In the government’s explanatory materials, there is a child named Ollie.
Ollie has autism. He is highly verbal. He does not have an intellectual disability. He struggles significantly in social interactions. He also has ADHD. He requires modifications at home, at school, and in all environments to remain self-regulated. His household income is $120,000.
Under the current system, Ollie would receive autism funding — $22,000 annually before age six, then $6,000 per year thereafter. If diagnosed at six, the document calculates that he would receive approximately $78,000 over his childhood.
Under the new system, Ollie does not qualify for the primary disability benefit because his needs do not meet the threshold for “the most significant support in daily living.” He does, however, qualify automatically for the new Disability Supplement because he receives the federal Disability Tax Credit. With a household income of $120,000, his family receives $3,200 per year — approximately $48,000 over childhood. He is also “prioritised” for access to expanded community programming.
Ollie is presented as evidence of fairness.
He is not “severe.” He is not excluded. He still receives support. The document’s tone is reassuring: although the structure changes, Ollie is not abandoned.
Similar child, different trajectory
On paper, Robin could be described much like Ollie.
He is highly verbal. He does not have an intellectual disability. He has ADHD traits. He requires environmental modifications to remain regulated. His challenges centre on social interaction, executive functioning, and demand sensitivity rather than cognitive impairment.
If one were to fill out the persona template, Robin would fit.
But the template freezes time.
Ollie is described as a child who “struggles significantly” and “requires intensive social skill development.” He is framed as needing support but functioning. The narrative assumes ongoing participation in school and community environments.
Robin is what happens when that participation fractures.
The difference between Ollie and Robin is not diagnosis. It is trajectory.
Ollie is the child before burnout.
Robin is the child after.
The economics of a narrowed runway
The policy document performs a simple arithmetic comparison: $78,000 under the old system versus $48,000 under the new one for a family at Ollie’s income level.
The implication is that while the amount is lower, it remains substantial. Ollie’s needs are real, but not the most severe; the state is recalibrating proportionality.
But the arithmetic excludes context.
Autism funding was not a windfall. It was often insufficient to fully cover therapy costs. Occupational therapy, counselling, tutoring — these services are expensive, especially in urban markets with long public waitlists. Families frequently supplemented the $6,000 with their own funds.
The key function of the funding was not abundance. It was stabilisation.
It provided a predictable scaffold that could prevent escalation. It allowed for continuity with trusted providers. It made it possible to respond quickly when signs of dysregulation emerged.
Reducing that scaffold does not produce an immediate visible collapse in every case. Many children will continue functioning — for a time. Parents will stretch further. They will pay privately where they can. They will reduce hours at work. They will triage services.
From the outside, the system appears to be holding.
But the runway shortens.
Burnout rarely arrives without warning. It follows years of cumulative strain. The difference between $6,000 and $3,200 per year may not register in a single school term. Over multiple years, it can mean fewer therapy sessions, less proactive intervention, slower response to emerging anxiety.
Ollie’s persona does not account for cumulative fragility.
Severity thresholds and the invisibility of collapse
In the document, Ollie does not qualify for the primary disability benefit because his needs do not meet the threshold for the “most significant” impairments in daily living.
This framing embeds a hierarchy. It suggests that support must be reserved for those whose impairment is visibly profound and consistent.
Robin, before burnout, might also have fallen below that threshold. He could speak. He could attend school. He could mask. His difficulties were real but not catastrophic.
After burnout, however, he cannot access education at all. Brushing teeth, taking medicine, taking baths all needs support at fourteen years old.
The threshold model struggles with this shift. Is he now “most significant”? Or does episodic collapse still fail to meet criteria designed around stable intellectual and adaptive deficits?
Severity in autism is not linear. A gifted child in severe burnout may have greater functional limitation than a child with intellectual disability who is well-supported in a stable environment.
Ollie’s persona presents disability as a steady state. Robin’s life reveals it as contingent.
Policy built around static categories cannot easily absorb dynamic trajectories.
Income testing and the politics of capacity
Ollie’s household income is $120,000. Under the new supplement’s sliding scale, this qualifies for $3,200 annually.
On paper, this appears equitable. Families with higher incomes receive less. Public funds are targeted toward those with lower income.
But disability interacts with income in complex ways.
