There is a new [March 2026] report in WSJ, The Boom in Autism Therapy Is Medicaid’s Fastest-Growing Jackpot, stating that, “The number of companies offering such therapy—individualized treatments meant to help patients manage behavior and develop daily living and social skills—almost doubled between 2019 and 2023. Direct payments from state Medicaid programs to autism therapy providers grew to $2.2 billion in 2023, from $660 million just four years earlier, according to the data. Private insurers administering Medicaid benefits paid hundreds of millions more.”
“That made applied behavior analysis, or ABA, as the therapy is called, the fastest-growing service in Medicaid, the state-run program for low-income and disabled people. Federal taxpayers financed about 70% of Medicaid spending during that period. Entrepreneurs and investors, including some private-equity firms, have piled into the business.”
“Autism diagnoses among 8-year-olds climbed to one in 31 by 2022, from one in 150 in 2000, driving rapid growth in the therapy industry. In 2023, state Medicaid programs paid an average of $61 an hour for therapy services, according to the Journal’s analysis. Those services are often provided by high-school-educated workers earning less than $20 an hour, employees say.”
There is a recent [January, 2026] news from Brown, Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism centers in the past decade, study shows, stating that, “Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers across the U.S. over the past decade, with nearly 80% of acquisitions occurring over a four-year span.”
“Autism diagnoses among U.S. children have risen sharply in recent years, nearly tripling between 2011 and 2022, and autism has been in the national spotlight amid political debate claiming links between autism and childhood vaccines.”
“The researchers identified a total of 574 autism therapy centers owned by private equity firms as of 2024, spanning 42 states. Most of those centers were acquired between 2018 and 2022, the result of 142 separate deals. The largest concentrations of centers were in California (97), Texas (81), Colorado (38), Illinois (36), and Florida (36). Sixteen states had one or no private equity-owned clinics at the end of 2024.”
“States in the top third for childhood autism prevalence were 24% more likely to have private equity–owned clinics than others, according to the study.”
Conceptual Brain Science and Autism
There are many ways to look at the controversy over autism therapy centers. However, the most important thing is that there is still no rough model of how the brain works, in any specific condition of autism spectrum disorder [ASD].
Simply, there is [say] a difference between what it means in an instance [per cognition or affect] to not be on the spectrum and what it means [per cognition or affect] to be on the spectrum. While it is possible to implicate genes, there are ways that the brain mechanizes [or organized information as] memory, feelings, emotions, and so forth, directly.
Explaining this, even conceptually, could be the path towards finding a way forward against all the loopholes in autism care.
All brain functions are tied to neurons. But neurons have their electrical and chemical signals. This means that when the brain constructs a memory, or a feeling, or an emotion, they are all based [conceptually] on the configurations, assemblies, or formations of electrical and chemical signals.
So, explaining the brain for the signals is a way to at least move forward against opacity in brain science for autism care.
For example, what does it mean for a child to choose isolation over group work? It is possible to model this with the interactions and attributes of electrical and chemical signals.
What does it mean that a child feels bad over a mild rebuke more than usual? The same can be explained with electrical and chemical signals.
When therapy is offered, how do loved ones understand a rough parallel of what is happening in the mind, before, during, and after? What can also be explained to the child, for persuasion to choose recommended care?
In Conceptual Biomarkers and Theoretical Biological Factors for Psychiatric and Intelligence Nosology, there is an explanation of signals for how the brain works, which will progress against the unknowns in several outcomes of autism.
It is possible to design a fresh nosology for autism care, using electrical and chemical signals, and make it ready as a digital display by April 30, 2026.
This article was written for WHN by David Stephen, who currently does research in conceptual brain science with a focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind, with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence, and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
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