Speech Therapy and ABA have begun

We have had a pretty busy week. Noah started attending his speech therapy this week. And today, he had his first ABA session in our home. His ABA therapist Lilly is awesome. I think he will work well with her. 

She was here for two hours- He cried for the first 45 minutes but then calmed down and allowed her to be around him and play with him. This is pretty big. It takes Noah forever to warm up to new people or new environments. When I began taking him to Gymboree, he literally cried every time he was there for over a month and a half. When we were attending church, Noah never got used to the church nursery.... he cried and cried for months (4 months!) and then we gave up and stopped attending. It was just too draining to deal with. So, I am very hopeful that Noah and Lilly will work well together. This is a good sign and I am soooo excited about starting.

For Speech Therapy, they have suggested that he receive ST twice a week. The speech therapist feels that we should introduce PEC cards for communication. I am just concerned that it will allow Noah to not use his words and rely only on cards/pictures. I have been assured by more than one professional that PECs helps with communication and will "bridge the gap" until a child's language increases. 

Areas that we are waiting for/pending for Noah's treatment:

1)  We still are looking into homeopathy and are about to submit paperwork so we can have a consultation with the homeopath

2) We have an appointment with DAN! doctor Mary Megson at the end of February. Hopefully she will run tests to see how Noah is doing medically and we may begin doing biomed after this appointment.

3) Medicaid Waiver- this process is taking forever. I have applied and we are still waiting for the screener to come out to the home and complete the UAI on Noah. We may have another month of waiting before this happens.

4) Health Insurance coverage for ABA therapy???  We recently found out that Noah's insurance now has an autism benefit but we are not sure what that exactly covers. We have submitted paperwork for this and are waiting to see if they will cover any of his therapy expenses. Any help would be awesome. We are estimating that paying out of pocket for the minimum ABA therapy per week (6 hours) will cost us at least $1200-1400/month.

5) I am fighting for Early Intervention to provide us with speech in home. I have not heard yet if this is possible.