Everyday skills, everyday wins.
Practical guides on autism, skill building, and the small moments that change a family's life, written by the clinicians and specialists at Levi Life Skills, serving families across Los Angeles.
How to Potty Train an Autistic Child When Nothing Works
Most potty training advice says to wait for signs of readiness. For a lot of autistic kids that signal never arrives. Here is the schedule we run instead, the honest timeline, and what to do when the poop stalls.
Life Skills Development
ABA vs Adaptive Skills Training: Which One, or Both?
ABA goes after behavior. Adaptive skills training goes after the mornings, meals and errands your child still needs you for. What each one teaches, who comes to your house, how hard each is to get, and how families have both.
IEP vs IPP: Which Plan Gets Your Child Help at Home?
Your child's IEP covers the school day. The IPP covers mornings, evenings, weekends and life at home. What each plan can get your child, where to ask for what, and what to do when each side sends you to the other.
IHSS Protective Supervision for Autism: A Parent's Guide
Protective supervision is the part of IHSS that pays someone to keep watch when your child can't see danger. Who qualifies, the forms, the home visit, and what to do if the county says no.
Latest
Regional Center Respite Care: Hours, Workers and How to Ask
Respite pays someone to watch your family member so you get a break. How your Regional Center sets the hours, who can be the worker, and the email that starts it.
Regional Center & Services
How to Become an IHSS Parent Provider (And Keep Your Job)
California's IHSS program can pay you to care for your own child, and since February 2024 you don't have to quit your job first. The steps, the forms, and how timesheets work.
Regional Center & Services
IHSS Max Hours: What a Child Gets and a Provider Can Work
The most IHSS gives one person, the most one provider can work, and what decides your number, from paramedical care to protective supervision. Plus how IHSS differs from WPCS.
Regional Center & Services
What Is a Regional Center? Services for Kids and Adults
A Regional Center is where help for autism and other developmental disabilities starts in California. What it pays for, what changes for adults, whether ADHD qualifies, and how to start.
Regional Center & Services
What Is the Lanterman Act? What It Promises Your Family
California's Lanterman Act makes help for developmental disabilities a right, for life. What it promises your family, in plain words, and how to use it at your next IPP meeting.
Regional Center & Services
Regional Center Service Coordinator: How to Get an Answer
Your service coordinator is the door to every Regional Center service. How to reach them, what to do when they go quiet, and the exact words to ask for a new one.
Regional Center & Services
Can Level 2 Autism Live Independently? What Decides It
Usually yes, with some help. What each level really tells you, the everyday skills that decide it, and what California pays for, with a few words from parents and autistic adults on Reddit.
Life Skills Development
4 Questions to Ask a Provider Before You Sign Again
The last one did not work out, and now every agency on your list says the same four things. Four questions that tell them apart, what a real answer sounds like, and the one answer that should end the conversation.
Regional Center & Services
How to Get Adaptive Skills Training From Your Regional Center
Nobody offers adaptive skills training, so it starts when you ask for it by name. Who to email, how to find their address in thirty seconds, how long your Regional Center has to answer, and what to do if it says no.
Regional Center & Services
10 Best Activities for Autistic Kids to Meet Other Kids
Signing them up for something and hoping is how most of these end. Ten places sorted by age, from 2 through high school, what each one costs, and the question to ask before you pay for anything.
Parenting Strategies
10 Best Activities for Autistic Adults to Meet New People
School handed them a room full of people five days a week, for free. Then it stopped. Ten places an autistic adult can be around other people, what each one costs, and who pays for it.
Life Skills Development
How to Help Your Autistic Child Play With Kids at the Park
Kids who stand at the edge of the playground usually want in and don't know the way. Four coaching moves, run from a step behind, that fade you back to the bench over six to eight visits.
Parenting Strategies
What Is an IPP? How Your Child's Regional Center Plan Works
The IPP decides what your Regional Center pays for. What's in it, how it differs from an IEP, six services to ask for by name, and the two boxes to tick when the answer is no.
Parenting Strategies
ESY Denied in California: A Parent's Step-by-Step Guide
Your district ran one of the three legal tests for ESY and stopped. Here are the other two, the email that forces a second meeting, and what Regional Center can pay for if the answer is still no.
Regional Center & Services
Will Medicaid Cuts Affect My Child's Regional Center Services?
Nobody is going to flip a switch. Here is what California law still guarantees, what you are likely to feel instead, and the four things to do this month that make the difference.
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