An update and a little more...

I was hoping that taking that leave of absence from work left me more time to blog. Ha! Right! That seems not to have worked out considering my last post was in August. I was way too optimistic and unrealistic. From now on I will cut myself some slack and blog when I can. Period. I had also hoped to separate both kids blogs, but that does not seem like it's going to work either. It will be one blog and one blog only. I will also blog about my life or my attempt at one and not just autism. It's a brand new ME!

Quinn (1) is making steady improvements in the motor skills area. With the help of PT, OT and ST he keeps improving on a daily basis. Not crawling or walking yet, but he is taking steps with support and also goes into knees and hands with little help. Fine motor skills are also emerging left and right. For example, he now holds his sippy cup proudly. He also signs "All done" and for "more." He is a super happy baby; everything is funny, everything makes him laugh. What a joy!

Kai (8) is also improving by leaps and bounds. At times, though, it's hard to remember that when he is scripting the entire Pillow Pets commercial or Elmo Holiday DVD. Urgh! He is reading at 2nd grade level (he is in 3rd grade) and doing double digit addition- even carrying over 1! He loves school and has started to use better-structured sentences unprompted! Imagine that! We are still using the doctor that is four hours away: ruling things out and going back to the beginning by carefully testing and acting on blood/urine/stool results. He is still on a GF/CF/SF/PF mostly organic diet. Up next, we will be going back to the "toxic metals" chapter. We had dropped that to focus on gut issues. Now that his yeast is under control and testing is back to normal we are ready for this stage again. 

He continues to attend hippotherapy and a social group both once a week. He has visited Sea World, local fair, the movies, bowling and even sleepovers with his social group. He LOVES it!

Both kids had a fabulous Christmas. Quinn seemed interested in the gifts, and Kai wanted to open all the presents- even if they were not his!

OK, off my soapbox for today.

Here is hoping everyone has a fantastic 2011!
May the force be with us all.

It's broken! and other news...

Yes, that's what my son said to me. He brought over a toy laptop, lifted it with his little muscles and claimed "IT'S BROKEN!" with the sweetest voice.

What wonderful two words! I could not believe it.

I took the laptop, replaced the batteries and proudly showed him that "it was NOT broken" anymore!

He has never said that. In fact, something running out of batteries or broken means a catastrophe at home because he does not understand why it happened. He usually throws himself on the ground, screams and repeats what he wants over and over. I tell ya, I wanted to run into his room and break all the toys so that he would come out and confirm to me that he knows now! lol

Then, his grandma said that while urging him to play with his computer the other day, he kept saying "BROKEN!" and my mother (who has limited English) did not realize he was saying so because his PC speakers have been broken on and off for the last month! We figured that was his way of answering her as to why he was not playing with the PC!

Yeh!

In other news, he started ABA last week, 20 hours weekly. We decided that instead of a typical summer program, ABA would be his summer goal.

I have also concluded that I will be pulling him out of speech. Two times a week is not good enough and especially what we are paying for it! He needs consistency in his therapies if they are going to work. Once summer concludes, I might put him in daily ABA sessions after school and add something else that he does 2x or 3x a week.

For now, we have high hopes for ABA and this summer.

Diving in!

So we have waited all this time to dive into ABA and we are doing it!

I have decided to take the ABA plunge for the summer.

Not sure how we will pay for it but we will figure it out.

It is ridiculously expensive! So much so, we will be doing 20 hours a week versus the recommended 40.

I decided that this was the summer for the intensity of ABA therapy for him. I am sad he won't have the type of fun summer he usually has that, while therapy oriented, is still fun and with lots of kids. I figure the good this does should roll over to many many fun summers to come.

And it better be! With an estimated cost of about 10k , it better be or my husband will kill me!

And here I thought the $184.00 per week we spent for speech therapy was bad. Yikes!

Perhaps I can look into a second job for the summer too to help out.

We have to wait until May to go in for an evaluation. That way, they get the latest info on him. He will start the second week in June and go right up to when school starts again.

In addition, I got some information from a mom of a former student from his old school. His old classmate is now almost recovered! Wow! I am looking into the protocol they are using. It is a seven steps program. By just looking at it quickly, it looks like we have been doing the top five steps already with our holistic doctor. I am wondering if to add these two steps as well, but fearful of the combination of the other stuff he is already taking. I have to read some more on it. More in a new post later. She also recommended this ABA place who she swears by and that is who we will be using.

My question is, how do parents do it? How can parents get ABA services for their kids to happen? I think I want to set a goal that if I can recover my son, I will start my own foundation to help kids and will try to make it with the least amount of red tape possible.

We never did ABA exclusively because the school he went to for pre-school was all integrated with ST, OT, ABA/VB and RDI. He was getting a little bit of the techniques but not all the time.

This is very scary to us. 
Here's hoping it works!