What is ABA you ask? It is Applied Behavioral Analysis. I will go into more detail on a later post. If you can not wait that long then go ahead and check out THIS SITE.
Logan had been accept into the Autism Waiver Program back in October of last year and it took them until February to hire people to come out to our house. In this field of therapy there is your line therapist, lead therapist and a consultant as well as a program coordinator. To make a long story short, things were not being done correctly at all. I finally made enough complaints that the program coordinator came out to our home and seen what a mess things were and how everyone was not following the proper guidelines. They were training my son wrongly. He would get bored and frustrated. Especially since he had to repeat a task 40 times in one day and he had 6 different tasks to work on. He can only "sort" so many times without losing his temper. Now Logan only has to do the "sort" task 10 times in four hours as well as the others tasks. They are pretty simple right now. It consists of imitation, pulling up his pants and working on sign language.
Logans consultant had not ordered much of anything as learning tools. Logans ABA supplies were very very lacking and ineffective. Within the last week Logan has gotten a new lead therapist and a new consultant. The line therapist showed up today with an armful of things. Logans face lit up with all the new goodies to play with. Only problem, he found it hard to concentrate at the tasks because he wanted to play with the new toys! His reinforcement for completing his tasks was to be able to check out these new pretties. His favorite toy today to work for was the Handy Manny tool box.
Next on the list of supplies that were brought today was Melissa & Dougs Rainbow Caterpillar. This particular toy will help develop gross motor skills. Logan has this bagged and passed. Even though it is easy for him he loves to play with it either way. It spins and anyone who has an autistic child knows that they love to spin things. That is a classic sign of autism.
My son is not the violent or destructive autistic child. In fact he loves to cuddle. Of course that would be on his terms but he has never "hit" a thing unless told do so. Even then it is iffy if he would even do it then. His line therapist brought in the whacky ball toy. Once he figured out how to hit the ball he enjoyed it. This toy was used in his functional play time. Functional play time is where we all play and show Logan how to play with a toy properly. He even played with it after the therapist left.
I felt very confident in todays therapy session. Instead of Logan getting bored or frustrated, he had fun. The way it should be. He even learned two new signs which are cookie and milk. He even learned how to pull up his pants. He still can not get the shorts over his bottom but he mostly gets it. Tomorrow will be even more fun. More supplies coming, meeting the new lead therapist and seeing what other tasks we can work on as well as learning what the parents goals will be.
Logan did have a hard time focusing on the tasks but I play that off to the fact he has not had a therapy session since his surgery which was May 20th. He has to get in the swing of things again and get used to the new way of doing things. He was also distracted by all the new toys.
Parents if your children are in therapies or anything else and you just have this gut feeling its not going the way it should, go with it! Research it and get things on the right track. I am excited about seeing Logans progress now. I think it is time for him to soar!!
