Out of the Ordinary Places to Get Needed Equipment for Children with Autism

(or any other disability for that matter!)

At some point in time most parents of children with autism will realize that they need different pieces of equipment or tools to work with their child. This article explores some of the ways parents have found to meet those needs.

After working with therapists many parents choose to buy specific pieces of equipment. Of course this is the easiest and probably the quickest solution. The only suggestion is not to forget to use the good shopping techniques you have learned in other areas of your life. Just because some of the equipment you need might be considered medical equipment does not mean you can not shop around for the best price.

Call several places or look up several prices online. Do not forget to ask for a discount. If buying online and you are buying several items will the company give you free shipping. Also check if there is a just as good piece of this equipment that is not considered medical or therapy. A ball pool can be expensive if bought through a company that supplies medical equipment and quite a bit less expensive when bought as a toy.

Another suggestion is to use skills you already possess. Can you barter those skills for needed supplies? Of course this might only work with a physical company but may be well worth your time. Small medical supply companies might be more than willing to barter typing, accounting, or even cleaning skills for equipment.

Do you know other parents who have children with autism? Can you trade items which your child no longer uses? If you know parent of older children would they be willing to ‘hand me down’ old equipment. Of course you need to make sure the equipment is appropriate and in working order. Bring it to your therapy provider and ask them to check the item out.

Another possibility is to look for local organizations which operate a loan closet. Many disability organizations operate a loan closet. Those closets can have pieces of equipment that are reusable as well as one time use equipment. One of our local loan closets at times has special formulae and the larger than baby size diapers. Of course you can find equipment that you can try out or keep indefinitely as well.

Response to My Three Questions

I am so excited someone responded! As promised here is their answers in their entirety.

Thank you for visiting www.HealingThresholds.com. My answers follow.

Do you think people with autism need to be "fixed'?

No, not necessarily. Autism is a spectrum disorder and there are a variety of symptoms that are associated with autism. Some people have severe and painful GI symptoms and I believe those symptoms should be treated and the underlying problem “fixed.” Some people have self injurious behavior and those people should be helped. Some children are bullied and they deserve to understand bullying and be taught how to address it within the system.

Most of all, a diagnosis of autism can be difficult for the entire family and I think that all aspects of the family need to be healed. Sometimes the healing may involve an evolution of the parents so they learn to meet the child exactly where that child is and love the child for who s/he is and not who they want the child to be.

2. Do you think therapies for people who have autism are overpriced?

Mostly no. Caring for a child with autism is extraordinarily resource-intensive. It requires buckets full of time, energy, love, and money. I do not believe that speech therapists overcharge or occupational therapists overcharge or art therapists overcharge. In most cases supplements can be purchased for a reasonable price.

There are, however, treatment programs that are extraordinarily expensive. These include some ABA programs as well as some of the more intensive implementations of the DAN protocol. While it is hard for me to call them overpriced, I do think that parents should be very thoughtful when spending their precious resources. In my mind this means having a very specific and clear understanding of what the treatment goals are and how long the treatment should be continued before some progress is seen on the treatment goals. There is not time or money enough to do everything for every child. We also know that not all treatment approaches will work for every child. Therefore parents, therapists, physicians, and teachers need to have honest discussions about specific treatment goals and which treatments have the best odds of achieving those goals. There should also be honest discussion about when it is best to abandon a treatment because it is not advancing the child.

3. How do I buy all the equipment I am told is necessary?


What equipment? Who tells you what is necessary? This goes back to the answer to number 2 above. No parents should be put in a position of thinking that if they can’t afford a piece of equipment their child will not do well. Therapists, physicians, and teachers need to support the parent so that the parent feels s/he is healing the child with the resources that are available. Healing Thresholds is designed as a free resource to help parents sift through all of the different opinions and ask hard questions of the different members of the therapy team. When parents of newly diagnosed children write me asking similar questions, I point them to this page: http://autism.healingthresholds.com/new-diagnosis-of-autism
These are great questions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to weigh in.

- Lara

Lara C. Pullen, Ph.D.
CEO and Founder
http://autism.healingthresholds.com/
Connecting community and science to heal autism.

Autism and Food Budgets

Many children with autism are picky eaters. I have one of those children. One of the techniques I learned was to keep a list of things she would eat, even if she only ate them occasionally.

I was surprised. There was variety in what she ate. The list helped me feel better that she did eat more than I thought she did. Using the list to routinely offer her food she only ate sometimes also helped keep her diet as varied as possible.

I also was able to keep better control of our food budget. I knew which items to watch for coupons and/or sales. There was less waste since I was very selective about new foods I wanted to introduce. With the help of my list, I also choose foods similar in taste or texture to what she already would eat.

