Suggestion to better link families

[Guest guest]

When folks post to this list it might be beneficial to sign off w/ your city

name, or if it is a little town, the county. This way list participants will

be able to easily identify people that may be in their geographic area. I

think we need to come together in local areas and then have local areas

network w/ other local areas.

We have a case where a local person has an ECi problem - we quickly were

able to contact other ECi families in the area and now have more information

available to us so that we can show that the entire local ECi system needs

to be changed to meet the needs of children w/ autism. Without having the

ability to contact other families, this issue would have been addressed as

an " isolated issue " which is how ISD's, MHMR, etc address most of their

autism issues, and other families would not have reaped the benefits of this

one family's advocacy.

Ronnie

Austin, (austin ISD)

PS did you all know that the standard for services for children w/ autism is

25 hours/ week? How many of you are getting anywhere's near that for their

ECi program? Of course, the program is to be " individualized " , but 25 hours

is the starting point - less involved kids may get less, and more involved

kids more.