Help with daughter who has A.S.

Post Reply New Topic

It's been a long road but my 16 year old daughter diagnosed with as has found good meds that work and is finally thinking of returning to school. It's been two years of hard work. Doctor had suggested school to help with social skills in Columbia SC but I cannot afford it. How do I get medicaid for her or will she qualify? Should I file for disability for her? We have come so far but now we are at an impass. Can anyone help?

I don't think you can get Medicaid for her until she gets SSI disability. I don't think she can apply for SSI until she is 18. If she has a professional AS diagnosis you should work on an IEP to get her services in school. Some parents manage to get the school system to pay for OT's or occupational therapists or speech therapists as those are the professionals that generally teach social skills. Some psychologists will also teach social skills.

Back to disability a person usually can't qualify for SSI if their only problem is Aspergers. They usually have to have another mental or physical disorder as Soc Sec doesn't consider Aspergers by itself a disability. They usually need a severe depression, bipolar, schizo or PTSD diagnosis to go along with it.

You need to see if there is a Bureau of Developmental Disabilities department in your state. BDDS in our state helps to pay for services as students transition into the adult world, but the nice side benefit is that it does put students through the Medicaid process. It is called a Medicaid Waiver. So you might ask for it at your local social security office. In our state, social security for disability is based on parent's income until a student turns 18. Then they re-evaluate and decide if the student's disability qualifies them to be an independent household.

You can apply for SSI on her behalf at any time, but it might be dependent on your income. I would definitely go to your state website and see if you have a developmental disability waiver system. This will help you to navigate all of the services, etc. much better. Autism Spectrum Disorders do qualify people for Medicaid and SSI as the sole disability, but as I said, these things are sometimes household income related.

I work with high school students with disabilities, and one of the things that I do is to help them sign up for all of these various services. Including social security, medicaid, etc. You may want to call your local office of Vocational Rehabilitation, as well, they provide services, monies, etc. for people to help them become more employable. In my state, VR actually helps students pay for college and training programs, but they must be at January in their Junior year or 18 in order to start the application process. So, you may want to see if you have a VR office.

Also, see what adult service providers are providing transition services. Transition services are part of a federal mandate that says that all students with an IEP or 504 plan qualify for transition. Transition liaisons usually help you to navigate some of these services and fill out the appropriate applications for the appropriate services. Call adult service providers in your community and see if anyone is doing transition in your area.

Good luck. You can PM me if you want or need more info.

Which is wrong. In the US, it's not based on whatever label you have, rather, it's based on how impaired you are.

yes. try it at least.

AFAIK many aid agencies are in a weird condition...ehh.

Yeah but part of the impairment questions deal with if you are able to sit, stand, lift and most Aspies aren't impaired in that way. So either you need some physical problems in addition to AS like chronic pain or else some kind of coordination/motor control problem like ataxia or dystonia. To get disability on solely mental diagnosis is very difficult as you basically need to be proven to be a fruit loop to get it. There's men coming back from 4 stints in the Gulf War with PTSD so bad they can't even handle being around their family let alone a co-worker and they get turned down for disability. In order to get disability for strictly AS you have to be extremely severe which most Aspies aren't or else you need one wicked doctor and lawyer to get disability. Most doctors are not going to be willing to give a low GAF on AS alone.

As for VR it depends on the state. My VR person said they don't consider AS or even ADD to be a developmental disorder. So a person needs some other diagnosis to get their foot in the door. For me they used my hearing loss and head injury to get me into the VR program THEN they were able to give me some services for the Aspergers. Its not so cut and dried. IEP is the best route so she can start getting services in high school.

The impairment questions in our state ask if you purposely avoid social situations because of your disability. I still encourage you to look for your local bureau of developmental disabilities. In some states, I understand it is connected to the Department of Mental Retardation, or the Mental Health Department. In our state, most teachers didn't even know about BDDS before Transition was put into place. I encourage you again to contact a local adult service provider and ask about Medicaid waivers and other Developmental Disability waivers. Are you in South Carolina? Here is the link for your developmental disabilities department.

SC DD Website

Eligibility This is the link for Eligibility for autism.

