Oh I forgot to answer your questions: He was evaluated by Dr. Damon Korb of "Center for developing minds" who recommended his ABA hours. He has joined special preschool under school district, where he receives an hour of group speech therapy per week, but no ABA. We have requested for ABA in our recent IEP meeting, they said they can't see any need of it for school performance :( . We have still asked me to make a referral for behavior assessment, hopefully that will happen after few months, and then they will take a call.

Thanks SO MUCH for the detailed inputs! This is very useful information! Yes, my son is a SARC client, but his service coordinator has not answered our calls or replied to my emails over last 2 months! So I am not sure what is going on. No he's not getting medi-cal. Yes, nanny would be a good idea, for getting home etc. We'll talk to his daycare director tomorrow, hoping she'll allow his ABA therapist to work with him in school. I need some more inputs: we are about to register in CLC's waiting list (sent them the intake packet few weeks back) for ABA (in-daycare I hope), but you have mentioned they were not very impressive. Could you please give a but more details? I am also talking with "Kids Overcoming", since our insurance covers them, any feedback on them? I will check out Learning Links now. I contacted BSP, they don't have services in our area.

Another idea I have is (if you haven't done so already), join the local autism listserves and ask other special needs parents how they made similar situations work. Two of the most popular listserves are: peninsula parents of special needs kids yahoo group and autismbayareaintervention yahoo group. If you can't find, either, please let me know, and I'll get you the information to subscribe.

Also, I hope you don't mind my asking, but who recommended 10-15 hours a week of ABA? As you will no doubt see on the listserves, parents in our community have differing opinions about ABA and how much ABA a child should do. Having read the research, though, it seems to me that only intensive ABA (defined as 30-40 hours a week) is effective. That said, I suspect it depends greatly on the severity of the child's needs. I imagine children with more skills may benefit from fewer ABA hours. On the other hand, we've done 40 hours a week of ABA for years with little progress. I just want the recommendation for therapy hours for your son to be based on what professionals who have assessed him think is warranted, not what a company can provide given staffing limitations or what they think they can get insurance to authorize.

So sorry for the length of these notes. Feel free to connect if there is anything I can do.
Warmly,
renee

This is a tough situation that many parents around here face, where there are almost no center-based services and everyone needs to work. CLC in Los Altos describes themselves as very individualized and they have a BCBA. I was not impressed either time I toured their school, however. FACES in Redwood City has a center-based ABA program (i.e., you leave your child there), but I haven't heard great things about them, and RWC would be a trek for you. You could call CARD, another ABA agency, in San Jose and see if they have a center-based program right now, but again, this would be a trek and I don't know that you can be shuttling your son back and forth during work hours. Learning Links in Burlingame is a popular preschool here for children on the spectrum, and they just opened a second location closer to you, in Mountain View. I don't believe they would describe themselves as behavioral, however.

I think some moms have just ended up paying for a babysitter to shuttle children from daycare and to be there during in-home ABA. This is more money out-of-pocket for you, though, and is not an option for everyone.

Is your son a client of the regional center (i.e., SARC)? If so, you should qualify for respite hours, which you might be able to use to cover some in-home ABA, though probably not 10-15 hours a week. Still, this is a problem you might push SARC to help you solve. Is your son getting Medi-Cal thorugh SARC? If so, you might qualify for IHSS protective supervision hours, which again, you could use to pay someone to be home during ABA, I think.

As your son has a diagnosis of autism and is over three, the local school district is responsible for providing him services. You could check out what they have to offer, usually a half-day, special day class preschool, and see how behavioral that program is (likely not very behavioral, though). However, depending on the situation, you may be able to get the district to provide ABA with an outside agency at their preschool (we did this for two years), and they'll often throw in some OT and speech, too, though the quality of services can vary a lot.

Continued in next note.....

Yes, we are going to ask tomorrow. But in case they say no, we have to look for other options. But I hear most kids getting ABA in a home setup, hence unsure about what to do.