Access to Early Education

In a recent Sunday paper from the Tampa Bay Times, I came across an article titled “By age 3, rich kids attend school; poor kids stay with grandparent”.  I only saw the article because I was looking at the picture of the dinosaur bones on that page because my daughter was so excited about Dinosaur…

Getting Approval… Medical Grant for Autism Services

  I wanted to come back to this post about our Medical Grant from United Healthcare Children’s Foundation.  I started the grant search process almost a year ago.  We applied and were approved in September of 2016 and had a year to spend the $2,000. We didn’t need long to spend the money but it…

The Investment in Autism Treatment

I have read articles from other autism parents that describe the cost of care for their child.  Some parents even joke that their child with autism is their million dollar child.  That got me thinking about my own finances and my own child.  I have for years maxed out our health insurance on doctors appointments…

Collaboration with private therapy and public education

Children with autism in my school district are often placed in ASD units within a self contained classroom or on the other end they have their services taken from them sometimes their entire IEP and parents have to fight for a 504 plan.  There seems to be very little in between in the public school….

Medicaid and CMS…you want to read this!

is it income based?!  I think I figured it out!!! Our family had a big win last month with notification that our son with autism was eligible for Florida’s Children’s Medical Services (CMS).  My mouth fell open, I jumped up and cheered.  It felt like hitting the lottery!  For years, our family has scrambled to…

The serious business about the McKay Scholarship

Does your child have an IEP or 504 in the state of Florida? Florida was the first state to implement a scholarship like McKay.  McKay allows for parents of special needs children to use funds allocated to the public school for private school tuition.  (you can use McKay to transfer to another public school as…

WHY is getting Medicaid so…

unfortunately difficult?! BIG NEWS!  My son is now in the Medicaid Children’s Medical Services program of Florida Kid Care.  (I’m not even sure if this is the correct way to describe it).  This process was very confusing and lengthy.  There seem to be so many different parts or subgroups within the Medicaid program itself.  Just…

holy behavior plan, batman

Yesterday, I amended my son’s IEP and behavior plan.  It was another 2 hour meeting.  My last meeting was 2.5 hours and was to determine eligibility (the longest IEP…) At our last meeting, the behavior plan was so terrible that we had to agree to meet again to change it. A draft copy of the…

my 5 year old does laundry better than…

many adults! My 5 year old has ASD and has a great ability to do chores or activities that many can’t do at the same level.  He has an ability to observe an action or set of actions then repeat them.  He is able to create a system to complete the chore correctly and accurately…