Service providers Here is the link for the service providers. I hope this is helpful for you.

Autism page

Upon further looking, found this link on the page for autism.

application Waiver application link.

It looks as if you might actually have good support in your state for this. Good luck.

Yes. Applied for disability because the money that she get can be used toward training for education for financial independence like business, money management, budgeting, etc. She can get a head start and make some money.

Medicaid is a pain. Don't take it lightly. Fight hard but don't take success lightly. Everybody can qualified for medicaid if they are living in poverty. However, people like me that is unemployed has been rejected by medicaid while other basically are dodging work history.

When you get approved for Social Security, there should be award letter for Medicaid.

I am not sure if when she turned 18 whether it be converted to Adult SSI.

Considering that most people with AS don't actually have a family other than the one they grew up with, and no co-workers to think of (since most don't work), it's easy to see that Asperger's is more severe than an anxiety disorder like PTSD [that's of an onset where people have already done a lot compared to the person with AS who hasn't really done much in a superficial way], which can be treated.

OP: an important question would be, does your daughter want to attend school and attempt socialization? If she does, then I'd pursue some form of government help for such. If she doesn't, I doubt it'll be beneficial for her in the end [due to many possible reasons].

None of that is true. Yes, they ask about physical disability. They also ask about mental disability. People can be considered disabled for nothing more than having a measurable IQ below 70; and there is nothing physical about that. I have only mild dyspraxia, and neither a doctor nor a lawyer on my side, and I got disability unusually quickly--probably because I am impaired by AS and I have repeatedly failed at work thanks to AS. Just having "bad social skills" may not be enough, though; my additional problems with sensory overload and executive dysfunction, which actually overshadow the deficient social skills in my case, make the usual activities-of-daily-living longer and more difficult than they are for most people. Anyone who hasn't worked long enough will automatically be turned down for SSDI; SSI isn't dependent on how long you've worked, just how impaired you are. Part of my proving impairment was showing my work history--over a dozen jobs, usually kept for less than three months, usually terminated because of something AS-related. AS can be severe; in many cases, it isn't; but when it is, it can keep you from getting work.

Does your daughter have a long-term plan, for getting work or additional education after she graduates from school, by the way? At sixteen, it's past time that she should have one. She may end up graduating high school late, if she has missed two years of schoolwork; but that's not the end of the world, since she won't be unusually old at college, junior college, or trade school even at age twenty. She will also need to start working on whatever skills she hasn't got yet, that she'll need when she's out on her own. Common skills that teenagers often miss out on: Cooking, doing laundry, keeping a house clean, keeping a budget, interacting with landlords, repairmen, and other service people; buying a car; finding an apartment. Things like that should be part of her "curriculum" either at school or at home, if she hasn't learned them yet.

You're referring to medication, BTW... does she have some problem other than AS? I'm wondering because there aren't really any medications specifically for autism; the only one that's approved is Risperdal, and that's only for uncontrollable rage. Lots of autistic people are on medication anyway--off-label uses--and of course a good chunk of us have something else going on (ADHD, OCD, depression, PTSD, etc.) that can respond to medication. But the main thing that works for autism has always been education.

BTW, I do recommend applying for disability; she may never need it, but the free medical care can really come in handy, and if she does lose her job, she'll have a small income (very small, but enough to keep you alive) while she finds another. Being unemployed or under-employed is common on the spectrum, and if you are impaired to a significant degree, having a safety net really helps. But do make it clear to her that applying for disability doesn't mean you think she is not capable of taking care of herself... she may move out late, but I haven't heard of a lot of Aspies who could not learn to be independent at all.

I do not recommend any sort of residential school. Kids need their families, and yours is no different. The potential for abuse is also alarmingly high.

One of the Aspies in my college support group did go to a special school for kids with disabilities--she lived at home; it wasn't residential--and she apparently had a good experience; but please do ask yourself whether she truly needs it. It's probably going to be as expensive, or more expensive than, sending a child to college; and many times, it's no better (and can be worse than) public school. Having a good IEP in a cooperative school district can be just as good as a special school, especially if you can get them to teach her the skills that she'll need to learn before she moves out of the house.