Diane Francis knows children with autism can learn; they just do it differently.

And, often, much more expensively. Shortly after her son, Tony, 13, was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, she and her husband began paying board-certified behavior analysts to work with Tony and with them, showing them how to lead lessons on their own. Because the number of children with autism is on the rise and these professionals are in short supply, this sometimes required flying them in - for a while, from as far away as Dallas at $1,000 per trip.

"When it's your child, you'll do anything," says Ms. Francis, who lives in Maryville, Mo. "It's just part of the cost of trying to recover your child."

The Francises were paying about $50,000 per year on Tony's tutoring and other related expenses - until last summer, when Ms. Francis learned about Rethink Autism, a Web-based autism treatment platform that gives parents access to experts in applied behavior analysis, a teaching method recommended for children with autism, as well as to articles about autism and video curriculum showing how to teach topics ranging from academics to living skills to social interaction.

"When a child is diagnosed with autism, early and intensive treatment is crucial," Rethink Autism says in its mission statement. "No child's progress should be delayed due to high costs, waiting lists or the scarcity of trained professionals."

Rethink Autism can be accessed at www.rethinkautism.com and charges a subscription fee of $100 per month or, for families who sign up for 12 months, $80 per month - a cost that may not seem inexpensive but that pales in comparison to what the Francises used to pay for tutoring, considering that the professionals they brought in usually charged $50 to $75 per hour.

"The best thing is to be able to have someone with you to explain things," Ms. Francis says. "But they're here for so many hours and then they leave. As a parent, you sometimes find yourself wondering, 'How did they show me to do that?'"

She adds that with Rethink Autism, she can revisit training videos as often as necessary and can also go back to the basics when necessary - as, for example, she's done when she's hired local tutors, often Northwest Missouri State University students, and has needed to provide them with direction on how to work with Tony.

One of his tutors, Lisa Throm, says Rethink Autism has helped not only her but also her daughters, who sometimes act as peers during tutoring sessions to allow Tony to model the behavior of someone his own age. In its video curriculum, Rethink Autism also includes lessons that sometimes incorporate peers.

"I just can't say enough how it opened their eyes," Ms. Throm says. "It just makes much more sense to them now what they should do."

What makes the video curriculum so helpful, she adds, is that it breaks lessons down into small steps - often much smaller steps than a tutor might think to do otherwise, simply because they might not understand how differently than others someone with autism learns.

"It's neat to see that now that we're breaking things down more, he's successful much more quickly," Ms. Throm says.

Ms. Francis adds that something to keep in mind is that the lessons often need to be modified, since every child learns differently. And when a lesson just isn't working at all, sometimes it's necessary to reach out for extra help, which she's done by calling therapists on staff with Rethink Autism - many who have advanced degrees in their fields of expertise.

"They can walk you through, asking 'Have you tried this? Have you tried that?'" she says. "Before, accessing that level of knowledge meant flying people in and out; this cuts that cost and gives you another source to turn to."

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.