A Montreal family says it's frustrated with how long it's taking them to access a speech therapy program for their autistic five-year-old daughter.
Lynn Buchanan and Sam Kuhn and a group of supporters gathered Wednesday morning outside the Place St. Henri metro station to draw attention to the serious shortage of services for children with autism.
They say they've been waiting close to four years to get access to specialized servics for their daughter Charlotte, covered by the government — and now, they say they have to resort to crowdfunding to pay for their speech therapy.
"What is so crazy with this situation is Charlotte is a twin. Her sister, Simone [who is not autistic], is actually in speech therapy right now," she says. "Kids with less severe problems are able to get help while autistic kids, because of a severe lack of funding, are not able to access any help."
They're hoping to raise $6,000 to cover the cost of private therapy for Charlotte.