Getting ABA with insurance for PDD-NOS/ADHD/Aspergers...?

[Anonymous]

I will probably receive a PDD-NOS/ADHD/Asperger dx for my 3 1/2 yr old.

I believe that the best thing for him is intensive ABA/ST/and OT

The way my developmental pedi described him is he has ADHD for sure, possible "very high functioning" aspergers.

I'm a little afraid of that since maybe insurance won't provide the aba for "very high functioning"

I called my insurance and they said that they cover aba "when medically necessary"

Do you think it will be covered with this type of dx?

[Anonymous]

Does the doctor think ABA is medically necessary? He/she is the one who will need to provide the supporting documentation for the insurance company. You may also want to talk to some ABA providers and ask what diagnosis they've seen covered.

[Anonymous]

What is the ABA for? For our very high functioning AS/ASD 4 yr old, our developmental pediatrician suggested ABA for specific skills such as dressing, using the potty but ultimately he learned to do it himself after working on fine motor skills in OT. OT was covered by our insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the ABA for? For our very high functioning AS/ASD 4 yr old, our developmental pediatrician suggested ABA for specific skills such as dressing, using the potty but ultimately he learned to do it himself after working on fine motor skills in OT. OT was covered by our insurance.

Well, he can do those things. Its mostly based on the research that I have done.
I think he struggles with joint attention which I think ABA will help. See this article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-intervention-autistic-children
Also this article for ABA for aspergers/mild autism: http://www.ctfeat.org/articles/aspergergracielarevfin.htm

And the recovery stories that we hear about: http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20090511/researchers-see-recovery-from-autism
http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/08/autism-a-journey-of-recovery/

Supposedly, its the mild cases that have the better chance of a "best outcome"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the ABA for? For our very high functioning AS/ASD 4 yr old, our developmental pediatrician suggested ABA for specific skills such as dressing, using the potty but ultimately he learned to do it himself after working on fine motor skills in OT. OT was covered by our insurance.

Well, he can do those things. Its mostly based on the research that I have done.
I think he struggles with joint attention which I think ABA will help. See this article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-intervention-autistic-children
Also this article for ABA for aspergers/mild autism: http://www.ctfeat.org/articles/aspergergracielarevfin.htm

And the recovery stories that we hear about: http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20090511/researchers-see-recovery-from-autism
http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/08/autism-a-journey-of-recovery/

Supposedly, its the mild cases that have the better chance of a "best outcome"

Ask your developmental ped if he thinks ABA will be useful for helping with joint attention. The linked article shows ABA to be useful for austic kids with speech delays or no speech at all. It's great that you have a specific issue in mind for ABA. Our developmental pediatrician initially recommended Floortime for DS but we found it to be useless for the issues we wanted addressed specifically playing and more engagement with other kids at school but worth a try since this is DS's main issue. He does well academically and he is mainstreamed with an IEP at a language immersion school. We never tried ABA but worth a try if you can. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

May I ask which language immersion school does your son go to?

Our dev pediatrician also recommended language based placement; but I couldn't find such an option among PEP options Montgomery County offers.

[Anonymous]

Not PEP or in MoCo but a DC immersion charter. DS is a rising K. Working out great with an IEP: no academic or behavior issues. DS's are all social and the school has been very helpful and supportive so far. Very happy there.

[Anonymous]

Also, we don't know or speak the immersion language. We did not know DS was on the spectrum when we enrolled him.