Re: ei advice?

[Guest guest]

In NY, we're just over the border from you, if your child is turning three

during the school year- we had the option to keep EI services in place until

August so that we weren't trying to find placement in January. My daughter is a

July birthday and we've been out of EI for six years now. But I do know many

parents who didn't want to transition in the middle of the school year, often

because the special needs preschools don't have spots in January. Do you have

the option to stay in EI past his 3rd birthday?

As far as the evals, its a free service no matter who does the evals and if

they're not going to provide the service because he's aging out, I dont think

they're required to do the evals. Have you contacted the school district? If

he's turning 3 in December, than your evals with them should be happening in

December and they'd be just as qualified if not more qualified to do the evals.

In NY, they didn't want to see any paperwork from EI evals when they did the

school evals, they wanted to be able to judge on their own, so having evals from

EI will just be double work for everyone. good luck.

>

> From: Kim Schroll [mailto:kmschroll2001@...]

> Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 11:14 AM

> jeannne buesser

> Subject: EI advice

>

>

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> How are you? Hope you had a nice thanksgiving. I don't know if you can help

> but it's worth a try. My son will be aging out of early intervention

> dec. 27, was diagnosed a few months ago with verbal apraxia and has

> been receiving speech therapy for several months through EI. also

> has difficulties with focusing and has a short attention span for anything

> but trains. This has caused problems with his therapy because we can get him

> to focus so we can work on correcting his sounds. The speech therapist has

> ordered an OT assessment to look at the possibility of a sensory disorder

> contributing to this lack of focus. The problem is that EI is not giving us

> an answer as to whether or not they will do the assessment since

> will be aging out of EI in a few weeks. Do they have the right to deny this

> request to a free assessment because is almost 3. The request was

> put in about 6 weeks before 's 3rd birthday.

>

> Thank you for your help.

>

> Kim Schroll

>

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[Guest guest]

Why not have CPSE evaluate your child? It's the next step after aging out of EI

anyway. This is what we did with our son.

Sent from my iPhone

[Guest guest]

Hi, my son ages out of EI on Dec 12. In NJ you don't have the option of keeping

EI services until the next school year. I'd like to keep them in place just

until the new year and while I will ask, I am doubtful this will happen. By

now, I think most of the NJ school districts have their own preschool disabled

programs, and they keep spots open for the kids aging out of EI.

Have you explored your insurance? They may cover the cost of an evaluation,

though not necessarily cover the OT itself - depending on the diagnosis codes

used in the evaluation report. My son was diagnosed with verbal apraxia about a

year ago. We scheduled an outpatient PT evaluation based on the recommendation

of our DI therapist. I went ahead and did the same thing for the OT evaluation.

At the time I scheduled the OT appointment I wanted to be thorough, though

closer to the appointment I suspected some of our therapist's concerns were

actually sensory issues (and I was right! body awareness issues). Both

evaluations were done at Children's Specialized Hospital (though I think any

group affiliated with a hospital would have a greater chance of being in-network

insurance wise), and I submitted both evaluations to the school district. I

believe legally the school district has to at least consider an external

evaluation. I would pursue this sooner than later - the first available spot

was at least 6 weeks away. BTW, Children's submitted our request for

precertification, but not surprisingly our insurance company denied our request

for both PT and OT as they deemed them " developmental " though we may fight the

OT denial in the new year...

We have our IEP meeting on Wednesday. While I know my son qualifies for the

disabled preschool, we don't know yet what supplemental services they will offer

(and consequently what we'll need to fight for). However, weeks ago both our PT

and OT mentioned to us that some of the schools are not necessarily as well

prepared to treat sensory issues as a true OT facilitY. In other words, the

school OT may not be that experienced treating sensory issues and/or the

district may not have the facilities such as a true sensory gym that is oh so

helpful in treating sensory issues. We just started to supplement OT at a

private facility, and the sensory gym really makes a big difference. Net, net -

another reason to pursue the insurance option...

Just my 2 cents.

[Guest guest]

thanks