Early Intervention in DC?

[Anonymous]

Hello- My husband, almost 2 year old daughter, and I will be moving to DC in the fall. Our dd is in multiple therapies via EI where we live currently, and I'm wondering how EI services are in DC. My in-laws live in Bethesda and rave about the services in Montgomery County, but we will likely live in DC.

If in fact services in DC are poor (which is the impression I get from my in-laws), does anyone have recommendations of private therapists to work with a toddler? Specifically, we need speech therapy (my dd is not yet talking), PT, and potentially OT with a sensory component. Any recommendations or other advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

I have no recommendations for you; the waitlist at Children's is long, and I all the therapists I got in touch who were listed with my insurance no longer took my insurance by the time I called them!

I would really re-consider moving to any of the surrounding counties instead of DC itself; we had a futile, extremely frustrating experience with DC's EI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no recommendations for you; the waitlist at Children's is long, and I all the therapists I got in touch who were listed with my insurance no longer took my insurance by the time I called them!

I would really re-consider moving to any of the surrounding counties instead of DC itself; we had a futile, extremely frustrating experience with DC's EI.

Ugh! This is so depressing. Exactly what I hoped not to hear. When you say "Children's" is that the local Children's Hospital? What is its full name?

Are you considering moving for better services yourself?

[Anonymous]

There are quite a few OT/PT/SLP practices in the area that are great that do not take insurance. You pay up front and then submit the bill to your insurance for out of network coverage. That is the route that quite a few people go through. Unfortunately this can add up esp since with EI it is usually based on a sliding scale. As a therapist I can say that DC EI is really lacking. Montgomery County is really best as all EI services are free. Other surrounding counties are based on sliding scale and there is often a wait for services. My son was waiting for 3 months to get speech after being evaluated by the county. Once your child turns 3 and ages out of EI then the insurance cap on services can be brutal. Then it often makes more sense to see private therapists that charge a lot less than the hospital fees. Once out of EI your child will begin receiving services at DC schools which can be lacking.

[Anonymous]

I live in DC. We had PT at Children's Hospital for a while and then at Georgetown University Hospital.

I found both facilities good. Both had a long wait for services - but the squeaky wheel helped get me in.

I believe DC Early Intervention services program were just moved to a outsource provider - Little Feet and Hands.

I also had PT services in house from Little Feet and Hands - and I was not impressed with the therapist we had. However, if you go through DC EI and they say you need services, even though it is a sliding scale, they do have providers who have set rates that they can charge.

Now - what DC EI does provide is a childcare voucher. This is not income based - so if you are planning on putting your child in daycare / and your daycare accepts the voucher - this is a nice bonus.

[Anonymous]

We live in Fairfax county but my child moved to a daycare in DC and Fairfax county can't provide services in DC. They said I could always contact DC public schools and in the same breathe suggested that many private speech therapists would come to my child's daycare and I should look for one. I would not even waste my time trying to use the DC services and I feel sorry for those families who have no choice bc they do not have the money or insurance to go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are quite a few OT/PT/SLP practices in the area that are great that do not take insurance. You pay up front and then submit the bill to your insurance for out of network coverage. That is the route that quite a few people go through. Unfortunately this can add up esp since with EI it is usually based on a sliding scale. As a therapist I can say that DC EI is really lacking. Montgomery County is really best as all EI services are free. Other surrounding counties are based on sliding scale and there is often a wait for services. My son was waiting for 3 months to get speech after being evaluated by the county. Once your child turns 3 and ages out of EI then the insurance cap on services can be brutal. Then it often makes more sense to see private therapists that charge a lot less than the hospital fees. Once out of EI your child will begin receiving services at DC schools which can be lacking.

Would you mind sharing some of the practices in the area that do not take insurance? I'm beginning to think this is our best route. I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, this is 17:45 from yesterday. Yes, I did mean Children's National Medical Center--their speech/language center is in Mt. Pleasant, on 16th St. That's where we got our initial evaluations last year.

At 20 months, all my son presented with was a speech delay; 6 months later, he was considered to be on the autism spectrum. Not that the diagnosis changed the terms of our services with DC's EI.

Someone else mentioned vouchers--from what I remember from my own search, none of the big, private day cares would take them. The one place that would was Spanish-immersion, so not the ideal match for us. (Funny, my service coordinator didn't just give me the list of day cares that did take their vouchers, just the list of places that had some kind of accreditation with them. I spent many hours calling places on the list that didn't take vouchers.)

We did end up moving--but it took us 6 months, since the location was dependent on whether my DH was staying with his DC job or not. We moved to Baltimore, which has much better services than DC (considering it's got so much less in resources & tax base!).

I think that shamefully, DC's EI officials know how much better the surrounding counties are in providing help for families that need it, and figure that people who stay in DC can't afford to move out and will either put up or shut up. Though I've heard of people on this particular forum suing the city to get better services. There are some older threads on hiring lawyers and advocates.

Good luck to you! For the record, we really loved living in DC, and would've stayed if we didn't need all the help we could get for our son. It was painful to leave but we really had to do what was best for him.

[Anonymous]

fyi: St. Alban's ECC accepts the voucher. The program starts at age 2 so you only get 1 year - but so far we are very happy with it.

