C.W.
ECI is great, we have used them 2 times with our own Son and a foster child with Sensory Issues. I would continue with ECI cause they have a sliding scale and work with your insurance and we were told the first 6 months are free and then they are still billing insurance.
I work for Easter Seals and Easter Seals does have therapists, so check with them. They do a lot of research and work with the State to get grant money for Autism Treatment. Call Easter Seals and get on the list and more information on their program. They can give you support groups and there are disability type support groups. The ARC may be helpful to you as well. We've been foster parents for 6 years now. Our first foster child had something similiar to Muscular Dystrophy, he couldn't speak well, pointed at everything when we got him. He was on Medicaid and we got him therapy (he was 5 years old). He made a remarkable progress in the year we had him. We took him to the Child Study Center in Fort Worth. They are excellent. I would highly recommend going there for an evaluation and see what they recommend for him. They have Developmental Pediatricians who can address behavior, food/diet issues, medical issues, delays, they can do testing,etc.... We've taken 2 children there, 1 foster child and our own. I wouldn't go anywhere else. They are the best, they did wonders on our first foster child! We did a lot of home therapy and did all the exercises they asked us to do with him. He made huge improvement in one year. Our child has Sensory Issues, Developmental Delay, Motor delays in fine motor skills, communication and visual perception. Our Dev. Pediatrician recommended play therapy/behavioral therapy for us as parents to help with behavior issues and learning proper behavior management skills to help our child with. Our Dev. Pediatrician recommend getting a speech evaluation and we did that with Therapy 2000. Our Dev. Pediatrician recommended getting Occupational Therapy as well. She gave us literature on temper tantrums and explored medicine issues, if we wanted to go that route. They are very thorough and do research in children's behavior and medicine with Down's Syndrome and other medical conditions. It does take awhile to get in, cause they are excellent! It took us 5-6 months to get an evaluation. It took a couple of months to get an appointment for the evaluation. You have an application with lots of paperwork to fill out and your paperwork is reviewed to see if they can accept you as a patient. You can be placed on a waiting list and sometimes you do get moved up sooner.
We've used these therapy agencies with the foster kids and our own child:
Therapy 2000- they come to your home, might be great for you with your kids! They are based out of Dallas. Therapy for us was $12.50 a session. We had occupational therapy for 2 months and the therapist hurt her back. She wasn't able to continue doing therapy, so she told us she couldn't come anymore. They didn't have another therapist in our area. They released us from therapy and we had to find a new therapist.
Sante Pediatrics- this is where our child goes now. They are located off 8th street. We started in April and so far everything is going well. She does take in home patients and sees patients in the office as well as the home. She has recommended a Spio Suit. I would highly recommend you check into this. We are getting one for our child. We've seen a DVD and literature on it that tells stories about Autistic, Sensory Challenged Kids/Adults, Cerebral Palsy kids,etc... being greatly helped by the Spio suit. I can give you more information on it, if you would like to know more.
Our child has gotten fitted for it and we are waiting for it to arrive.
Child Study Center Therapists- they are basically Cook's Children's Hospital therapist. Child Study Center contracts out with Cook's to do their therapy. They were awesome therapists- they have speech, occupational,and physical therapy there. They worked well together and gave us home exercises and really challenged our foster child. At the child study center they have a private school and if they require therapy, they can go to therapy without having to leave the building. It is an expensive school, I checked into it.
There is one place near 820 close to NRH, I believe. I called them and they didn't take our insurance. They are in the phone book. There is also therapy places listed in Fort Worth Child magazine.
I would honestly use ECI until your child is 3 and then after your child turns 3, then get a private therapist or go thru your school system. ECI has a Nutritionist that can help you, Behavioral Therapist that can recommend behavior issues, Speech Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Physical therapists. Honestly, it is the cheapest route and the most easiest right now for you. I would continue with them, unless you really don't feel your child is making much progress. You can always ask to speak to Supervisor and request for new therapists to come out. All our ECI people were great and gave us tons of information with our foster child. You might want to continue ECI and add Easter Seals and a support group for Autistic Parents.
