State Funding OT & Social Skills Trng -- CA

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I live in CA and am seeking to find out how to request funding for my stepson from the state. My understanding is that we can possibly receive state funding for things like occupational therapy and social skills training through his diagnosis. Has anyone been able to secure such funding, and where do we start?

How old is your step-son? When we lived in California my son was 15 months when he was diagnosed with severe delays so we got totally free occupational therapy and infant stimulation in our home from Harbor Regional. Of course Harbor Regional only services the south bay area but your pediatrician should be able to put you in touch with the early childhood development center around where you live.

They do services until a child is 3, and after that point they become your local school district's responsibility. Your school district should have a special needs preschool program set up that offers certain therapies, but some programs are definitely better than others.

After Kindergarten on, your child will still be part of the school system but I believe less emphasis is put on therapy and more emphasis is put on having an IEP service your child's needs at school, whether it be 1-one-1 help with subjects, smaller class sizes, or more breaks set up during the day, whatever your child needs to succeed at school. After this point I would also recommend going back to an occupational therapist but the school district won't cover it, you'll have to try and get your insurance to pay for it, or if you have a special autism program in your area (like I have TEACCH in NC) they might be able to provide for you as well.

You should be able to receive OT and other services through your school district. They will have to run their own evaluations in order to qualify your son for services. We just finished evaluations on our 5 y/o son with mild mental retardation. He gets O/T once a week through the school dist.

My 10 y/o AS DD will be going through evaluations next year to qualify her for services when she goes to middle school the year after. The middle school has social classes for children with ASD as an elective. She may also have O/T due to her clumsiness, poor sense of spacial awareness, and fine motor delays.

We are also in CA BTW.

Thanks for both replies! My SS (stepson) is 13, and was only diagnosed about two years ago. This seems somewhat common with AS (later diagnosis), and I am finding that there isn't nearly the support as there is when one receives an early diagnosis.

I think I will suggest to the parents that we request some form of OT through our school district. I'd like it to be in lieu of PE, as my SS cannot participate in regular PE, and we are requesting adaptive PE or an exemption if we can show that he recieves regular exercise.

He appears to have good coordination (he's a really fantastic skateboarder... truly), but he has a hard time with his fine motor skills, such as buttons. I've noticed, too, that when he's holding a fork or spoon, his little hands shake as though he's really straining to hold it properly.
Again, thanks for your replies!

Does he have an IEP? If so, just ask the case manager about an OT evaluation. I'm sure the school is already providing OT for certain students.

He does have an IEP, and we happen to be having a transition/IEP meeting next week, so I'll add that to the list of things to discuss. We would really like to find some OT and social skills training for my SS over the summer. Thanks for the suggestion to work with the IEP team!

These services are arranged for directly by my son's school, and came about through the IEP process. If there is any vehicle for funding outside of the public school system, I am not aware of it. This all should be requested through the school.

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Edit, lol, seems I'm repeating what has already been determined in this thread. Good luck with the IEP meeting!