My Life Journey With My Special Kid!

Swethasri,
Hugs to you. My trials and tribulations with an autistic preemie toddler seems so trivial when I googled up the dual diagnosis. I didn't even know it existed until your post.
You must have read that poem in circulation about special needs parents time and again and probably know by heart every line authored by now. It's definitely true. God does give special babies to special moms and dads. Those people, he knows, has what it takes to raise these kids.

Insurance et al, are things that all parents dealing with ASD have going on. I don't have cover for my DSs ABA therapy either. I too ran from pillar to post, fought with insurance, DH took it up with his employer, went to the school district and finally decided on private therapy since it was too late for EI and early childhood in my city does not have ABA therapy. They do have group speech and PT but were not keen on exploring ABA options for any of the autistic kids there. Regardless, we had to start therapy because his Dev ped felt that he is still within the window where we can see marked changes. I'm going a very less travelled route of private Montessori with one-one ABA and speech therapies outside of school. I do see improvements with ABA. Since we had a positive experience with the therapy, we are going to start shadow therapy in school(which the school thankfully is cooperative about). All the unknowns aside, like your DS, my son is a precious little guy. He lights up our lives. His sister tells me she is so lucky that he is around.

Btw, for autism, a friend saw dramatic improvement with a gluten free casein free diet. I'm not sure if you've heard of it or are interested but couple of moms told me it works wonders. I'm not doing it just because my son has a limited diet as it is and eats very few food items. I didn't want to give up on dairy and gluten now. Do research that.

Getting the autism diagnosis is tough but once you have the diagnosis, therapies etc will become routine for you. I had to fight for my DS's diagnosis. Now I'm better off because I know what's wrong and can fix it.

I hope you find the right help for your DS! I do think that communication issues can be resolved to a great extent with therapy tailored for autism. Your DS is lucky to have you. I love your positivity!

 

Swethasri,
hope your kids get better soon.
I'm currently in the US. I missed the EI window. My son was diagnosed right around his third b'day. He was already in a private school and we decided to continue there rather than pull him out and put him in the ECS program. His therapists and doctors were all of the idea that its better for him in his current set up since he is already well adjusted there.
I have a friend with a 3.5 yrs old. I know the pain of getting started with ECS for her. It's been months and she is still to get her Iep done. It's a slow process.
Btw, main reason I didn't go for ECS was because here ECS does not fund one-one therapies. It's only group sessions and they still don't provide ABA therapy(God knows why). My son was already in private speech therapy. He now goes for private ABA therapy. Soon, he will start some therapy in school.
Unfortunately, our insurance doesn't cover therapies for ASD and we don't qualify for the tx state health plans(income limit is way too low here to qualify for state funded plans). So we pay for everything .

I need to tell my friend about the advocate. She is going to discuss Iep today. I never knew that. Thanks for letting me know.

Btw, regarding Bangalore. I looked at that option but just decided to postpone my return since I want to see some therapy results. My son was born there so I have all the information for Dev peds and other things. Therapies are available. I may try some out over summer if I go for the entire summer. I'm still exploring that option. I'll let you know how it goes. Half the time I want to go back and start there but then everyone I know has asked me to stay put. Level of acceptance in Indian schools is definitely not as much as here. I don't know if it is a better decision to stay but definitely the easier option. Plus I've lived for a long time here so it's second home for me anyway!