So today I had an appointment with a psychologist to discuss potential ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) treatment for Zoey. My goal for today was to get a better idea of what areas ABA would be targeting for Zoey and how many hours she would need. I have a basic understanding of ABA due to my work in PA, but I have never been specifically trained in it so I don't know exactly what is looks like and there is a lot of conflicting information out in the internet world. Based on this very basic understanding of ABA, I have been having a hard time envisioning what specfic areas need to be worked on, with the exception of social skills. In addittion to social skills, I view Zoey's other deficits as being that she is overly emotional and will cry even when she is happy, and she has some rigidity and will get upset if things don't go exactly how she thinks they should (but the resulting tantrums are very short in duration). She doesn't throw major fits. She isn't physically agressive. She doesn't engage in self-harm or elopement behaviors. She's potty trained and pretty independent. In other words, from my perspective, her ASD symptoms are pretty mild.
That's why I wanted to schedule an appointment to get a better idea of what ABA would be working with Zoey on and how many hours a week/month she would likely need. ABA is not covered by our insurance policy, which is a whole different frustration, and we have limited county funds which currently go towards her speech therapy, so we will be paying out of pocket for anything we decide to do (cost is $140 an hour). Unfortunatley, I felt that I wasted that $140 I paid today because I walked away with minimal answers. The psychologist started by saying the Zoey needed 25 to 30 hours in order to make progress. I don't know if she was basing this off of the evaluation report I had given her from when Zoey was evaluated at Children's, but I kind of doubt she read the whole report in the brief time I was in the waiting room. Plus, when I asked about what areas ABA would focus or help with she would tell me "whatever her needs are" and then would procede to give me examples of things that Zoey has no problem with, such as potty training, learning her colors, and using two word sentences. I just found it very frustrating that she was telling me Zoey needed all these hours when she didn't have an idea of who Zoey is or what her needs are.
I asked about having a consultant come and do a needs assessment, which she said was a possibility. However, the way she reacted to my quetion made me feel like she thought this was a ridiculous request. She also told me that she could have a consultant come out, but that since I wasn't committing to a set amount of hours ahead of time that she couldn't gaurantee that the consultant that did the needs assessment would be the one that would work with Zoey. I am fine with that and understand the reason behind that, but it was said to me in a way that made it seem like she was just wanting me to say "sure let's go ahead and do 30 hours a week". I'm sorry, but it seems stupid to me to just commit to a set amount of hours when I don't know that Zoey actually needs that many hours.
So I left there not committing to anything. I told her I would discuss the needs assessment with Scott and let her know. The needs assessment would take 5-8 hours at the $140 an hour, so that's a significant chunk of change to pay out of pocket. I just don't know what to do. I don't want to not get services for her if she needs them and they can help her succeed. At the same time, it would be $4200 a month if I went with the 30 hours!!!!
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