Re: [KatyAutismSupport] ABA Aides and Psycologist

[Guest guest]

You're welcome.

My son is 13. He has been attending a private special ed school for children on the spectrum in Houston since he turned 5. We tried public school when he was 3 and only qualified for speech services. Just before he turned 5 I toured a Public Preschool for Children with Disabilities (PPCD) classroom (not our home campus but in our district which was Fort Bend ISD at the time) that had 10 kids in it and I was told there were a couple of kids absent due to illness. I thought the class was too big and the disabilities too varied so I opted out of that service. At our ARD (admission, review and dismissal) meeting with our home school administrators, speech pathologist, kindergarten teacher, etc., which was scheduled right before I needed to register my son for kindergarten, they were offering next to nothing in the way of services so I said thank you very much for your time and cooperation and walked out and enrolled him at The Westview School in Houston. That was March 2004 and at the time the school had an opening in a pre-k class so he's been at that school ever since. My family has paid full tuition out of pocket every year. There is tuition assistance available at most private schools. I have heard that some people's medical insurance covers tuition at ABA based schools but I don't know the details of how they get it covered. You could ask that question to the Yahoo group and some parents may reply because I think there are a few out there who are doing it.

Our medical insurance pays for speech so I only pay our $25 copay for each visit. Our medical insurance pays for OT but only after our annual deductible is reached first and then after I just pay a $25 copay per visit. Our insurance will pay for 12 psychiatric visits per year with a copay but they will not pay a for cognitive behavioral therapy from a psychologist--it's very frustrating. Every other intervention, treatment option, social skills and tutoring we pay for out of pocket but we are able to claim everything as a deduction on our income tax return because we pay out more than 7.5% of our adjusted gross income since we get prescription written for everything by my son's doctor.

In the document I sent directly to you, you'll see a listing for Easter Seals and The DePelchin's Children's Center, check out both websites. You may be able to receive low cost services from them. I wish I had better things to tell you about receiving services in TX but next to nothing is free here. I'm originally from California where social services are more of a priority so it kills me to be here sometimes but employment opportunities are what brought me to TX years ago too.

You might want to join the Texas-Autism-Advocacy message board too, I think you'll find there are more Cy-Fair ISD parents on that list serv than on the Katy group.

I wish you all the best in finding what your family needs. Don't hesitate to contact me with any other questions.

[KatyAutismSupport] ABA Aides and Psycologist

Hello,

My name is Viji and I just moved to Houston couple of weeks ago and we live in the Cypress area. We moved from Columbus, OH. I have an autistic daughter who is 13 years old and we had a fantastic home schooling done for the past 4 years with a dedicated team of 5 ABA trained aides , ABA consultant and all of them over seen by a Clinical Psychologist.

We had county funding, Family resources funding and Autism Scholarship which helped us tremendously to give the best one on one education for our daughter. Now, we had to move to TX for my husband's job and I am totally lost where to start and how I can learn what are all the resources out there and how I can get help finding ABA therapist and what funding can help with these?

Any help with finding the ABA info, resources, psychologist etc will be truly appreciated. Thanks.

Viji.

[Guest guest]

I'm sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out how my posts on another message board got posted to Texas-Autism-Advocacy?? Ghost in the machine?

R.