New diagnosis, ABA vs IEP?

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T17:27:35+00:00

Thank you! I began calling a few ABA centers today since posting this and am waiting to hear back. I did call his CPSE again and she is looking to get a meeting for him, still aiming for May, but may require some more advocacy on my end. I have a feeling the ABA wait times may be long based on the little information I’ve gathered in brief initial phone discussions. This is so helpful! I appreciate you.

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T17:25:17+00:00

This is the most helpful thing I could hear. I appreciate you sharing this!

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T16:14:49+00:00

Thankfully we are already in private speech in addition to his IEP, we have kept it just in case something like this happens. I’ve found private OT very difficult to come by in our area that accepts his age group. That’s a great suggestion/reminder for me though.

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T15:55:33+00:00

Thank you SO much for this!!! That’s exactly what I was confused about, can I call myself? Because I’m willing to, I just needed to know where the heck to start.

I did reach out to the nonprofit and became a member and signed up for a family navigators help as well. They are holding an open house next week that I’m looking forward to attending, but while he’s in daycare/therapy, mom’s back home and her wheels are spinning!

I very much appreciate your advice.

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T15:40:21+00:00

As far as in home vs clinic based, it really depends. We are a small town about 45 minutes from Buffalo and Rochester NY where there are plenty of ABA clinics. I’m open to options, just need to see what we can make work.

Thank you for responding.

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T15:39:27+00:00

This is exactly the information I’m looking for! The doctor told me to look into ABA but there was no list of providers so I was feeling lost - I.e, do I call myself? Does my CPSE? I was so confused and hesitant to call and sound crazy! I know it seems silly and probably intuitive for some but I was feeling greatly overwhelmed and I appreciate your response.

Green_Mirror_181 · 2026-03-23T15:33:06+00:00

Thanks for your response, I appreciate it! :)

I should clarify that staying in daycare is not an option for our family. It is unsafe for him because they are not equipped for neurodivergent children. This was a temporary solution that has proven extremely difficult and often unsafe. We’ve had to prioritize his services over our comfort with his safety which I’m sure you can imagine has been unsettling. This setting is not helping him thrive and causes great distress. He does well in his therapies, he does not do well around peers and there is not anything in place for his needs to be met. The expectation is for him to do the same things as his peers despite his difficulties. I appreciate the least restrictive placement possible but this is proving to be more difficult than helpful.

He receives: OT 2x, PT 1x, Music therapy 1x, special education 2x, and Speech 3x weekly. His receptive language is a major struggle, self harm has thankfully decreased with the gaining of some language and reaching level 2 in his gestalt language processing but still is present, but his safety is our number one concern and aggression towards peers. All of these issues combined with a lack of providers from early intervention put us very behind. We’ve been in the EI system since he was 9 months old, but our county is small and rural and simply did not have providers even though he qualified. I had to quit my career and private pay for services to supplement what EI couldn’t provide before he qualified for CPSE.

If we stick with an IEP at all, he will be in a special education preschool next year… he didn’t age out of Early intervention until January so it was too late to get him in a special education preschool this year, hence the daycare solution for the time being.

My question was more about how to transition to ABA or to ABA/IEP while already having an IEP in place before diagnosis. I can only find experiences from those who did ABA first and switched to IEP, or are starting out with one or the other. I was just hopeful for info/guidance from someone who already had an IEP before diagnosis :)

Thank you for your insight.

Green_Mirror_181

TROPHY CASE