Intensive early intervention for ASD saves money, study finds

Intensive early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is highly cost-effective, a new study reports. 

Zuleyha Cidav and colleagues evaluated the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), which involves a developmental curriculum and set of teaching procedures carried out by therapy teams and parents, either in a clinic or in the child’s home. The researchers analyzed costs for 21 children participating in ESDM, comparing them to the costs for 18 children participating in community care. 

The researchers say, “During the intervention, children who received the ESDM had average annualized total health-related costs that were higher by about $14,000 than those of children who received community-based treatment. The higher cost of ESDM was partially offset during the intervention period because children in the ESDM group used fewer applied behavior analysis (ABA)/early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) and speech therapy services than children in the comparison group. In the postintervention period, compared with children who had earlier received treatment as usual in community settings, children in the ESDM group used fewer ABA/EIBI, occupational/physical therapy, and speech therapy services, resulting in significant cost savings in the amount of about $19,000 per year per child.” 

Senior study author David Mandell says, “We wanted to show what the short-term payoff would be if payers invested in early intensive treatment for children with autism. Much to our surprise, we found that the entire additional cost associated with high-quality intervention as opposed to traditional community services, which often are not as intensive or of as high quality, was completely offset within two years.”

Citations

“Cost offset associated with Early Start Denver Model for children with autism,” Zuleyha Cidav, Jeff Munson, Annette Estes, Geraldine Dawson, Sally Rogers, and David Mandell, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 56, No. 9, September 2017, 777- 83. Address: Zuleyha Cidav, [email protected]. 

—and—

“High-quality early intervention for children with autism quickly results in cost savings,” Science Daily, August 8, 2017.