PUZZLES & CAMO SHELLY HUHTANEN

Morally Bankrupt

Applied Behavior Analysis has been put under scrutiny for as long as I can remember and insurance companies or, in this case, entitlements such as Tricare, have capitalized on this issue in order for them to offer less support to military children with autism.

Broden has taught me many things. He has shaped me into the person I am today. If Broden was not who he is, then I truly feel I would be someone completely different. I'm not sure I would be half as empathetic towards others, and I think I would care more about what others thought of me. Broden's pureness burns through my chest and warms my heart each morning as he rolls over and looks at me, to the time I lean over to kiss him on the cheek before he goes to bed. Broden does not judge and he never asks for things he feels he does not need. Both of my children are my path to authenticity, my journey to goodness, my map to pure unadulterated love and joy. Because of both of my children, autism or typical, I love harder and work harder.

Does raising Broden make life easier? My answer is no, but I would rather live in a world with him as my son than not. Would I want to take his autism away? When he was two years old, I may have

said yes out of confusion and fear, but now I don't think I would have the same answer because autism is a part of Broden. I love him for who he is and I spend less time thinking about who he would be without that part of him. I spend more time thinking about what Broden can accomplish with autism now and in the future. That part of him is melted too deeply into who he is as a person.

I can only speak from my experience raising a child with autism and I have never come from a place where I think I can speak for anyone else. Over the years, the narrative has shifted about services for our children and the more I listen, I realize that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has been put under scrutiny for as long as I can remember and insurance companies or, in this case, entitlements such as

Tricare, have capitalized on this issue in order for them to offer less support to military children with autism. Years ago, I probably would have written these last few sentences with anger and resentment, but now I just state them as fact. To Tricare, our children are dollar signs. They will always be dollar signs, nothing more, nothing less.

Over the years, Tricare's playbook to spend less money on our children with autism has been to create barriers for care. This is not a new innovative idea. It's a reality that our military families face each day. There are two things that stay true in our lives; autism will be a part of it. Another thing that sadly stays true in our family's lives is wondering what Tricare is going to do next to make it more difficult for our children to access care. Our fear is real and they continue to create and pursue these tactics relentlessly that only create more stress in our lives while we continue to serve our country, their country.

The latest tactic, ironically a tactic that creates more undue stress, is having our families fill out the SIPA (Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents, third edition). According to Tricare, the SIPA is a "standardized assessment that gives families and provider teams clear, consistent measurements of progress over time" in order to "measure the stress and dynamics within a family system specific to raising adolescents." Tricare states that these scores "will not be used for treatment planning, nor are they meant to diagnose dysfunction in the parent-adolescent relationship or

COUNTERPRODUCTIVE: "The SIPA assessment encompasses statements that lead the parent to question their own worth."