Fewer kids in need get therapy

State cuts force drop in access to disability program

AUSTIN — At just over 18 months old, Jackson Raygor struggled to walk more than a few steps at a time. His body would lag back and forth as his undiagnosed cerebral palsy forced the muscles in his legs to work against him.

Step, fall. Two steps, fall. Sometimes five steps, fall again.

It was 2015, and Joshua Raygor said he and his wife, Kyla, knew something was wrong. After talking to doctors and moving to Houston for work, they enrolled Jackson in Early Childhood Intervention, a state program providing therapy to children under 3 with disabilities or developmental delays.

“When he walked at the time, you could see how much of a struggle it was for him. Now you see him running; you see him walking; you see him playing,” said Raygor. “It’s a lot more subtle these days due to the work that they’ve done.”

But fewer and fewer children are getting access to the program that helped Jackson. The number of

young children enrolled in intervention to cope with conditions that also include autism, speech delays and Down syndrome has dropped 21 percent in the Texas Gulf Coast region as state funding for the program waned.

‘Heartbreaking’ cuts

Hardest hit over the last six years were black children, whose numbers fell by 44 percent regionally and 52 percent in Harris County, according to Texans Care for Children, a nonprofit advocacy and research group studying enrollment in the Early Intervention Program.

“Thanks to ECI, children learn to walk, swallow, communicate with their families and get ready for school,” said Stephanie Rubin, CEO of Texans Care for Children. “It’s heartbreaking to know that children are missing these opportunities due to state cuts.”

The Texas Legislature approved cuts to the program in 2010. Since then, funding has dropped from $166 million in 2011 to $148 million in fiscal year 2018, leading providers to tighten eligibility criteria.

Lawmakers also cut Medicaid reimbursement rates to community providers offering the services in 2015, though state legislators returned this year and restored about one quarter of cut funding.

Hurricane Harvey made access to therapy worse, with more than a quarter of the state’s contractors located in areas hit by the storm, according to the study. Some contractors sustained damage to their facilities, straining their ability to provide services. In other cases, the storm displaced families with children enrolled for therapy, causing them to miss appointments.

Since 2016, six contractors that provide services including speech, physical and occupational therapies to children with disabilities have quit the program, leaving 44 providers across the state. Texas was home to 58 providers before the Legislature cut the program’s budget.

Overall, children receiving services statewide fell 10 percent from 2011 to 2016, while the state’s population of children under age three increased slightly between 2011 and 2015, according to a study of enrollment. In the Gulf Coast region, which included 10 counties in the Greater Houston area and three other lower-population counties, enrollment fell by 21 percent, from 12,062 children to 9,482 children.

Meanwhile, enrollment in several area counties climbed, surpassing the number of children receiving services in 2011 when state funds were originally cut, according to the study. Those include Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Liberty, Waller, Matagorda and Wharton.

House lawmakers fought during the summer’s special legislative session to fully restore cuts to the program, but those efforts failed to gain support in the Senate or from the governor’s office because the issue was not among the 20 that Gov. Greg Abbott asked lawmakers to consider.

Still a struggle

The Raygors said they can’t imagine what their social and athletic son, now 4, would be like without early intervention. Jackson’s physical therapist from Easter Seals met with him twice a week, getting him walking and ensuring doctors gave him proper leg braces to retrain his muscles.

Now he plays T-ball, enjoys kicking around a soccer ball and running up to other kids asking if they want to play, his father said. Stairs are still a struggle, however, and some playground equipment is difficult for him, Raygor said.

“I hate to think of where my child would be right now had he not gotten the level of services that he had,” Raygor said. “Right now, he lives pretty close to a typical 4-year-old life.”