New comer with an EI question.

AshleyDehaven

Hello, i'm Ashley and my 18 month old has been diagnosed with speech delay (mostly non-verbal with a couple 1 syllable words or sounds used inconsistently) as well as a cognitive delay. They believe he is on the spectrum, but obviously won't diagnose until later. My question is this; he is established with Early Intervention here in Texas, and his speech and occupational therapists have been god sends, but now we are 18 days away from a cross country move, to go home after my husband having been stationed here with the Army, and we have had to suspend service until we move. My question is, have any of you experienced trouble getting your LO reestablished with a new EI program? We have a full copy of his records and eval scores, hard copy in hand, and our local EI will also send a copy ahead of us if necessary, so we are covered there, i am just wondering if we will have to go through the whole initial screening process again. Also, how was the transition for your LO? DS takes a long time to warm up to people and he adores his speech therapist (though he thinks his occupational therapist is the devil), so i am worried that this is going to be hard on him. New people and situations overwhelm him a lot, and i know this move is going to be hard on him, i just want to try and make it as seamless as i possibly can for his sake. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, if you did. 

newbee36

I have not such experience, but one thing that comes to mind is to talk to your current EI providers. Ask them for an advise, and maybe they will contact the EI at the new place? Have you researched the EI providers at the new place already? You might want to do that, and even contact them yourself ..
Good luck with the move and everything. I hope your DS takes it better than you anticipate.

newbee36

Oh, and welcome to the board, Ashley!

ToastieSimons

We moved right after DS1 turned 2 and DS2 was born. Both boys receive therapy

I called before we moved and requested and eval since there is occasionally a wait.  Within 1 week of moving we had the eval completed. By the end of the month we had both IFSP's written and by the end of the next month all services were started (they started staggered as different therapists took their cases)

Why did you suspend services until you move?  We took DS1 for PT 2 days before we moved.

AshleyDehaven

ToastieSimons said:

We moved right after DS1 turned 2 and DS2 was born. Both boys receive therapy

I called before we moved and requested and eval since there is occasionally a wait.  Within 1 week of moving we had the eval completed. By the end of the month we had both IFSP's written and by the end of the next month all services were started (they started staggered as different therapists took their cases)

Why did you suspend services until you move?  We took DS1 for PT 2 days before we moved.

We just got my husband's discharge papers 3 days ago, so we have 18 days to get packed, squared away with mine and DS's doctors, get the car fixed, get cleared with housing, and all the agencies on post. We have no friends or family here to help, and my husband is gone 90% of the time, so to be honest, i canceled a lot of appointments for both myself and DS because i need the time to get everything done. I hated doing it, but as it is, i have a seizure condition that gets worse with stress and physical strain, and a massive abdominal hernia that limits the amount of physical activity i can do in a day. I didn't know what else to do.. But i called and scheduled an appointment with the new EI the same week we get there, so we should be starting up very quickly i hope. They said they will look over our IFSP and do an eval to see if any major changes have occurred, and if we are still in the same position they will use our current IFSP as a foundation for the new one. So i have high hopes for their program. 

ToastieSimons

AshleyDehaven said:

ToastieSimons said:

We moved right after DS1 turned 2 and DS2 was born. Both boys receive therapy

I called before we moved and requested and eval since there is occasionally a wait.  Within 1 week of moving we had the eval completed. By the end of the month we had both IFSP's written and by the end of the next month all services were started (they started staggered as different therapists took their cases)

Why did you suspend services until you move?  We took DS1 for PT 2 days before we moved.

We just got my husband's discharge papers 3 days ago, so we have 18 days to get packed, squared away with mine and DS's doctors, get the car fixed, get cleared with housing, and all the agencies on post. We have no friends or family here to help, and my husband is gone 90% of the time, so to be honest, i canceled a lot of appointments for both myself and DS because i need the time to get everything done. I hated doing it, but as it is, i have a seizure condition that gets worse with stress and physical strain, and a massive abdominal hernia that limits the amount of physical activity i can do in a day. I didn't know what else to do.. But i called and scheduled an appointment with the new EI the same week we get there, so we should be starting up very quickly i hope. They said they will look over our IFSP and do an eval to see if any major changes have occurred, and if we are still in the same position they will use our current IFSP as a foundation for the new one. So i have high hopes for their program. 

Good job managing your stress in this chaotic time.  We  had like 3 months to pack up and move and DS1 only had PT 1x/week so it wasn't such a chore.  

Hopefully your transition will be smooth and you'll be offered great services in your new location!