Guest guest Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 Hello , Where are you coming from? You may not be able to find what you describe in the areas of Florida I am familiar with. Even for deaf students there is no requirement for a teacher to be fluent in ASL. There is a years long waiting list to get medwaiver services. The autism/insurance Bill passed in 2008 is limited to company plans with more than 50 employees and " self insured " plans are exempt. It's suposed to cover ABA amd St and OT for up to $36,000 ANNUAL WITH A $200,000 LIFETIME CAP. There are many good private schools around the state that accept the McKay Scholarship. The amount IS BASED of the level of disability your son has and ranges from around $3,000 to $20,000 a year. There is a Bill in the Legislature that would reduce the enrollment qualification from 1 year to 3 months. http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/information/mckay/ What area of Florida re you looking at? Steve > > Hello. My wife and I arfe moving to Florida with our beautiful 4 1/2 year old son who has autism. Will is mostly non-verbal but uses American Sign Language to communicate and does well with that. He attends a home & school based ABA/AVB program and has done so since he was 18 months old. We are rtrying to find out everything about Florida's autism services that we can. We are specifically looking for a Verbal Behavior program that utilizes sign language instead of PECS. We are interested in the McKay scholarship (but have to be in FL schools for a year; Medicaid options; insurance options; public school districts w/ verbal behavior, private schools with verbal behavior, and any other pertinent info. If you have knowledge about what we're trying to find for our son we'd love to hear from you! > > Thanks for your time. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 If you are anywhere near the St Augustine/Palm Coast/ Daytona area, the Florida School for the Blind and Deaf is just awesome. Hello , Where are you coming from? You may not be able to find what you describe in the areas of Florida I am familiar with. Even for deaf students there is no requirement for a teacher to be fluent in ASL. There is a years long waiting list to get medwaiver services. The autism/insurance Bill passed in 2008 is limited to company plans with more than 50 employees and " self insured " plans are exempt. It's suposed to cover ABA amd St and OT for up to $36,000 ANNUAL WITH A $200,000 LIFETIME CAP. There are many good private schools around the state that accept the McKay Scholarship. The amount IS BASED of the level of disability your son has and ranges from around $3,000 to $20,000 a year. There is a Bill in the Legislature that would reduce the enrollment qualification from 1 year to 3 months. http://www.floridas choolchoice. org/information/ mckay/What area of Florida re you looking at? Steve > > Hello. My wife and I arfe moving to Florida with our beautiful 4 1/2 year old son who has autism. Will is mostly non-verbal but uses American Sign Language to communicate and does well with that. He attends a home & school based ABA/AVB program and has done so since he was 18 months old. We are rtrying to find out everything about Florida's autism services that we can. We are specifically looking for a Verbal Behavior program that utilizes sign language instead of PECS. We are interested in the McKay scholarship (but have to be in FL schools for a year; Medicaid options; insurance options; public school districts w/ verbal behavior, private schools with verbal behavior, and any other pertinent info. If you have knowledge about what we're trying to find for our son we'd love to hear from you! > > Thanks for your time. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 If you are anywhere near the St Augustine/Palm Coast/ Daytona area, the Florida School for the Blind and Deaf is just awesome. Hello , Where are you coming from? You may not be able to find what you describe in the areas of Florida I am familiar with. Even for deaf students there is no requirement for a teacher to be fluent in ASL. There is a years long waiting list to get medwaiver services. The autism/insurance Bill passed in 2008 is limited to company plans with more than 50 employees and " self insured " plans are exempt. It's suposed to cover ABA amd St and OT for up to $36,000 ANNUAL WITH A $200,000 LIFETIME CAP. There are many good private schools around the state that accept the McKay Scholarship. The amount IS BASED of the level of disability your son has and ranges from around $3,000 to $20,000 a year. There is a Bill in the Legislature that would reduce the enrollment qualification from 1 year to 3 months. http://www.floridas choolchoice. org/information/ mckay/What area of Florida re you looking at? Steve > > Hello. My wife and I arfe moving to Florida with our beautiful 4 1/2 year old son who has autism. Will is mostly non-verbal but uses American Sign Language to communicate and does well with that. He attends a home & school based ABA/AVB program and has done so since he was 18 months old. We are rtrying to find out everything about Florida's autism services that we can. We are specifically looking for a Verbal Behavior program that utilizes sign language instead of PECS. We are interested in the McKay scholarship (but have to be in FL schools for a year; Medicaid options; insurance options; public school districts w/ verbal behavior, private schools with verbal behavior, and any other pertinent info. If you have knowledge about what we're trying to find for our son we'd love to hear from you! > > Thanks for your time. