Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurological disorder that severely hinders a child’s socialization and communication skills. ASD is a spectrum disorder which means that symptoms and behaviors exhibited may vary significantly from one child to another. Although there is some overlap in effective therapies, there is no single prescribed treatment that works for each child who is diagnosed with ASD. This condition requires the development of a unique treatment plan for each child.

Children are typically diagnosed with ASD between the ages of 2 and 5 years, when symptoms such as language delay and stereotypical behavior become noticeable. Currently 1 in 150 kids in USA is diagnosed with ASD. There is a critical window of a few years within which treatment is highly effective. There is a concerted effort in the medical and educational communities to make diagnoses as early as possible to allow for early intervention. A small percentage of children have been known to reduce their ASD symptoms and lead normal and independent lives when provided with aggressive early intervention. It is imperative that parents gain timely access to medical resources and information. This allows parents the time to try out various options to see which plan suits their child the best.

Challenges

There are real obstacles to timely access to information and setting up appropriate therapies. Parents of children recently diagnosed with ASD are often overwhelmed by having to decipher information from various sources ranging from their physicians and school personnel to the internet. Parents also need to decide on possible therapies for their child and how to go about finding qualified providers for those therapies. Data on potential therapies that work for particular symptoms of ASD is not available today, making it extremely difficult for parents and the care providers to find the right therapies for the child without a lot of trial and error. The trial and error required can make the process of finding the right therapy extremely expensive in terms of time and money. This cuts into that critical window of time for optimal effectiveness. Collaboration and education among the physicians and families can assist in reducing the duplication of efforts and also in faster dissemination of findings.

Development of the custom treatment plan for a patient with ASD usually involves multiple therapists, doctors, specialists, educators, etc. This leads to a vast amount of data that needs to be managed and collaborated upon. Also, the types of data collected can be very diverse from patient to patient and the only way to record the data is in free flowing (non-structured) text. This makes the recording and searching of data extremely cumbersome for patients and their caregivers, and often results in either missed steps or repeated trials. These missed steps further delay the window of time for optimal outcomes. Our philosophy is that families should not have to adapt their behavior according to the information on the internet but instead the information on the internet should be delivered adapted according to symptoms and needs of the families.