Autism Waiver

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So my 3.5yr old daughter has been picked for the Autism Waiver in our state (it is a lottery system) She will have an "Autism Trainer" 4 hours a day/5 days a week. We have had a couple of meetings and they decided to start off with a handful of goals for her. They will be working on Self-Help goals, peer relations (basically sharing, waiting and such with little sister to start), as well as her eating (she does not eat enough calories a day)

They are also going to pay for her to get ASL private lessons, help us get some needed supplies for her service dog and also get some new apps on her IPad.

I am a little overwhelmed with how many hours a week someone will be working with her. It seems like so much. They did say that at any time we can opt out.

Has anyone here had these types of services? How did your child like them?

We did not qualify for the autism waiver but were accepted at our Child Development Center after they established an Autism Insurance Program. Last year DS (7.5 now) got 10-12 hours per week of services. This year we are more like 9 hours/wk. It has helped A LOT. In my experience, the success was very closely tied to how much DS liked (or didn't like, in one case) the workers he was paired with. Hopefully for you they will ramp up the services, slowly adding more areas of expectation. For example, the food thing might be something they want to ease into slowly after she has had a chance to establish relationships with her care givers. It does sound like a lot but if you are working with people you and your daughter get along with, it will be good. I would reserve judgement on opting out for times when there is an obvious personality conflict or difficulty with particular staff members.

Well, she's three and a half. So-- maybe this could be kind of like preschool for her?? And the rest of her time could be more relaxed??

It does sound like a lot. But whether it's too much or not sort of depends on the volume and severity of issues.

I'd choke anyone who suggested that my 6-year-old pretty mildly Asperger's (pending Dx) son spend 20 hours a week in a clinical setting working on "looking NT."

But if he were not talking, not eating, not toileting, not self-caring, not not not not, I might take a somewhat different stance.

And the way they do therapy these days, there very well may be a lot of fun involved. Speech therapy with my 4-year-old's mushmouth basically amounts to playing games with letter sounds when we think of it (I'm taking the DIY approach, because the speech therapist I took her to made me want to puke with her blatant money-grubbing and manipulative tactics that even I could pick up on). It's, well, actually a lot of FUN.

BuyerBeware,

Not to hijack (too much) but what kind of DIY stuff are you doing? I was thinking of doing Michelle Garcia Winner, but right now I am kind of winging it. We have pragmatic/social language issues, not any enunciating issues. Mainly, I talk with a lot of idioms and slang and explain it.

In my province, most children identified as being on the spectrum at the 3.5 yr screening or through a dx are eligible for that level of service. My daughter works with them, and is always impressed by the progress the children make. She uses ABA and establishes a plan with the parents to work on whatever is most problematic for the family: non-verbal children focus on learning to use a few words for requests; children who have trouble controlling aggression are given other options to express frustration, etc. It seems like a lot, but the pace can also be adapted by the worker as long as the parents don't insist on getting every minute of service to which they are entitled and refuse to let the child take breaks. That's a problem that really bothers my daughter, who gets upset by tired or sick children being pushed to keep going... sometimes a child falls asleep and the mother shakes him to wake up. Not really a good learning tactic.
J.