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!

Words are just words...or are they?

We have increased my son's Methylaid to one more added to his existing dose.

In this past week we have seen some new spontaneous words.

"Look! Over there!" which of course is random and really doesn't mean anything, but it's speech right? It's what we want and how it starts.

There has also been:


"C'mon, hurry, let's go!" said while in bed

"Go" when telling his grandma to move out of the way as she is in front of his PC

"That's a great idea" blurted out randomly

and my favorite:

"You're so haaaaappy" when he is crying instead of what he was saying before "You're so mean." I guess someone taught him not to say "mean" and instead say "happy." He still cries and blurts out "you're so happy." I's the cutest thing, yet sad at the same time. Sigh. But, hey, it's vocabulary!

We have been teaching the phrase "Mommy, can I please watch_________" to replace the simpler " I want __________" and it has been coming out more spontaneously this week as well.

I am going to dare say there has been an increase in comprehension as well.

Yesterday's comment by me "Go get daddy and tell him it's sleepy time!" resulted in him going to his room, shutting off the pc, lights and grabbing daddy's hand while saying " Come with me."  Not too shabby, huh? I fully expected him to stop halfway, forget what he was running towards and return, but that was not the case.

Lastly, while I was nagging at him prior to his nap time this afternoon (to please drink some more water), he cried and said "sleepy time!" which is what I usually say to him in response to him whining about anything prior to nap time...LOL! Role reversal. Gotta love it!