Tag: AZ DDD
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Arizona Legislators: Are You Pro-Life?
Many legislators in our state proudly tout their pro-life support. This week, as letters were being read about the lives of disabled community members during a legislative session, some of our legislators walked out without listening, ultimately blocking a bill from being passed that would have resolved budget shortfalls to disability services in this state.…
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Regarding Proposed Cuts To Services for the Developmentally Disabled in Arizona
An Open Letter to Governor Hobbs, the Arizona State Legislature, and each of you: In this house, my kiddo has now been without PT and OT for more than a month as the situation I wrote about in my last post remains an active and unresolved matter. So in what would have been an OT…
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Habilitation Needs To Be In Waiver To Meet Member Needs: An Open Letter To Arizona AHCCCS Administration
My name is Ariana T and my son, Anthony (Tony) has multiple qualifying DDD diagnoses. He has complex behavioral and therapeutic needs, but has demonstrated progress through his therapies that have allowed him to gain skills he otherwise would not have had, thus reducing the cost of providing future services to him. For the past…
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Meetings: The Foundation of our ABA Programs
In Arizona, once a kiddo is diagnosed with a qualifying disability, they can apply for both the Arizona Long Term Care System (ALTCS) and Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) services. When Tony was diagnosed with level three Autism, we immediately applied for both services because the insurance we had at the time would not cover…
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Needs To Stay
This is not a post designed for artistic eloquence, but rather one where I am speaking as a mother directly from my heart to the Arizona State Division of Developmental Disabilities, Governor Ducey, and all those responsible for funding disabilities services in this state. Whatever else we choose to leave behind from the emergency phase…
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Public Comments and Open Letter on Proposed Changes to the AAC Policy for Division of Developmental Disabilities Recipients
Earlier this week I submitted comments to the Division of Developmental Disabilities as part of a legally mandated public comment period for proposed changes to the policy that governs prior authorization for assistive speech device technology, or AAC. For a while now my posting schedule has been every Friday, however I felt like for those…
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Will We Look Away?
A couple of years ago, I was driving Tony to one of his many therapy appointments. As I pulled to a corner of an exit ramp, I lowered my window and held out some cash to a gentleman standing at the corner with a sign. He quickly met my eyes and then looked down, back…
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A Little Bit About Article 9…
Much of my time feels like it’s not really my own right now- paid or unpaid- so I’m going to keep my words and explanations here as stripped down as possible.. A question could be posed after reading last week’s post: why would being a temporary direct care worker covering our son’s habilitation hours increase…
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Coloring Marigolds and Other Early November Moments
November started with me plucking crayons like petals from a Ziploc bag, handing only one at a time to Tony, who colored an image of marigolds in short bursts while I talked to him about Dia de los Muertos. Coloring marigolds seemed more suited to our son’s current fine motor abilities than sugar skulls, which…
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R.I.P. Speech Device
This is one of those weeks where I was initially planning on writing about an entirely different subject. I am going to move that previously planned post to a different week because I feel current events require a change in plans. Today, Tony’s original speech device died (this is the device he’s been using since…