Help for Military Families With a Child on the Spectrum

When the Hollopeters, a Coast Guard family now living on the base in Fort Wadsworth, moved here from California last year, they thought their autistic son would be able to receive the same level of subsidized health care.
They were wrong.
Not only was Taylor, 7, deemed ineligible by the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) because of the progress he had made, but the eight-month delay while the family appealed the ruling and then established subsequent care set him back socially, said his mother, Amy.
Now, an amendment being offered by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) would help military families like Taylor's, who move every few years and must re-establish critical medical and social services in their new communities -- and are often faced with footing the bill to fill in the blanks.