Benevides TW, et al. - A cross-sectional population-based study is conducted to examine the rates in reported need and unmet need for occupational, physical, and speech therapy services in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with children with attention-deficit–hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and cerebral palsy (CP). It was concluded that the children in this sample had greater unmet therapy needs in 2009 than in 2005. Caregiver-reported reasons for unmet need included cost and school resources. Research analyzing future trends in therapy access is warranted for children with ASD and CP.

Methods

• They designed this study to compare therapy need and unmet need among children younger than 18 years with ASD (n=5178), ADHD (n=20 566), and CP (n=1183).
• For this study, they used 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 (USA) National Survey of Children with Special Health Care data sets.
• Bivariate approaches and multivariate logistic regression utilizing imputed information were used to recognize relationship amongst child and family qualities, and access to therapy services.

Results

• After adjusting for other variables, children with ASD had a significantly greater likelihood of having an unmet therapy need compared with children with ADHD (odds ratio [OR] 1.66, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.36-2.03), but a similar unmet need as children with CP (OR 1.30, 95% CI 0.97-1.74).
• Factors related to unmet need included survey year, younger child age, no health insurance, and increased functional and behavioral difficulties.