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 Steve, We're not positive on the area yet but we are weighing the areas based on School, career, services, location etc.. I understand that there is no requirement for teachers to be fluent in ASL, but anu good Verbal Behavior program uses ASL anyways. Our son is on ly 4 1/2 and is not fluent by far. He has 100 signs which are animated by pictures in a step-by- step fashion (from signingsaavy.com) and categorized in his own book for his teachers and therapists to review. As he learns new signs - we teach the teachers and file it in the book. As far as public schools go - that IS his form of communication and we would simply demand to have a 1:1 aide that can familiarize her/himself with the signs. I know that many VB Private Schools have staff fluent in ASL but our difficulty is the time we need to be in public school before being eligible for Mckay. We would prefer to have a school system that is onboard with our child's communication and not against. My wife has extensive training and experience in ABA/AVB home and school settings under the direction of Dr. Vince Carbone and his associates. So we are not afraid to make the schools do what they are legally obligated to, but again we want them to be onboard willingly. Some public schools already have AVB in their program but public schools usually don't advertise this. Looking for the inside scoops! I will not accept a job unless it meets the State requirements for the Autism Bill. I have a possibility in the Jensen Beach area, and I know the STAR Academy is not too far from there, but it seems the Private Schools that are ideal may be in the Orlando area (Quest kids, ABC School House, Applied Behavior Center, etc..) Thanks for the help and the link! From: sList [sList ] On Behalf Of mainshipper34 [ssmoyer@...] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 10:23 AM To: sList Subject: Re: Moving to Florida Hello , Where are you coming from? You may not be able to find what you describe in the areas of Florida I am familiar with. Even for deaf students there is no requirement for a teacher to be fluent in ASL. There is a years long waiting list to get medwaiver services. The autism/insurance Bill passed in 2008 is limited to company plans with more than 50 employees and " self insured " plans are exempt. It's suposed to cover ABA amd St and OT for up to $36,000 ANNUAL WITH A $200,000 LIFETIME CAP. There are many good private schools around the state that accept the McKay Scholarship. The amount IS BASED of the level of disability your son has and ranges from around $3,000 to $20,000 a year. There is a Bill in the Legislature that would reduce the enrollment qualification from 1 year to 3 months. http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/information/mckay/ What area of Florida re you looking at? Steve > > Hello. My wife and I arfe moving to Florida with our beautiful 4 1/2 year old son who has autism. Will is mostly non-verbal but uses American Sign Language to communicate and does well with that. He attends a home & school based ABA/AVB program and has done so since he was 18 months old. We are rtrying to find out everything about Florida's autism services that we can. We are specifically looking for a Verbal Behavior program that utilizes sign language instead of PECS. We are interested in the McKay scholarship (but have to be in FL schools for a year; Medicaid options; insurance options; public school districts w/ verbal behavior, private schools with verbal behavior, and any other pertinent info. If you have knowledge about what we're trying to find for our son we'd love to hear from you! > > Thanks for your time. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 6, 2010 Report Share Posted February 6, 2010 The Bill is in drafting. The House sponsor is Llorente and the Senate sponsor is Dean. It will require 3 months instead of 1 year enrollment before qualifying. The thought is that a student needs a matrix number and all the evals before it should or could be determined how much the scholarship should be. The problem was never that there should be a McKay reform Bill, the problem has always been Senator King opposed any changes he didn't like. A fix Bill passed the House in 2007 and 2008 as a Committee Bill, it died in 2009. The Senate companions were never heard, Senator Wise was the sponsor in 07 ans 08, Ring in 09. Here's a video history of the McKay scholarship in the 2006 session when the hospital homebound kids became disenfranchised because of the severity of their disabilities and all the rules were tightened up: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2476650881889844033# Hope this helps, Steve Moyer > > > > > > Hello. My wife and I arfe moving to Florida with our beautiful 4 1/2 > year old son who has autism. Will is mostly non-verbal but uses American > Sign Language to communicate and does well with that. He attends a > home & school based ABA/AVB program and has done so since he was 18 months > old. We are rtrying to find out everything about Florida's autism services > that we can. We are specifically looking for a Verbal Behavior program that > utilizes sign language instead of PECS. We are interested in the McKay > scholarship (but have to be in FL schools for a year; Medicaid options; > insurance options; public school districts w/ verbal behavior, private > schools with verbal behavior, and any other pertinent info. If you have > knowledge about what we're trying to find for our son we'd love to hear from > you! > > > > > > Thanks for your time. > > > > > > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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