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preggersINschool25
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Private vs Early Intervention
preggersINschool25
member
Does anyone feel strongly about private therapy versus the therapy your child gets through early intervention? I'm specifically talking about 0 to 3. If you have opinions can you specify what type of therapy: PT, ST, or OT?
How frequently is your child getting therapy? My guy is very delayed. He still has not rolled back to belly, got on all fours, spoken anything like "ma"... we are only doing one hour each week of PT, ST, and OT. So three hours total. Should I be doing more? He is 15 months.
How frequently is your child getting therapy? My guy is very delayed. He still has not rolled back to belly, got on all fours, spoken anything like "ma"... we are only doing one hour each week of PT, ST, and OT. So three hours total. Should I be doing more? He is 15 months.
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Re: Private vs Early Intervention
In our state (and I think in most states), the early intervention program is very full. This being said, there is only so much time they can devote to each child in the program, and I think they tend to target those children who are higher risk of not receiving necessary therapies (lower income, no insurance, poor living situations, etc). They have told us numerous times that it is such a nice break to come to our home compared to the majority of cases they see, because we are actively seeking out answers for our son and trying to get him the help he needs.
So, for us, EI comes once a month to check on him and see where he is. He has a teacher, PT, and vision teacher. His real therapy, though, comes from the 2x/week private therapy we take him to. When he was evaluated at 18 months, his expressive and receptive speech/language was at a 3-6 month old level. He has been receiving SLT since and is doing amazing! His EI team is so happy that we decided to take him, because in Iowa, they wouldn't be able to start him with a SLP until he was 2 1/2. He is also going to start some private PT, too, in order to help with his balance. If it is within your means, I *highly recommend* adding private therapies to his routine. You don't have to stop EI services, rather add to them. Hope this helps and good luck!
ETA: I just want to stress the fact that I know that it is not within some people's budgets/insurance plans to be able to take their children to private therapies. I don't want to offend anyone in my post. We are blessed to both work for large companies that offer good benefits, so our son's annual out of pocket maximum for medical care and therapies is affordable.
Although we had a good experience with EI, and he made good progress, looking back I think it would have been better for us financially if we had looked into private therapies.
EI fees in our state were an income bases sliding scale. Where we happened to land on the scale made the amount of money we paid for 1 hour a week of speech was ridiculous - but it didn't even occur to me at the time to check into private options. If I had I probably could have saved us a bundle.
We are doing both - EI comes monthly and DD goes to private PT weekly, her appointments are an hour each time. They both focus on different things and leave me and DH with things that we need to continue working on with DD. My DD has a physical disability so PT works her on using her wheelchair, helping her up/down from chairs and figuring out how to be mobile. It's very targeted therapy focused specifically on mobility. Because of her dx, there is a chance she could also have cognitive delays, which she doesn't today. EI looks at a more holistic view of her development, including physical development. They make sure she's on track with her milestones and help us with things we can do in our home.
I like having EI come monthly because they can tell me if she is meeting the appropriate milestones. It's been helpful to get tips and tricks from them, like using different signs and different games to play with her. But there has been nothing like private PT to get her mobile. Just a few sessions with her therapist have really done wonders for her. I like EI. I love PT!
Nope, I don't think our insurance even questioned it. We needed to have a letter sent to the insurance from our doctor stating why PT was medically necessary. No one ever asked if we were eligible or enrolled in EI.
Sorry, just saw this! Sure, I'd be happy to. I loved our private therapists. For PT, we used Early Intervention Associates in Rockville, and I especially recommend working with Becky Leonard there. She's truly amazing. For speech and OT, we worked with ITS Developmental Services in Kensington--Anne Reynolds for speech and Teri Kozlowski for OT. All top notch in the area and highly recommend them! I feel like we encountered almost every specialist under the sun, so if you need any other recs, I'm happy to offer names. Let me know if you have any questions!
My son was evaluated by early intervention (not private) for speech issues at 15 months. The speech therapist has been coming now for 5 months and the progress has been amazing.
I haven't read all the comments, so you may have already answered this. What does your pedi say about your son's development?