TRICARE is trying to eliminate ABA services...

A few years ago, Congress tasked Tricare to assess the effectiveness of ABA for beneficiaries. Since then, Tricare has required that parents and teachers submit a new PDD Behavior Inventory to gauge progress for its beneficiaries. It is the opinion of many professional organizations (Council of Autism Service Providers, Association for Behavior Analysts International and others) and Dr. Ira Cohen, the author of the PDDBI and one of the most well known ASD researcher and clinician, as well as my opinion, that Tricare is misusing the PDDBI.

I can only speculate as to the motives of their misuse, but I would say it is due to financial reasons. Either Tricare is purposefully misusing it or they are grossly incompetent; either way, it is being misused. What's more worrying is that ABA is only funded through Dec. 31, 2023. Jan. 01, 2024, if it is not extended, all services will be terminated. Families will loose ABA services for their children.

If you're interested in helping, you can sign this petition from Autism Services for Kids (https://bit.ly/2YdntT0) which goes into greater detail about both the professional opinions of those responding to Tricare's reports as well as how you can take action. If you're having difficulty downloading the actual response from Dr. Ira Cohen, here is a second link: https://saveautismservices.org/uploads/NCAASCohenExecutiveSummary_FINAL_1-7-21.pdf.