Hi there- I ppsted this on the wrong board- here it goes again:
Has anyone had any success in getting the school district to cover the costs of your child's therapy that s/he gets outside of school? Ryan is currently in a full day special ed program and we are paying for an additional 20 hours of therapy outside of school (combo of ABA,Speech, OT, social skills) based on written reccomendations from a dev. pediatrican, BCBA and SLP, all who observed Ryans program and determined that he needed this additional therapy to help him generalize skills and to give him the 1:1 attention he doesnt get in the classrom (its currently a 2:1 ratio). We are planning on asking the SD to fund the therapy he is getting outside of school and to provide a 1:1 ABA aide for him during school.
We have hired an atty who will be facilitating the meeting as we know they would never agree to any of this otherwise.
Was hoping to get some advice or feedback prior to the meeting so we can go in with guns blazin' To answer your question, both yes and no. Yes we have been funded in
the past, but going forward we will have a rough time of it. We were able
to secure funding in the past because we started an ABA program before
EI or SD had any time to react. Our ABA provider already had a master
contract with our EI and SD to provide services. We were able to prove
that our son made tremendous progress with ABA. When we transitioned
to the SD at age 3, our son was not ready for a preschool program. (our
neuropsyche recommended a typical one with a shadow aide) We
declined their offer of a school placement and continued on his IEP goals
within his ABA program and ABA playgroup. We still get funding from EI
for parent training and self help skills (ABA) we also get funding from the
SD (ABA) We declined their speech as it was too short and at inconvenient
times. We do private instead.
All that being said. You will need an attorney, a very good eval that will
stand up in court. May be some expert testimony. You need to have a
plan as to what your child needs to be working on etc that they can not
do at school. You need to state that ABA teaches your son how to learn
from his enviroment. You need to play the behavior card as well.
Remember the SD only has to prove that their offer or program have
some benefit (not the best)
Our goal is to graduate from all services within the next two years.
Sorry to ramble.In short, yes. I have several friends that have kids in my SD that attend the public school and get private ABA on top of it.
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