OT:How 2 spend $$ on Autistic child-HELP

[belle&beast]

We got a $1500.00 SSI check for our 6 year old HF Autistic son. We cannot put it into a savings account or college fund for him or we will loose his SSI benefits/medicaid (don't you just love the governments way of thinking??) We are racking our brain as to what we can get for him that would be helpful to him. He has therapy, and we even have made our spare bedroom into a makeshift therapy room. Any ideas??? We were thinking about a laptop (he is very into computers) so he can take it back and forth to school - with programs he can use at home and school and His teacher can put in things for us to do at home and we can load documents we are always needing in there (so we can print them or email them as needed) as well as being able to log his progress at therapies. However I am scared to give such an expensive piece of equipment to a 6 year old and would worry about it getting damaged or stolen - even a decent cheap one we found was $600.00!!!

Anyone been in a similar situation and can give us some advice???

Thanks

I am a speech therapist and at least in my area we have some great programs with therapeutic horseback riding. I have seen great improvements in kids (verbally) while on a horse! If he is ready it might be a good time to start him in a team sport to help with socialization. Soccer and t-ball are really great. YMCAs are great places to start looking if you don't know where to begin. I think the computer is a good idea and could be used as you said for communication with school. It can also lead to solitary play, so be careful of that. It looks like you will make the most of your funding and I wish you and your son well!

 

[DisneyDreams4P&B]

Thanks everyone for your posts. We do struggle to pay the bills (I stay at home and my husband is a police officer - and you know they make nothing...) I just felt like it was my son's money and using it on rent, clothes, food, etc. felt weird like we should be paying for those things..My husband and I have really been struggling with this. I bought him some therapy equipment and about near died when the total came to $800.00 and put some money towards medical bills our son had incurred. I guess that I am ambivelent about the money. I know we could really use it, but I hate using it to buy essential things I know we should be providing for him. When we made the decision for me to leave my job as a Marketing Director to stay at home with both boys (our youngest has a speech delay and a sensory disorder) that it would be difficult but we have always scraped by. I guess that we feel like it is his money and trying to figure out how it would best serve him has been tough. As for the computer, he has difficulty writing (most autistic children do) and he types much easier, we figures that with the computer, he would be able to do his homework and communicate easier. We didn't mean to give the impression that we were trying to be extravagant, the computer has been a great tool at home and at school for him.

Thanks again for everyone posting.

 

[roseprincess]

Thanks everyone for your posts. We do struggle to pay the bills (I stay at home and my husband is a police officer - and you know they make nothing...) I just felt like it was my son's money and using it on rent, clothes, food, etc. felt weird like we should be paying for those things..My husband and I have really been struggling with this. I bought him some therapy equipment and about near died when the total came to $800.00 and put some money towards medical bills our son had incurred. I guess that I am ambivelent about the money. I know we could really use it, but I hate using it to buy essential things I know we should be providing for him. When we made the decision for me to leave my job as a Marketing Director to stay at home with both boys (our youngest has a speech delay and a sensory disorder) that it would be difficult but we have always scraped by. I guess that we feel like it is his money and trying to figure out how it would best serve him has been tough. As for the computer, he has difficulty writing (most autistic children do) and he types much easier, we figures that with the computer, he would be able to do his homework and communicate easier. We didn't mean to give the impression that we were trying to be extravagant, the computer has been a great tool at home and at school for him.

Thanks again for everyone posting.

No problem. Just explaining what I went thru the 8 yrs. my dd got SSI. We barely scraped by ourselves, even with the monthly SSI checks. Just for us, not enough money was coming in; dh was making way low income for his position and I am a SAHM. Unfortunately, dd's caseworker was (and still is) such a witch, she literally didn't want us to have the money. For us, glad that's over with us so far.


Rosemarie