How to pay for special needs pre-schools, etc.

Post Reply New Topic

My son hasn't had his diagnostic evaluation yet, but he has qualified for a pretty intensive early intervention treatment plan, and I'm fairly certain that he'll be official diagnosed sooner or later (hopefully sooner)...but I've started thinking about special schools and what not, and how to pay for them. For example, there is a highly recommended special need's pre-school in our area, and I love what I hear about them, but we could never afford it. If/when he is diagnosed, is there any kind of funding that may become available for him to be enrolled in such a program? I'm just not really sure how it all works.

Thanks so much, you have all been so helpful already.

I'm about to finally enroll my son who was recently diagnosed with PDD-NOS in a special-needs preschool. Our state childrens' health insurance pays for it in full because our income is pretty low and it's officially therapeutic. We make too much for Medicaid but the All-Kids cutoff is much higher. Have you looked into getting SSI or SSDI or whatever it is for him?

The funny thing is that I didn't realize there was anything out of the ordinary about our son for a long time because I did the same things he does and I didn't have any kind of "diagnosis" as a child except ADD--and I'm not really that into kids (except my own, of course) so I had no idea what was and wasn't normal.

Many schools also have scholarship programs but each is unique to the school so I would inquire directly with the school you are interested in attending.

My pre-schooler (he is 3) is in a special needs preschool which focus on ASD, ADHD and a few other things along that line. He currently does not have a diagnosis (he didn't get one from the neurologist though he says he has some autistic traits). We have not shared this lack of diagnosis with the school district since we do not have to and it could only hurt us now.

We had him evaluated by the school district. He was evaluated by the ST, OT, PT, psychologist and social worker. He has significant communication delays and a short attention span (unless he is interested) so it was fairly easy to get services.

The school district pays for ST, OT, PT, psychologist/play therapy. The also pay for the 22 hours of "school time" for him. He see each of his therapist 2x a week for 8 visits a week. He is pulled out from class to meet with his therapists. In total, his services are approximately $45,000 a year. We had to be evaluated by a school in our school district but we could choose to go to any school in NYC, as long as there was space and the distance was "reasonable".

Thanks for the info, that's a relief to know that there are going to be options available.

Also note that if your school district doesn't offer the specific services your child needs, they are obliged to pay for them. This can mean that they will pay his tuition at the special school (provided, again, they can't offer the environment or services themselves.)

If your health insurance will pay for an eval with a developmental pediatrician, that person may also charge a small hourly fee to come to a meeting with your school district. It's completely worth the money to pay an advocate. Some states provide them free of charge - Autism Speaks has a state-by-state resource list and sometimes you can find advocates or support there.