Our hope for Mautis is that he is given the chance to live a healthy and happy life.  We want the best for our child and try our best to remain free from setting any limitations on Mautis.

If Mautis wants to go to college then he can go to college! We were directed to a helpful organization and will continue to check it out as time unfolds:

AHEADD (Achieving in Higher Education with Autism/Developmental Disabilities) which supports autistic college students with their social and academic needs. 

Who knows what the future holds for Mautis!

We try to provide the extra support Mautis needs and the public school system has helped in this effort as a mandated law that at the age of 3 children have the right to free public education.  This is how we went about testing Mautis and receiving external support.  We luckily had all of our children learning sign language at an early age, before being able to speak, and this has helped Mautis tremendously in his communication development.




Since I do not wish to blog about our personal expenses I will share quotes and studies pertaining to this financial issue:

"Treatment is extremely expensive. Direct medical and nonmedical costs can add up to as much as $72,000 a year for someone with an extreme case of the disorder, and even $67,000 a year for those on the lower end of the spectrum, according to a study from the Harvard School of Public Health."

“It can cost $3.2 million to take care of an autistic person over the course of his or her lifetime”

“Unless we attack this like a national health crisis, we’re going to have a huge economic crisis on our hands.”


By the time we factor in medical appointments, medications, therapy treatments (occupational and ABA), special child care services and camps, our family does indeed pay expensive bills in order to help our child fully function to his greatest potential.  Fortunately we do have insurance coverage for some financial aspects, yet we often do get denied and try our best to appeal those denials.