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Archived
News and Projects Family, State Challenge Torrance Treatment Center Over Autism Therapy
Today, Brian Ralph is a chatty preschooler who can walk up to his older brothers without prodding and ask them to play pirates evidence, his mother says, that months of intensive one-on-one therapy have coaxed the 3-year-old out of his autistic shell. It was just like he suddenly woke up, said Jennifer Ralph, who has watched her son blossom over the past two years from an unresponsive toddler into a complete yapper. But Ralph, a Torrance resident, fears that Brian's painstaking improvements are stagnating ever since the state-contracted agency charged with delivering his therapy abruptly and officials say wrongly cut off services.
More than a dozen local families have found themselves in the same situation, prompting the state to order Harbor Regional Center, a Torrance nonprofit that provides services for developmentally disabled children and adults, to change its practice of discontinuing autism treatment for children over age 3.
The Department of Developmental Services, which contracts with Harbor Regional, has given the center until May 31 to shape up or face the consequences, which could include changes to or outright termination of the contract. They are applying the policy in a manner not consistent with the law, said Paul Verke, a spokesman for the Department of Developmental Services.
The Department of Developmental Services contracts with 21 nonprofit regional centers across the state to help residents who have developmental disabilities, such as mental retardation, epilepsy, cerebral palsy and autism, as required by federal law. Each center is governed by a board of directors, but the state is responsible for overseeing all operations. Officials for Harbor Regional Center, which serves 6,830 residents in the South Bay and Harbor Area, declined to comment on the state's findings.
We don't really comment on client matters, and this is really a client matter, said Nancy Spiegel, spokeswoman for the center. She added, We will be talking with the Department (of Developmental Services) about the matter. According to state records, 16 families won complaints against Harbor Regional Center from Feb. 1, 2000, to Oct. 31, 2001. In each case, the center cut off autism treatment at age 3, apparently believing that school districts were now responsible for the therapy.
About 16 percent of the regional center's clients have autism. Though school districts are required to provide special education services for preschool-aged children, the intensive one-on-one autism therapy used by children like Brian is not solely an educational treatment, an administrative law judge ruled. (Harbor Regional Center's) definition of education is too broad and, if applied to all school-aged consumers, would effectively eliminate any responsibility to provide services, which violates the law, read an April 2, 2001 decision.
Regional centers often split special education costs with school districts, but they still have an obligation to supply therapy no matter what a person's age, Verke said. In California, we provide services for a lifetime to a person with developmental disabilities who has been diagnosed, he said. For Ralph, the state's decision to get involved is a welcome relief. But in the meantime, Brian's progress has slowed because he is not receiving the right amount of therapy, she said.
Doctors say Brian should receive 35 hours a week of therapy, but the Harbor Regional Center is not providing any of it, Ralph said. We're not seeing as much steady gain as we had, she said. People with autism generally have trouble communicating with others, interacting socially and participating in play activities. Sometimes, they act out aggressively or repeat body movements, like rocking or hand flapping. It is the most common developmental disorder. The Department of Developmental Services noticed a 144 percent rise in the number of people diagnosed with autism from December 1994 through December 2000. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that two to six people in 1,000 suffer from autism. Many autistic people require months or years of intensive, one-on-one therapy to achieve relatively normal lives. When Brian first started this therapy at 20 months old, he could not even respond to his name. Ralph still has the Christmas videos in which she can be heard pleading with Brian to wave to Mommy with no luck. Then, the Harbor Regional Center began sending a therapist to Ralph's home every day to chip away at the autism. The therapy was time-consuming and exhausting. To get Brian to respond to his name, the therapist called Brian while Ralph took her son by the arm and walked him over. Once there, the therapist gave him an M&M candy and said, Good listening, Brian. Eventually, he learned to react. We were pulling him out of this, and the autism was struggling to keep him back, Ralph said. It was like a big struggle.
The autism still has a hold on Brian though he is nearly 4 years old, Brian wears diapers and sometimes lashes out in aggression but he has an enormous amount of potential that can be drawn out through therapy if Harbor Regional Center were to cooperate, Ralph said. In the meantime, the state has offered legal and administrative resources to help the Harbor Regional Center amend erroneous policies, forms and informational brochures sent to parents before the May 31 deadline. Ralph, for her part, has filed a complaint against the center and hired an attorney to force Harbor Regional to comply with the law. Like so many parents, she has resorted to legal battles. The stress on the family, the financial drain that this has cost my family and I, the impact on the family with my other two children, Ralph said, rattling off the difficulties she has encountered since Harbor Regional Center terminated its services. Brian's needs are so demanding, she said. We've all been so violated. Read More Archived News Stories AB896 General Human Interest Litigation State Budget
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