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I am in Michigan....
Elainah does not qualify for any services under the EI program except for a teacher twice a week for an hour. In our state, the diagnosis of DS does not provide an automatic eligibility to services-I know because I fought this all the way to the Michigan Department Of Education. When I found out she had to be evaluated to get services I initially declined the process entirely. I felt that having the diagnosis should have been a qualifier in its self, but the state does not see it this way.
She just barely qualified for EI because of a small communication delay. Her teacher often tells me that she does not anticipate her qualifying for services at three, when she starts preschool because of her abilities at this point. We are over a year from that marker so I am going to hope that she will qualify for something at three. Yet, even then the special education preschool program she may qualify is in our home school district, one I don’t allow any of my children to attend-it is outdated and they rate very low on the state scorecards. The preschool program is only 2.5 hours per day four days a week. So truthfully, unless I find an alternative-or get the permission of another district for Miss Laina to attend their program-she will likely not attend a special preschool even if she does qualify.
Our pediatrician will not refer her for private therapy because he just does not see a need for it.
Unfortunately, waiting until a child lags behind has never been too attractive an option to me, but I have convinced myself that if she does not qualify for services that this is ok. I guess that I do enjoy the freedom of not been required to have multiple sessions for these services. It is often a disruption of our day and Miss Laina does not care for the whole routine of things. Most of the time the so-called therapy we do get now is stuff we already employ in our home so I am not seeing any clear benefit from what the teacher does. The district does offer little play groups for EI, but they are held early in the morning and do not allow other siblings to come so this is not an option for my daughter.
I have only recently decided that going with out these services for now is acceptable-I was feeling quite sad that so many others on this forum, and many other friend's children, do get the additional help-and while I felt Miss E could likely benefit from some of the other services there is no point in being overwhelmed that she doesn't get them. I keep an extensive journal of her milestones and events in her life-maybe one day I will write a book about raising a DS infant without services.... I am all too familiar with this scenario.
I suppose that there are others in this position of not getting much in the way of services, but I really have not read about this on this forum.
[Edited by always_chaos on 03-13-2006 at 03:00 PM]
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03-13-2006 01:47 PM
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