This report would not have been possible without the generous financial contribution of Israel. Several government officials have contributed to the report, namely: Tair Rabukhin, Gaya Opher, Ellei Gottlieb and Dan Pickman from the Ministry of Finance, officials from the Ministry of Health, and Noam Tzabari from the Permanent Delegation of Israel to the OECD. Additional input was received by officials from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, the National Insurance Institute (Bituah Leumi), two health maintenance organisations (Maccabi Healthcare and Leumit), and the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute.
Furthermore, the production of this report benefitted greatly from the input and comments received from national experts, member state representatives and other stakeholders. Country experts and delegates are too many to name individually, but the authors would like to thank in particular the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and the National Disability Insurance Agency from Australia; the German Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Social Insurance Bank (Sociale Verzekeringsbank) in the Netherlands; the Social Security Agency (Försäkringskassan) and the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) from Sweden; and the Department for Education and the National Autism Programme at the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom.
Several non-governmental organisations and service providers also contributed generously to this report. We would like to thank the following organisations for their time, input and comments: ALUT (Israel); Bizchut (Israel); Autism Awareness Australia; Amaze (Australia); Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia; Autism SA (Australia); Autism Canada; Eesti Autismiliit (Estonia); Autisme France; Autismus Deutschland e.V. (Germany); and Nederlandse Vereniging voor Autisme (Netherlands).
The report was prepared by a team from the OECD’s Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS) Directorate, under the overall co‑ordination of Christopher Prinz (Employability Division) and Emily Hewlett (Health Division). Chapter 1 was prepared by Christopher Prinz in collaboration with all authors. Chapter 2 on diagnosis was prepared by Anna Victoria Perez-Lopez (Health Division) and Emily Hewlett. Chapter 3 on financial benefits and Chapter 4 on services were prepared by Valerie Kornis (Employability Division) and Christopher Prinz. The case studies (Chapters 5 through 9) were prepared by Valerie Kornis and Anna Victoria Perez-Lopez, under the supervision of Christopher Prinz and Emily Hewlett. Statistical support was provided by Dana Blumin. Administrative support was provided by Monica Meza-Essid. Communication support was provided by Natalie Corry, Charlotte Mapp and Alastair Wood from the ELS Communication team. The publication benefited from useful comments from Cecilia Mezzanotte and Lucie Cerna (Directorate for Education and Skills), Theodora Xenogiani, Head of the OECD Employability Division, Frederico Guanais, Deputy Head of the OECD Health Division, Francesca Colombo, Head of the OECD Health Division and Mark Pearson, Deputy Director of ELS. The authors would also like to thank Liora Bowers for her valuable input throughout the project and Gaelle Gouarin for providing the personal testimony for the preface.