good news / bad news

Bad news first - the ST yearly eval came back and his scores were, gulp, 1 year 6 months for expressive and receptive language. The eval was done the first week in June, so the first week at Alpine

BUT - the ST was blown away by how well he's been doing since. she see's great improvement. When I told her that unless I can sway the insurance (and frankly, i'm tired of fighting for ST), we run out of our $2500 allotment in 4 more visits and we are then done for the year, she completely agreed that if it was a choice, we needed to leave him at Alpine.

Good news - the OT said he made great strides in just one week on the fine motor skill of cutting with scissors. Plus, he verbally, independently asked for the swing as soon as they went into the OT room.

She agrees as well, that in the full year he was getting services on a school district IEP she saw no real progress, but in the 4 weeks we've had him at Alpine getting ABA, she's seen huge strides. We're in the right place.

Related note, the Alpine insurance bill went to our insurance carrier today. It should show up online as received in 7 ish days (thats what its been running lately), then they have 30 days to make a payment decision. Fingers crossed we know something by early August. Fingers crossed that they pony up and pay the out of network 70%. We have money set aside for paying out of pocket August 1 and are working on September - it would sure make it last a lot longer if insurance paid. Huge thank you's to those of you who've paypal'd and send donations to Alpine - it really does add up. If you paypall'ed and would prefer to do a tax deductible donation to Alpine - they are allowing directed donations, you send them a letter designating you want the check going to Dominic Whitcomb Valdez's account, and enclose a check. They are thrilled to do that for us.