised over the years -- all special-needs children, including those with autism, are entitled to free and appropriate public school educations in the least restrictive environment. And, science shows, the sooner children with autism get treatment, the better their odds of speaking, reading, learning and eventually living independently.

A breakthrough discovery, released Feb. 18 in the online publication of the journal Nature Genetics, could mean that someday medical science might pinpoint the disorder in infancy, or even before birth. Researchers homed in on the genes behind autism, putting an early DNA test within reach.

But today, it's rare for a child to be diagnosed before age 2, even in the best of circumstances. Five years and one month is the mean age at which children with autism are diagnosed, according to an April 2006 study in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

That's a full 13 months, on average, after a child is first brought for evaluation by a qualified professional, says study author Lisa Wiggins, a behavioral scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of the 115 children in the study, a quarter were not diagnosed until they entered school -- and even then, it was not the first order of business in kindergarten. Those children were diagnosed at an average of 6 years and 2 months.

The picture is even worse for some minority children. The average age of diagnosis for a black child with autism, according to a December 2002 study in the journal American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, was nearly 8; for a Latino child, about 7 1/2 ; and for a white child, about 6 1/4 .

The average annual cost to educate an autistic child in California is $11,907. School districts across the country, many struggling with the basics of teaching all children to read, write, add and figure out where Ohio is on a map, are stymied by the cost of special education.