Meet Sophia

Sophia is a beautiful, loving little girl that spent her days playing in the back yard and reading books, until the day she was diagnosed with Autism.

Now Sophia spends her days in therapy interrupted only by the need to take vitamin and mineral supplements or eat a super regimented diet. She is rushed from one therapy to another trying to squeeze in occupational therapy, physical therapy, behavioral therapy, music therapy, speech therapy, and even food therapy totaling nearly 50 hours per week. She takes a dozen different supplements each day that are prudently measured and weighed by her parents for consumption during and in between meals.

You see when Sophia was diagnosed with Autism at just 26 months old her parents were told that she would likely end up in a group home and that they should save money to fund Sophia's care after her parents pass away. When her parents asked the doctor if there were any treatments that could reverse Sophia's prognosis they were told that she could try a special diet and to start behavioral therapy, but that the likely outcome was not good. Her parents knew otherwise.

Sophia is one of the growing number of autistic children that have turned to an alternative approach to treat autism called biomedical. This approach is based on research and clinical outcomes by medical doctors in the Defeat Autism Now (DAN!) movement.

While the prognosis for these DAN!-treated children is much better than for those that go untreated, the sick reality is that most insurance companies do not cover the treatments used by these doctors. Some insurance companies argue that these alternative treatments are not yet "proven" and that autism is incurable so they forgo even trying to help these innocent little victims.

Sophia's parents continue to fight for insurance coverage of her biomedical treatments, but the growing bills have made it impossible for them to fund the treatments that her DAN! doctors say she needs to possibly recover from autism. While some of Sophia's treatments include relatively low cost items such as increased vitamins and minerals (cost: $500 per month) other treatments such as intravenous immunoglobulin (costs: $2,300 every 3 weeks) can quickly make treatment too costly to fund without support.

Sophia is still a beautiful, friendly, and loving little girl that loves to watch Sesame Street and have books read to her, but she's unable to learn and focus without more biomedical treatment so her parents continue to fight their insurance company and look for new ways to help pay for their daughter's much needed treatment.