Identifying Services That Provide Assistance to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Brazil

Background: In Brazil, the Unified Health SystemSUS should cover the majority of assistance services for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder-ASD, but there is no data on this field.

Objectives: To identify Brazilian institutions that provide assistance to individuals with ASD.

Methods: Information were collected through registries of the State Department of Health, Autistic Friends Associations-AMAs and searches on the internet. The institutions were contacted in order to gather information concerning target public and characteristics of the service.

Results: 650 institutions were identified, most of them concentrating in the Southeast and South regions of the country. Most of the institutions are the Association of Parents and Friends of Exceptional Children-APAEs, Centers for Child and Youth Psychosocial Care-CAPSIs and AMAs. There is a predominance of assistance to children and adolescents. Multiprofessional services were more frequent and intervention approaches include TEACCH, Psychoeducation and ABA.

Conclusions: The amount of institutions that assist individuals with ASD is insufficient and distributed irregularly in the country besides lacking to provide assistance to youngers and adults. The variability of the characteristics of the services reveals a lack of standardization regarding the procedures adopted. Knowledge of this information may help to promote the development of new evidence-based intervention proposals.