Changes to autism services mean 3,500 children in Ontario will no longer receive some or all of the treatment their families had counted on.

That’s hundreds more affected than the 2,200 revealed by the province last week.

Under the revamped Ontario autism program, children 5 and up are no longer eligible for intensive behavioural intervention (IBI), even though many have waited for years to get it.

That means 900 children on wait lists who are above the age threshold will be removed as of May 1, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services last week. The ministry said another 1,300 children who turn 5 during the two-year transition phase will also be removed.

But details requested by the Star and released Tuesday show there are another 1,378 children age 5 and over who are currently receiving IBI and who will also be transitioned off the therapy.

The process of winding down IBI for that group will begin at each child’s next six-month clinical assessment. Some of those children may have recently started the program and others may be at the end of their treatment.

The changes, part of a $333-million investment in autism services over the next five years that overhauls the way they are delivered, have caused an uproar among angry and distressed parents like Sandra Pimentel of Brampton.

Her 5-year-old son Vincent has been on an IBI wait list for two years and will no longer qualify. She got the official notice Tuesday in a letter from ErinoakKids Centre for Treatment and Development.

“All this waiting for nothing,” she said. “I’m pretty hopeless right now.”

Kids taken off wait lists get a one-time payment of $8,000. Instead of the current IBI, the province says they will receive expanded services in applied behaviour analysis (ABA) beginning next year and additional supports through schools.

But Pimentel says that won’t come close to providing what her son needs. She and her husband are among the many families who can’t afford private therapy, which costs roughly $50,000 a year.

Since the announcement, parents have been fighting back on social media and by inundating Queen’s Park with letters and photos of their children.

In the legislature Tuesday, opposition politicians demanded the province “grandfather” children who were on wait lists at the time the new autism program was announced.

Parents are also looking for legal recourse. Toronto lawyer David Baker, whose firm specializes in disabilities law, has been contacted by 60 families looking for guidance, which he says is unprecedented.

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He said BakerLaw is considering legal action based on the argument that removing children from IBI amounts to age discrimination and that the province is obliged to provide the services that children with autism are entitled to.

“To my mind what’s happening is shameful in terms of how they’re rolling this out,” he said in an interview. “They need to accept responsibility for supporting the kids on wait lists until such time that school boards are in a position to provide it.”