[Anonymous]

We live in DC and started out with Early Intervention (didn't qualify as needs based so got no reimbursement) and now my son is under the direction of DC Public Schools since he turned 3. For private therapists I can recommend:

1) Irene Shetzline Jackson of George Washington University's Speech and Hearing graduate program. She does private practice appointments in the home. All the speech therapists at GWU have been excellent, in fact. They run group and individual sessions.
http://www.gwu.edu/~sphr/about/faculty/jackson.cfm

2) For OT we use ITS for Children in Kensington, Maryland. They have the best pediatric OT practice in the area, bar none.
301-962-0800

3) The speech practice called The Language Experience takes insurance (took my Cigna and now my Care First Blue Choice). They are in Chevy Chase, MD right over the DC line.
[phone]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC and started out with Early Intervention (didn't qualify as needs based so got no reimbursement) and now my son is under the direction of DC Public Schools since he turned 3. For private therapists I can recommend:

1) Irene Shetzline Jackson of George Washington University's Speech and Hearing graduate program. She does private practice appointments in the home. All the speech therapists at GWU have been excellent, in fact. They run group and individual sessions.
http://www.gwu.edu/~sphr/about/faculty/jackson.cfm

2) For OT we use ITS for Children in Kensington, Maryland. They have the best pediatric OT practice in the area, bar none.
301-962-0800

3) The speech practice called The Language Experience takes insurance (took my Cigna and now my Care First Blue Choice). They are in Chevy Chase, MD right over the DC line.
[phone]

When you say you didn't qualify as needs based, do you mean that your son wasn't 50% below expected development (I think that's the requirement in DC)? What public school does he go to, if you don't mind my asking? I don't know any of the DC public schools yet. What has your experience been like?

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. OP

[Anonymous]

We recently moved to DC and have found a number of really great OT and speech therapist for my son who has an expressive language delay and some sensory processing issues. Our insurance won't reimburse for the services and we are considering the IEP route (with some reservation after reading the various posts). Anyway, if you are able to pay for services, the following people have been invaluable. It can be so frustrating getting your child in the right hands. You don't have to worry about that with these folks. They have been great!

1) Irene Jackson at GWU speech and hearing clinic. The clinic has individual and group therapy. The therapists are master's degree level students but they are very dedicated and have been excellent with my son. They did a comprehensive speech evaluation (2 hours) and also conducted a hearing screen. My son has been in group therapy 2 days a week and will start individual in a few months.

2) In DC, we used Leaps and Bounds Pediatric OT: Allison Mistrett or Deborah Victor. 202-237-8737 They also work closely with a speech therapist that comes highly recommended, but I haven't used her personally yet.

3) If you live near Rockville, try Jumpstart Therapy: Kimberly Geary, OTR/L. Occupational Therapist, Rockville, MD. She did our OT evaluation and we would have used her in a heart beat but the drive was a bit far for weekly therapy.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recently moved to DC and have found a number of really great OT and speech therapist for my son who has an expressive language delay and some sensory processing issues. Our insurance won't reimburse for the services and we are considering the IEP route (with some reservation after reading the various posts). Anyway, if you are able to pay for services, the following people have been invaluable. It can be so frustrating getting your child in the right hands. You don't have to worry about that with these folks. They have been great!

1) Irene Jackson at GWU speech and hearing clinic. The clinic has individual and group therapy. The therapists are master's degree level students but they are very dedicated and have been excellent with my son. They did a comprehensive speech evaluation (2 hours) and also conducted a hearing screen. My son has been in group therapy 2 days a week and will start individual in a few months.

2) In DC, we used Leaps and Bounds Pediatric OT: Allison Mistrett or Deborah Victor. 202-237-8737 They also work closely with a speech therapist that comes highly recommended, but I haven't used her personally yet.

3) If you live near Rockville, try Jumpstart Therapy: Kimberly Geary, OTR/L. Occupational Therapist, Rockville, MD. She did our OT evaluation and we would have used her in a heart beat but the drive was a bit far for weekly therapy.

Thank you so much!! This is so helpful.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recently moved to DC and have found a number of really great OT and speech therapist for my son who has an expressive language delay and some sensory processing issues. Our insurance won't reimburse for the services and we are considering the IEP route (with some reservation after reading the various posts). Anyway, if you are able to pay for services, the following people have been invaluable. It can be so frustrating getting your child in the right hands. You don't have to worry about that with these folks. They have been great!

1) Irene Jackson at GWU speech and hearing clinic. The clinic has individual and group therapy. The therapists are master's degree level students but they are very dedicated and have been excellent with my son. They did a comprehensive speech evaluation (2 hours) and also conducted a hearing screen. My son has been in group therapy 2 days a week and will start individual in a few months.

2) In DC, we used Leaps and Bounds Pediatric OT: Allison Mistrett or Deborah Victor. 202-237-8737 They also work closely with a speech therapist that comes highly recommended, but I haven't used her personally yet.

3) If you live near Rockville, try Jumpstart Therapy: Kimberly Geary, OTR/L. Occupational Therapist, Rockville, MD. She did our OT evaluation and we would have used her in a heart beat but the drive was a bit far for weekly therapy.

Good luck!

Oops, I responded within your message above. Thank you so much!! This is so helpful.

[Anonymous]

11:47 here:
What I meant by not qualifying is that our income was too high to get free therapy through the Infants & Toddlers division. But once he turned 3 and his case got transferred to DCPS, the law says the school district must provide free services regardless of income. The aim is to do this in school but DC does not have enough special needs classrooms so people often go to a private school and try and get the city to pay. We were close to going this route after DCPS had given us a few options that were not acceptable from our point of view. Then they offered us a placement in Barnard Elementary's autism classroom. We liked the way the class was run using ABA, have confidence in the teacher, and are starting there this fall. If you would like to chat further, please don't hesitate to call

-- Erica
202.244.8889