I'm in Wake County, NC. The services are good for the more severely affected kids, but for kids who don't "qualify" for the restricted autism class, the services are pretty much developmental pre-school with some supporting 1:1 therapies, if needed. The self-contained autism preschool are six hour long TEACCH classrooms, with experienced teachers and small staff ration.
I keep hearing that the Northeast is the place to be for services. I lived most of my life in NH, and though NH rarely gets a mention as a "good" place, we did have more services offered to the girls up there then we do down here.
The states that are commonly mentioned as being "good" are NY and NJ.
Tamarac, Florida - HORRIBLE!!!
We are dying to get out of here but the $$$ issue is abig thing to move out of state so we are saving, hopefully within the next 2 years we will have enough saved to get out of here.
I have heard that Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois are good places - especially Ohio
We live in MI and need to relocate because of the poor services in this area. We are looking for good respite, great habilitation hours (at least 20 per week of home therapy hours) easy availability of superb speech and occupational therapists, excellent school district and possibly special schools for Autism (we dont know if we will need to go that route yet) good area for active parent advocacy and support, not economically depressed and not outrageously expensive to live and if at all possible...good weather although thats at the bottom of the list. Respite and Habilitation, ST and OT are the most important. And we want it all with little or no fight.
I have researched and found states and districts that have all of these things, just not all in the same area, so I need your help.
We have been fighting our school district and they just agreed (after 8 months of fighting) to give more that 4 hours of services per MONTH! We have to get out of here. We want to know of places that are great and places that should be avoided so we welcome any input.
Thanks so much...Nik
Jacksonville, Florida..... TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!
In the process of looking to move this summer before school starts
Click on 200.13 and you'll see the specifics of what NYS guarantees to autistic students. If you are not in NY, this will not apply, so whatever classification your child can get spec. ed. eligibility under is the one you should go with.
I live in Northern California and I hear the services are pretty good here. My son is waiting to get into the Reigonal center for this county. He only got diagnosed about 3 weeks ago though. The theripst said I could ask for the moon and get it once he gets diagnosed. I'm thinking the services will be good. As for the weather, it's mild, but it rains a lot.Yes..we do Have a CARD center here..I have not found them to be that helpful..they did come up to Ryan school to eval. his classroom setting..all they told me was he is in the wrong class, he need more 1:1..I already knew that. I really wish there were parent groups and playgroups here. Ryansmom- where are you located?Thanks so much, and I hope more people can chime in.
We would LOVE to move to NJ, which is where a chunk of my family are, but it is SOOOO expensive. I cant find a house in the area for under 0,000. But I guess when you consider the services you get, its probably worth almost 0,000 a year worth of help. I just dont know how we can swing it. And I would definetly go to NY too if we could find an area with good services that we could also afford. Anyone know of any?
Ive heard that Fla has the CARD centers? Are they far and few between?
Krystal, Ive heard others say that they heard that about Ohio, but Ive been in contact with them and the best thing about them seems to be that they will give you ,000 to go to another school or district or private if you dont like your schools services. But I dont know if that even covers the cost of that school year. Other than that, there is no home therapy hours or respite that I have found, but maybe I missed something. Do you know where you heard good things about Ohio? Because I would love to research that more since my husband works in Ohio.
Please, anyone else who has things to say about they're area please share!
Upstate NY is pretty affordable. Areas such as Rochester or Albany have a reasonable cost of living and the services are still good, I've heard. It's also a lovely region.Nikolette,
Definitely not Gaston county, NC. I do not want to generalize about the state. but the state is still married to TEACCH. The attitude I have run into seems to be autistic kids cannot do much, let's keep them happy by not challenging them until the parents come get them. ABA is non existent in my county. I will try the private program in a bigger city close by that will set you back between ,000 - ,000. I hope it measures up. If it doesn't I don't know what I will do. I don't want to split up the family. My H cannot easily leave his work. Good luck with your move.
concernedpa.
Lincolnshire Illinois - IL District 103 - we've been very pleased with services.
My son is mainstreamed in K with a 1:1 aid and pull-out spech and OT each week. There are also special classes available. He was in special classes for preschool and for 1st grade we will need to look at a mainstream option as well as multiple special program options.
We have never been denied what we've needed and have had no need for advocates and lawyers to get involved. We continue with private speech and OT outside of school primarly because Connor is very attached to his therapists that have worked with him since he was 2. The private therapists accompany us to IEP meetings and have told us many times how lucky we are to live where we live.
