to the origional poster,
Is your child on SSI or SSDI off of a parent/grandparent? I am assuming you mean SSI but just want to make sure so I share the correct information.
Do you have means to have a family member put some money into a savings account for your family/child? For example, my grandma gets about $1800 a month in retirement benefits. Her assisted living home costs almost $3000 a month but she has money in savings (to last however much longer she will be alive, because her expenses far exceed her monthly income). She fears for the day when she has to go into a nursing home because that's even more expensive and even with the money in savings, it will all be gone in a year at the nursing home price. So, she liquidated everything in her savings except for a few thousand dollars and the rest is in a bank account that my mom and dad have, and my moms sister and her husband have. That way, when the time comes, she can get govt. assistance to pay for some of the nursing home. THat way she won't deplete all of her savings in 1 year. In order to protect herself though, they drew up a contract with a lawyer (or you can do it yourself) stating who's money it is, who it is to be used for and so on...
Maybe you can implement something like that for your situation.
Also, not that it makes a big difference, but I am pretty sure that the resource limit is $3000 for a family, $2000 for an individual.
If when your child is older (over 18) and has worked and established at least 6 "work" credits (I can give you more info from the SSA website if you are interested) and applies and qualifies for SSDI, the amount of savings or resources your child has doesn't matter. Resources and income only count for SSI, not SSDI. My husband recieves SSDI right now, but they pay him off of his work history, not based on our family size/income and resources.
I hope this makes sense.