Why is this

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I noticed that helpful items for children and adults with Learning Disabilities are so expensive.

Why is this? The companies will sell more items to parents if the cost is $20; why are parents expected to pay $100 and up for things that can teach or help their children? Adults can benefit too from the products.

My dad said, "Just because a company makes a product that helps people, doesn't mean they need to make a profit on it."

I feel it the reason the Law of Supply and Demand doesn't work for people that have Disabilities is because Parents are willing to do whatever it takes to help their children, and even though there is a large group of children with Disabilities, it is still a small number of children, when compared to children that have no Disabilities.

Is that true?

I don't know about which items you are specifically are talking about which cost so much, but some things are expensive to design, manufacture, transport and retail.
Supply and Demand make the price drop when the basic investments are out, but this might take awhile.

But... like your fathers says not everybody has noble goals within that industry.

I've never understood why such items were so expensive, either.

The law of supply and demand is why these things are so expensive.

The supply is low because there is a very limited market of people who will buy these, so not many are made.

The demand is high not because there are a lot of people who want to buy them (there aren't), but because the small number of people who want to buy them are desparate and willing to pay extra for the one thing that works. As you noted, there are parents "willing to do whatever it takes to help their children", including spending whatever money they have.

Low supply/high demand= expensive


The makers of these things have no incentive to make a larger number (which would bring the price down) because the market is of a fixed size.

Somebody posted a similar thread awhile back wondering why the price of stim toys for autistic kids is so high. It's the same reason, except NT parents of autistic kids seem peculiarly blinded to the fact that what gets marketed as a very expensive stim toy can be had for much cheaper when you buy the pretty much identical version that has no "for kids with autism" label on it.

I haven't gone shopping for supplies for learning diabilities (like I have gone shopping for stim toys) so I don't know if the same things can be had cheaper elsewhere. But if the supplies in question really are different from what is sold in most stores, then there's nothing you can do except either shop around or jury rig your own version -as people used to do before this stuff was manufactured.

I have also wondered too. I refuse to pay anything high to get better so I would rather do it myself and I have.

But now I know why it's so expensive. Since special need kids and adults are in the minority, the items are high in price. I wonder how parents with low income afford it?

Supply and demand gets distorted in favor of the supplier when the emotions are as powerful as that of a parent doing their best for a child. Rational assessment of value is discarded and no price becomes too high to help the child. This same distortion exists in the medical sector at large. I may not think twice about buying an over-priced electronic gadget, but if I perceive a threat to my health, I am inclined to spend far more, to the point of discarding any rational assessment of the actual utility of the cure. Too many are willing to take advantage of this dynamic.

Well, if you don't make a profit, you don't get to stay in business. Making the one off or the few off is always going to be excruciatingly expensive because of the machine/negotiation/office/regulation/testing/etc. costs. When you make hundreds of thousands of widgets those fixed costs get spread over the hundreds of thousands instead of the few.
On the other hand, there are those who take advantage of a medical system or NASA system and supply to them things at high cost that could be purchased cheaply at a supply story. Then part of the extra cost is the procurement system and regulations that dictate using minority owned/ particular state of congressman/ bidding system and staff to cover the bidding and accountants to watch the staff/ certain percentage of American made parts and much much more. I was shocked to find out how long and complicated the process was for an Air Force office to buy one pencil.

It's true for all disability-related items, and the reason is probably because they can get a lot of money marking the price way up and then billing insurance for extreme amounts of money. It's a serious problem and I have no clue how to solve it.

I can say, though, that I have a device that is probably about $400 for the device and software combined, because it was priced more or less reasonably. And yet, I have another similar device (that has a lot more problems actually), that insurance was billed around $8000 for. Figure that out.

That likely does happen, especially in cases like the OP was talking about. But insane pricing for disability-relating things seems to extend to lots of other things, including items that are super-expensive, but at the same time are actually helpful in a substantial way.

I.e. an AAC device for a kid who can't verbalize, but can type to good effect (on quality of life, learning, safety, etc.) I've seen the $8000-$10000 prices on those things. I can't for the life of me figure out why they are that expensive. (It sure isn't due to cutting-edge technology.)

And, some years ago, I saw a system that assists people with executive dysfunction. It was an off-the-shelf PDA with custom software. The price was about $3000. When I asked if there was any way of reducing the price, the company said that they sometimes assist people in getting their insurance to pay, but otherwise, no.

And then, after a relative came home from a hospital stay, a truck delivered a wheelchair (which was unneeded and un-asked for) to the house, which had been billed to insurance for $700. It looked cheap -- half-made of plastic. I parked it in the garage next to my all-titanium mountain bike, which cost me $350.

It does seem like there is a "racket" going on involving charging outrageous prices due to insurance.

It would appear that there is a growing sentiment in this culture that if you can't make a profit doing something, it isn't worth doing.

if its something that can be home made then make it at home. it would help if u specified what this thing is.

WaveFreak: I volunteer my time on a number of things. I can afford to do that because my husband makes enough income for me to do so. If he did not make a profit, then I could only work for pay. Somebody has to pay the bills.

I did not say that profit was unnecessary nor did I say it was undesirable. I only said that there is an attitude in this culture that increasingly measures the value of an activity based solely on its profitability.

Fortunately, you do not share that attitude.

i wanted to get my sister a therapy swing to help break her of her rocking habits, but it cost more than 100 for a cheap one and well beyond 500 for a good one. But not all theraputic tools are expensive, just really hard to find. Ive been personally looking through dozens of toy stores for a therapy toy called a tangle-which would keep my hands occupied and also meet my stimming needs in public-its more appropriate to play with a toy in public than to rock or bounce in place. the cheapest therapy toys ive seen are poorly made-i bought my sister an atom ball last month, but it didnt last a week! you get what you pay for i guess!

I suspect that the answer has more to do with fixed costs than with limited supply or price gouging.

For example, a custom piece of software typically costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop, test, and maintain. Amortized over millions of copies sold to average people, that's a few cents per copy. However, amortized over only hundreds or thousands of copies sold to the much smaller specialized market, it's hundreds or thousands of dollars per copy. The result is that things sold to specialized markets cost more - sometimes a lot more.