Autism - San Antonio,TX

Write a letter to your school district and ask for an evaluation. Call the County Board of Developmental Disablities, get a case worker, fill out all the paperwork, they can help you navigate the county services available to you, and may be able to help you access doctors and therapists who take medicade. Call the nearest Children's hospital, they always take medicaid, and they will have an entire department devoted to autism. Ask the information desk to speak to a social worker if you cannot manage to find the right office. You will find speech therapists, occupational therapists, play therapists, developmental pediatricians, and psychiatrists who will accept medicaid, the childrens hospital will have all of these, but you will find officices throughout the area that will take it. He needs speech therapy, occupational therapy, maybe pysical therapy, play therapy, ABA therapy, social skills classes, and medical manangement. You can access all of these, though I know it is frustrating.

Call the children's hospital tomorrow morning, and write the letter and mail it to the special education director of your school district, find the name and address in your school districts website. Say that your child has a disablity and you request evaluation, that you will meet with them as soon as possible to grant your consent for evaluation, and that you will expect to hear from them with a copy of your rights under IDEA within 10 school days of the reciept of your letter. They will have 45 days to complete the evaluation from the time that you sign consent, and then they should provide him with speech, OT, and PPCD (preschool program for children wtih disablities.) You should access state services as soon as possible, but do not depend on these to be everything he needs. You need to be on a quest to learn from your private evaluators what he needs so that you can supplement what he does not get from the school. He will never get everything he needs from any school district.

Log on to www.wrightslaw.com and start reading about advocacy. You will need to know about what to do, and read the articles about autism, and preschool services. Also, look for the yellow pages for Texas on the wrightslaw site, and look for providers in the San Antonio area.

Last, I would not put my email online like this, we can all PM you on this site, and it makes you vulnerable. Remove it as soon as possible.

M.

Contact ECI, early childhood intervention, they can not take on your son's case but can hopefully get you to some good support groups in your area and maybe some of those parents will have guidance for you. I would also check with your medicaid insurance company to see what they can do to help, mine guided me to a wonderful center and we are currently being treated and ON MEDICAID. Plus, you may want to check out autismspeaks.org http://www.autismspeaks.org/

There are various autism associations.
You can find them by googling.
Each of them will have referrals to doctors and other resources.
Good luck.

Please go to this meetup.com site and join MoCAA. http://www.momsconnectaboutautism.com It is a wonderful local support groups for moms of children with autism. It has been a fantastic resource for me-a great group of moms who can offer advice and support.
You have received some great advice here....I would second what Martha said-remove your email address-ASAP. I look forward to meeting you!
L.

My 8 year old daughter has Autism and pretty nasty ADHD. You need to see a child neurologist to get a good eveual. also find your local Autism support group they can help with advice and it helps to meet up with and become friends with other Autism Moms.

EDIT Listen to Martha, she is an advocate and she is awesome for info!!

Dear B.,
If you have not already, I would call and go to the Autism Community Network. They can get you started to help your son. They will also refer you to Any Baby Can for education and support as you address the challenges of autism. Phone number for Any Baby Can is ###-###-####. Ask to speak with someone from "Reaching Families Facing Autism". The sooner you and he start the better. Good luck!

Have you taken your son to an occupational therapy clinic that accepts Medicaid? They too will be able to provide you with techniques to help reduce his behaviors which are most likely sensory related. An OT is a great resource! Best of luck