Here is one of my children’s list:

Chicken Nuggets
Breakfast Burritos
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo with Rice
Cheese Nachos

Apple Juice
Orange Juice

Sprite

Raw Vegetables with Ranch Dip

Whole Nuts

Cereal

Yogurt
Milk
String Cheese

Any sweet type snack cake

More of My List

I think I like lists...

10. Ball pits can be found online, but get well-reviewed ones.

11. Avoid autism toys that say therapy on it. Usually you can buy the same exact thing at a much cheaper price by surfing www.amazon.com.

12. Indoor hammocks, mini trampolines and rocking chairs could be purchased on www.ebay.com cheap or gotten for free from www.freecycle.org.

13. Homemade play dough can be used in sensory activities, and egg-less cookie dough can also be used if they put play dough in their mouth. It’s cheaper than therapy play dough and better for your child if they put it in their mouth.

And Again...

Yes, I know it is taking me a while to get this together. I will be more diligent about it...

6. Avoid surfing the Internet too much. There is a lot of misinformation on the web. Nothing you did or didn't do caused your child's autism. You are not to blame.

7. Use your library before deciding which books go into your home. Check with local disability organizations like Families Helping Families to see if they have free lending libraries. Some books are by parents whose children really had much milder autism than they realized and some books are very negative.

8. "1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders" by Veronica Zysk and Ellen Notbohm is great. This book is a surprisingly thin book for all the wealth of information it has. The book has loads of budget sensory therapy ideas and more.

9. If your child can read, you can spend hundreds of dollars on specially made social stories or
www.frsd.k12.nj.us/autistic/Parent%20Training/social_stories%20notes.htm
explains how to make them for free.

Autism Therapy on a Budget continued

3. Play therapy can be a lot of fun and it doesn't have to cost a lot. Autism Games has a lot of low cost ideas at http://autismgames.googlepages.com/.

4. Evaluate relatives for the characteristics needed to help. If grandma is healthy, loving and can handle your child, you could have grandmother trained to do therapy at home. Nieces and nephews might be glad to help, with your supervision of course. You might want to pay a little, if you can. Books like "Engaging Autism" can be a place to start.

5. There are inspirational interviews with famous Temple Grandin on www.npr.com for free. Just search her name.

Be patient this is a work in progress!

Autism Therapy on a Budget

I can remember, when my child was diagnosed with autism, investigating all the therapies and options available for her. And boy, were some of them expensive! I was a single mom and I had to so the best I could with what I could get. I would have loved a list like this back then. There are a lot of suspicious ‘therapies’ out there, be careful. In one treatment, that cost $5,000, you were given activities which you could have gotten from a $13 sensory integration book and a booklet of $5 scratch and sniff stickers.

Although many people with autism will need lifelong care, they can work, marry, and lead normal lives on a variety of levels. There are even people with autism who are geniuses, but have problems with sensory pain which causes outbursts. The future of your child still lays open before them!

1. Use free school resources like early intervention classes. Use the school speech therapist or any other therapist your child needs. Some people have moved because the school cannot provide the speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy which their child needs.

2. ABA can be expensive but you can do matching games on your own and add that to a school based play intervention with speech therapy. You can mix this with other free and low cost therapies. You can make your own flash cards by searching the internet. Laminate the cards for wear and tear.

I will add to this list in the upcoming days...

Autism Therapy On A Budget Continued

And Again

More of My List

Getting To the End

Autism and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

The full spectrum lights seem to be helpful for people with Autism and Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some of the professionals working with the people who have autism call these lights ‘Seven Spectrum Frequency Lighting’. Unfortunately these lights are very expensive on the order of $15,000 for the set. A relatively inexpensive solution is ‘grow lights’ that would be used on a planetarium or fish tank. You might be able to buy one every so often until you had a bank of these to use in the mornings.

Spending My Money Twice

I like to spend my money twice. Let me tell you what I mean. I went to Walgreens last Friday. I'm on the Walgreens email list and got a coupon for $5.00 off of $20.00 purchase. I also had the Walgreens flyer in my car. I had a coupon to get the already on sale for $1.00 Pringles for $0.79, the regularly priced $0.79 and candy bars for $0.39. I also got 2 twelve packs of toilet paper which had a $2.00 rebate in the Walgreens supersaver and a bottle of calcium pills for $5.99 which I will get my purchase price back with the supersaver.

By the time I was finished I had $30.43 cents worth of merchandise. After coupons and rebates I paid $14.33. I get to spend the $16.10 I would have spent over again. The only thing I purchased which I might not have normally purchased was the calcium pills. With 3 females in my family and the fact I got the full purchase price back, I felt it was worth buying.

I know people do much better than this on their shopping trips. When you consider the time I have available to devote to my 'spending money twice' hobby I am very satisfied with my savings.
Till Next Time,
Mylinda