A $120,000 household in a high-cost urban area may carry mortgage payments, childcare costs, and therapy bills that compress disposable income significantly. If one parent reduces work hours to manage school crises or attend therapy sessions, net income may decline. Income at a single point in time does not capture volatility or opportunity cost.
Moreover, means-testing reframes disability support as partial income redistribution rather than recognition of additional cost burden. Autism does not become less expensive because a family earns above a threshold.
The previous autism funding was not income-tested. It recognised disability-related cost as distinct from income level. The new model blends the two.
For some families, this will feel like fairness. For others, it will feel like penalty for stability.
Robin’s family might look, statistically, similar to Ollie’s. But when burnout removed school as a daily structure, one parent’s earning capacity became more fragile. Income bands do not adjust automatically to caregiving load.
“Prioritised access” and the ambiguity of public provision
The persona promises that Ollie will be prioritised for access to expanded community programming — behaviour support, speech-language therapy, mental health services.
This reflects a strategic shift: less cash, more direct service.
In theory, this could increase equity. Public provision can standardise access and reduce out-of-pocket disparities.
In practice, access depends on capacity. Community-based services across the province already face waitlists. Prioritisation without significant expansion risks becoming rhetorical rather than operational.
Families like Ollie’s — or Robin’s — require continuity. A familiar therapist who understands the child’s sensory profile. A consistent occupational therapist who can detect subtle regression. Public systems often rotate staff or limit session numbers.
Cash funding allowed families to build long-term therapeutic relationships. Public programming may prioritise breadth over depth.
If Ollie remains stable, prioritised programming may suffice. If he begins to slide toward burnout, delay becomes consequential.
Robin hasn’t left his room for a year. He has no energy left for anything.
The missing future in the persona
Ollie is described as a child in need of support. He is not described longitudinally.
The document does not ask: what happens if Ollie’s school accommodations erode? What if social rejection accumulates? What if anxiety compounds? What if puberty intensifies executive dysfunction? What if his self-regulation falters under increasing academic demand?
Robin is Ollie five years later.
The policy persona freezes Ollie at a manageable moment. It assumes that moderate need remains moderate. It assumes that the absence of intellectual disability equates to durable resilience.
Autism trajectories are not static. Support withdrawal interacts with developmental stages. Middle school is not kindergarten. Academic and social demands escalate.
A funding model calibrated to early childhood intensity but reduced in later years assumes that need naturally declines with age. For some children, it does. For others, adolescence is precisely when demands exceed capacity.
Robin’s collapse did not occur at age four. It occurred after years of cumulative mismatch.
Ollie’s persona contains no adolescence.
The risk encoded in reassurance
The policy document uses Ollie to reassure. He is meant to represent the broad group of autistic children without intellectual disability — those whose needs are significant but not categorised as profound.
The message is clear: these children are not forgotten. They receive something. They are prioritised. They are recognised.
But reassurance can obscure risk.
If the reduction from $6,000 to $3,200 per year narrows preventive supports, if means-testing adds administrative friction, if severity thresholds discourage early intervention for children hovering below crisis, then the system may quietly convert Ollies into Robins.
The cost will not appear immediately in budget lines. It will surface in school non-attendance, adolescent mental health referrals, parental workforce withdrawal, and, eventually, adult disability income support.
The persona shows us a child at baseline.
Robin shows us the consequence of cumulative strain.
Between Ollie and Robin
The most unsettling aspect of the comparison is how small the difference appears at first.
Both are verbal.
Both are cognitively intact.
Both require environmental modification.
Both struggle with regulation.
Both likely qualify for the federal Disability Tax Credit.
Both may live in households that are not low-income.
The divergence is not in diagnosis. It is in buffering.
Ollie, under the new system, receives reduced direct funding and promised prioritisation for public services. If those services materialise promptly and remain stable, he may continue to function.
If they do not — if access is delayed, if school accommodations erode, if family capacity thins, if the services are ABA bullshit — the gap between moderate difficulty and full withdrawal can close quickly.
Robin is not a different category of child. He is a different point on the same spectrum of strain.
The policy persona captures a snapshot. Lived experience unfolds across time.
Any funding reform that treats moderate need as safely self-limiting misunderstands the fragility embedded within it.
Ollie is presented as proof of balance.
Robin is evidence of what happens when balance fails.