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For the first time ever at CHEO, parents will be asked for a bank card so their children can receive autism treatment services.

CHEO released a spring and summer guide to autism services Wednesday that includes a fee-for-service price list — including $3,360 for 40 hours of intensive applied behavioural analysis therapy to $300 a week for a school readiness program.

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Parents say the cost of many of the services listed in the new guide far exceeds the childhood budgets for families of children with autism in Ontario. Parents are expected to begin receiving those budgets to purchase services directly in the coming weeks.

Under the revamped program, families with children under six would receive $20,000 a year and families with children six and over would receive $5,000 a year to buy autism services directly, including from CHEO and other centres.

“Families are going to be paying some pretty big bills, if they’re lucky enough to be able to scrape up the money,” tweeted economist Mike Moffatt, an Ottawa father of two young children on the autism spectrum, after seeing the guide.