Try going to Our Special Children in Fort Worth at the ARC meetings. They have trainings once a month. I got a lot of help from their trainings, literature, fun activities for the kids/family. They had a training on how to deal with a child with a disability that had siblings. I didn't take it, however I know they have information on it. They were able to hook me up with another parent who had a child with the same disability as our foster child. I thought that was so cool, cause it was not as common to have the disability that our foster child had. They are located inside the Child Study Center, you can get on newsletter list and join and be a member. There are numerous trainings and conferences to go to.
There is a disability conference/vendors there with products that I went to when I was in Pre-Paid Legal. I can't think of who to contact about that. I would have to search my emails and paperwork for that. If you want more info, I can look for that later. The ARC would probably advertise for that also.
I've worked with 2 individuals that have Autism and PDD. One was a child and one was an adult. The adult, I helped him with his job. I was his Job Coach at a grocery store. I work part time for Easter Seals helping people with disabilities in their work place.
If you want to contact me, let me know and I'll give you my personal email or phone number, if you would like to talk.
I'll keep you in my prayers.
As far as payment issues go, with the foster child, it was all covered under medicaid or our foster agency.
As far as our own child. We have United Healthcare and they are awesome. They pay for quite a bit, we have the PPO insurance plan. The Child Study center evaluation wasa one time $50 or $60 fee out of our own pocket/co-pay. However, they waited until insurance paid first to see what we would owe. The insurance paid for the testing and all the other expenses. I thought that was good since I know evaluations from Child Psychologists and other can be expensive. No, they aren't Psychiatrists or Psychologists, however they have special training in the developmental area. Psychologists are great too for evaluations, if you have a lot of behavior issues/mental/phyiscal issues as well. Warning, Child Psychologist will have you fill out a huge a 4-5 page parent evaluation form. They are bubble in type questions and they are repetitive and it is draining or at least it was for us and all the foster kids we had.
Therapy with Therapy 2000 (in home therapy was more expensive). It cost us $12.50 a session. She came 2 times a week. Insurance paid the rest for the evaluation and therapy sessions.
Sante Pediatrics- we pay $5.50 per session for Occupational Therapy. Insurance pays the rest. The evaluation was $7.50
We've had to get help with our financial expenses. We are on one income and our co-pays for the play therapy and our therapy sessions with the Play Therapists are $20 a piece. She doesn't take credit cards, only check or cash. My Mom is helping with extra money each month for that. My husband does have a flex account, credit card to put our medical expenses on that is tax free. You may want to check into this with your Husband's employer. You may not be able to change it until next year. We have to decide an amount that is taken out of his pay check at the beginning of the year that will be tax free. It is a use or lose type program. We never lost any money, we've always used it.
Your child may qualify for SSI if he gets the Autistic Diagnosis. Our child is three and he has Sensory Integration Disorder,Developmentally Delayed in fine motor skills and in visual perception and oral motor skills, he drools a lot. He is weak in his strength in his mouth. I haven't checked into disability or SSI. You may want to check into this with Social Security Department. I know our first foster child did get SSI checks each month. That would help you all out tremendously! Definitely get a sitter and go apply and start the process.
Check online for Autistic or PDD support groups for parents. This would be helpful for you to connect with other parents who have the same issues as you. Our Son is very sensitive to sound, smell and touch. I'm looking for a Sensory Integration Disorder support group. The ARC may be able to connect you with the right people also.
The Child Study Center has you write more and fill out their questionnaires more in your own words, however they aren't as lengthly as Psychiatrists and Psychologists use.
One of our foster kids had Sante Therapy come to our home. They were good also. I never had any problems with scheduling them or any issues.
If you need any numbers for the Therapy places, let me know and I can get them for you.
