Early Intervention from Autism Advisory service for families and mothers groups embarking on early intervention planning.

My Child has a disability, how will I afford the therapy!!?

Mar 23, 2021

You can raise your child and provide the therapy yourself, for less than $14,000per year. Read on to find out how.

Developmental learning disabilities can be redirected in 2 years or less using early intervention intensive programs. Right now in Australia, an organisation called AEIOU provides early intervention programs to children of school age or younger, in an intensive one on one setting. At AEIOU a child with a developmental learning disability like autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), or any variation of, can be supported to retrack their condition to attend mainstream school. AEIOU programs offered are from 6–12months duration, on site, at AEIOU centres all over Australia. This is the gold star service for early intervention programs, if you can afford the fees. Not every family can.

When a financially challenged family is facing a big decision about finding the money for an operation or therapy for their special needs child, they might, on occasion consider giving child up. I feel so badly for those families because this thought is not necessary. So many options are available and early intervention, AEIOU style, is possible for everyone.

Your final decision may not be about finances in the end, but whether you would prefer your child forms a significant bond with you or the providers of an intervention service. Ultimately we may prefer to feel we have helped with our child’s development directly through our own efforts, knowing this will help them more in the long term, by forming a family bond they can trust.

If you are willing to run an intervention program at home yourself, there are many suitable options and supports available, online and in person, depending on your national health service.

One mother, Tabitha, from Australia, managed to arrange and provide an AEIOU worthy intervention for her daughter with ASD, successfully using only a government assistance grant, of less than $21,000per year. Tabitha wrote about what she found out, and what worked, and put it into a guide for any family to refer.

Here is a chapter from her book, Healing Aspergers-an early intervention for autism.

Home Schooling

Our work at home activity was always very flexible rather than rigid like a classroom. I picked up so many activity and colouring books, craft packs, painting equipment, pens and crayons, there was never a dull moment at our house. Lillian was usually given free run of whatever she would like to do, most of the time, giving her the freedom to choose activities that she liked making home learning more enjoyable. I would often invite her to try a new activity or workbook and help her with completing it. We used computer games, books and toys, board games, craft kits, paints and crayons, DVDs,

karaoke, board games, toy systems - you name it.

Lillian had a robotic dog 'cookies' for a while, he barks, pants, turns his head, blinks, chews on a bone and reacts when you talk to him or touch him. Pretty cute when you can’t have a real pet because you are renting.

For prep and first grade, I got copies of the recommended texts for the year and worked through them with Lillian at home, ensuring she was keeping up with her learning and early reading goals. I looked up the prep and year 1 learning goals online for some of the local schools and found an online schools program and used all of these as my prep and year 1 learning guidelines for Lillian’s entire intervention. I was seriously considering enrolling

Lillian in an online school program like https://brisbanesde.eq.edu.au.

The 'prep' year is not a compulsory year and is seen as another year of kindergarten which is not part of formal schooling. When Lillian showed signs she was not ready for full time school, I decided to keep her home and continue with her intervention for her prep year and I was very glad I did.

By the end of the second year of her intervention, Lillian’s focus and concentration was really improved. From day 1 to the end of her intervention, Lillian made 400% improvement in her behaviour, communication, language and concentration which I was brimmingly happy about.

We completed so much school-like activity at home, our house was a mini school. Working through entire early language computer programs and workbooks, reading, constant arts and crafts, cooking and playing with toy systems, constructing block cities, alphabet castles, indoor and outdoor play, play with neighbours and friends, watching DVDs.

Our house was a non-stop educational living environment for Lillian. I managed to sneak in ‘mummy time’ after Lillian went to bed each night and prior to her waking up, apart from that, Lillian was provided with lots of interaction with me reading, learning and playing, drawing, painting, colouring, making crafts.

Lillian enjoyed making up her own stories and listening to audio books, and we spent many occasions writing stories together, often with Lillian being the story teller. There was also daily outdoor time for exercise and play with many hours on the trampoline with kids from next door, running races and obstacle courses in the backyard, scooter and bike time, water play, gardening and mud fights, walks to the local shops and parks and regular time at playgrounds.

Conclusion

Lillian is now a primary schooler and made it through her early intervention program thanks to her mum and lots of patience and hard work. Having access to services and resources locally and on the internet really helped get us through, so that we never felt alone. The structured daily and weekly schedule helped the most, as well as having lots of interesting resources at home.

Having directly observed a recovery in Lillian, regardless of all other therapies, providing a structured program helped her the most in her recovery to overcoming Asperger’s. I strongly recommend providing an early intervention program to children on the spectrum from 2years old. In fact the 20hrs structure program would be of benefit to all children in my opinion. When you are ready to begin an early intervention program, ensure that you include 20hrs per week of structured activity for two years prior to the onset of school.

You can download a copy of the full e-book here.

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Aspergers-Intervention-Autism-Methods/dp/B0BW23B4CN/ref=sr_1_3?crid=J1S8N2TM7MTJ&keywords=early+intervention+tabitha+lloyd&qid=1684890220&sprefix=early+intervention+tabitha+lloy%2Caps%2C285&sr=8-3