Logan was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 1/2-years-old. We started speech therapy through First Steps at about 26mo of age. Despite him only having a word or two at that time and being functionally nonverbal now at 7 1/2-years-old, he only barely qualified for First Steps to get therapy---by one month delay and one point on his eval. At that time, First Steps was our only option for therapy.
Once First Steps ended, we transitioned to using Boone County Family Resources as a payment source and received speech therapy within our home. This type of therapy with little structure in the home was only moderately successful for Logan. His school only offered him about 30 minutes of speech therapy a week in preschool.
Years later, my insurance elected on its own to cover habilitative therapies due to "autism or congenital anomaly". Since this has been covered in our policy, Logan gets two hours of speech and one hour of occupational therapy a week at the Thompson Center. Previously, Occupational Therapy was out of reach for us because our BCFR budget was used up on ABA and speech. Since OT has been included, Logan can now legibly write all his letters, his full name, and some words, He has even recently learned to tie shoes after only a month or two of including it in therapy. I can only imagine where we would be if this kind of therapy would have been available to us when Logan was smaller. He would most likely be further along than he is now. Logan would be further along to possibly being an independent adult someday.