I was gonna say talk to NYmommyof3 since she seems very happy in upstate Ny with the services and it is very affordable. i would say Long Island but it is expensive to live here, the taxes kill you.I live in upstate NY and the services seem to be good, and it is VERY affordable to live here. As a single mom, I was able to buy my own little house in a cute, older neighborhood.
For the heck of it, check out our local real estate website ... ODBRMLS.com.
You will be amazed!
I live in western NY near Rochester. Services are pretty good. Real estate is cheap (and not rising). Jobs are tough to find though. Our county just opened a special ed class (not integrated). They are going to pull ASD kids from the whole county to this class/facility. We are hoping and planning that next fall our son can go to regular kindergarten (probably with an aid) but it is nice to know the special ed class is there if we need it. He currently gets 25 hours of 1:1 and preschool. We have full day kindergarten so he will have to be pulled out for 1:1
Oh did I mention the weather SUCKS here? I've lived here all my life and enjoy all the seasons. But a lot of people who move here can't believe how many cloudy days we have
Have you looked into heaven?? just kidding it's good to have high expectations but if that place exists it would be overpopulated (and full of special needs kids). For instance our realestate is cheap mostly due to our outragiously high property tax. But all said and done, services here are good and I think most of us on this site get more from the state than we put in
I have heard alot about NY but I'm here in MN and I think it is pretty good on resources and the schools here are pretty easy to get along with, I do have to fight sometimes but they usually fold pretty easy. There is a parent advocate place here called Pacer and they are awsome!!!!! They help you learn everything you need to know about the schools and your childs rights. Also here in Mn under our law autism and Retts are considered developmental disabillities which means they are eligible for case managment and dd services. The wheather is not the bestNYMommyof3, OMGosh I went to that website, I cant BELIEVE how much house and land you can get for the money there!!!!! That is amazing!
NY and NJ are probably the best. We were so hoping to get somewhere warm but it seems the farther south you go the worse the schools are and the less "community feeling" the communites are. Why is that? You would think that smart, forward thinking people would leave the bad weather and settle where its warm, but sometimes it seems just the opposite. (Not that there are not smart forward thinking people in the southern states) It just seems that more value and money are placed with education and services in the NE.
I guess I need to go about figuring out how to get a rent controlled apt
Thanks you guys. Lots to think about.
Nik
Vermont is good. Good school services and good services from state...can't complain...
The boredom gets me down....
Jeremy likes it- but talks of going back to NY for more to do!!
I plan on staying in VT a while...nice people, keep to themselves....once you get used to it, its ok.
I LOVE NY!! I have hung my hat in VT for a while though....
Long Island NY. Services are excellent but housing very expensive, taxes are high. Might be worth it if you can afford it. Great place to live though. We are here because we live in a rent control apt. and both my husband and I work for civil service otherwise I don't think we would be able to make it here. We've been blessed. My son is in an inclusion class, gets speech and ot and has a one to one aid in the classroom and two teachers, transportation with aide on bus and we don't pay anything.
Stay far, far away from Alabama!
There are about 5 (Birmingham, Huntsville, Auburn and Mobile) autism clinics in the entire state, but all offer only part time services (and one of them only accepts high functioning kids). There is a day program in Birmingham, but it serves individuals with all types of neurological disorders, so they don't focus on just autism there.
The county I live in (Calhoun) houses an "autism unit" in one public school, which consists of 2 classrooms full of age 3 to about 13 year old autistic students. It is a safe environment for them, but, like one of the two teachers always tells me, there just isn't enough hours in the day to spend quality time with each student.
There are only 2 occupational therapists in Calhoun County (Anniston) who are experienced with autism/sensory issues (one is in private practice and the other works for Early Intervention). At the last public school my son attended, he was told he needed OT, but there simply wasn't an OT in the county, and instead of assigning him to a speech therapist, they sent him to a speech "correctionist" who quickly told us that she couldn't help him because he was non-verbal and he needed speech before she could correct it (gee - thanks. . . ). The school system told us that was the best they could do.
By the way - complaints to the Alabama Board of Education get you nowhere.
My son is on the lower-moderate end of the spectrum and is non-verbal. My husband and I are currently looking to relocate to a state that offers better services.
At the risk of getting flamed, it's political climate that seems to determine the level of services. I don't think it's a coincidence that the states that provide the most services are clustered in the northern tier of the country, and mostly on the coasts. The trade-off, of course, is generally higher taxes and higher cost of living, but you get what you pay for, and most of us, like someone else has mentioned, would take out more than we put in.
Well California is always an option. Plenty of sunshine here