Pump it Up
-Second Monday of the month it is reserved just for special needs kids and their families.
Autism/Sensory friendly theaters
AMC theaters-you can even bring your own food.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, December 6, 2010
Speech Therapy and ABA at Home
These days, insurance is covering ABA at home, but many parents want their child to have more hours of training than their insurance will cover. ABA is a form of behavior modification, used to teach skills. It stands for "Applied Behavior Analysis". The basic premise is that you break down a task into measurable parts that are easier for the child to learn. You use very consistent reinforcement.
So, for example, we started with wanting to teach our daughter to answer yes or no for a basic question. We started with her favorite food, cantaloupe. Before expecting her to learn the skill, we role modeled the skill. I would show her the cantaloupe. Then I would say, "Alyssa, do you want cantaloupe?" I would say, "Yes, I want cantaloupe". Then I would give her a bite. I would do that every time for about 10 bites.
After a few days of this, I upped the ante. She either had to nod her head or say yes in order get the cantaloupe. I would ask the question and when she said yes, I immediately gave her a bite. We repeated for 10 bites, and did this daily for a few days. Once she was consistently successful with this task, we generalized the yes/no "Do you want" question to other things. This is so important because it gives the child the ability to answer you for what they want. This verbal skill lowers their frustration and hence lowers the frequency of tantrums.
Anyone can learn to do ABA. I highly recommend the book, "Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The Me Book" by Ivar Lavaas. It will walk you through the steps and it will give you specific goals to work on with your child.
So, for example, we started with wanting to teach our daughter to answer yes or no for a basic question. We started with her favorite food, cantaloupe. Before expecting her to learn the skill, we role modeled the skill. I would show her the cantaloupe. Then I would say, "Alyssa, do you want cantaloupe?" I would say, "Yes, I want cantaloupe". Then I would give her a bite. I would do that every time for about 10 bites.
After a few days of this, I upped the ante. She either had to nod her head or say yes in order get the cantaloupe. I would ask the question and when she said yes, I immediately gave her a bite. We repeated for 10 bites, and did this daily for a few days. Once she was consistently successful with this task, we generalized the yes/no "Do you want" question to other things. This is so important because it gives the child the ability to answer you for what they want. This verbal skill lowers their frustration and hence lowers the frequency of tantrums.
Anyone can learn to do ABA. I highly recommend the book, "Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The Me Book" by Ivar Lavaas. It will walk you through the steps and it will give you specific goals to work on with your child.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Getting Started on the Autism Recovery Journey
I started with Karyn Seroussi's book, Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder: A Mother's Story of Research and Recovery.
I cannot rave enough about this book. God used it to start our journey of recovery. He used it to energize me for the hardest and most arduous journey of my life. After reading this book, it became very, very clear to my spirit that God was leading me down a path of recovering our daughter completely. Somehow, amidst my own severe health issues at the time, He gave me the strength to see our daughter through this and meet her at the other side of it.
Karyn discusses her journey with her son. She uses lots of scientific evidence to explain the potential healing effects of dietary intervention in the lives of children on the autism spectrum. I have met more families with autistic children than I can count, and I know from that experience that not all AS children respond positively to dietary intervention. However, I have also seen dietary intervention be nothing short of miraculous. It was most of the puzzle for our daughter, and I've seen it have huge impact on other AS children as well.
Upon completing that book, I then found a website that sold not only a 3 ring binder detailing how to implement the diet, but they also had already done the research on many, many brands that were gluten and casein free, and it was not expensive. That information can be found at www.gfcfdiet.com.
We also researched the Autism Research Institute. At one time I did have the pleasure of speaking briefly with Dr. Rimland. I ordered the DAN protocol. It was weighted with very heavy science, but I highly recommend it! ARI has truly been a cornerstone for research in autism.
We also had our daughter do Berard Auditory Integration Training. To prepare our daughter, her OT started her with Somonas. All of this was nothing short of miraculous in healing her auditory processing issues!
There were additional steps we took, and I will go into more detail in the future. Of course, speech therapy was a must, among other things.
Every mom I have known of an AS child has worked the hours of 4 full time jobs. All I can say is that our hard work paid off, and we are very, very blessed to have seen complete healing.
I hope that our story encourages other families and provides ideas and resources in your journey. We found that not every therapy was necessary for our child but that every therapy was worth our time and energy to research, pray about, and with discernment attempt certain ones. That is not to say that some therapies are better than others. It is to say that what worked for our daughter may or may not work for another AS child and that it is worth it to gain as much knowledge as possible about every therapy that is available.
More tomorrow on the speech therapy and ABA we implemented at home.
I cannot rave enough about this book. God used it to start our journey of recovery. He used it to energize me for the hardest and most arduous journey of my life. After reading this book, it became very, very clear to my spirit that God was leading me down a path of recovering our daughter completely. Somehow, amidst my own severe health issues at the time, He gave me the strength to see our daughter through this and meet her at the other side of it.
Karyn discusses her journey with her son. She uses lots of scientific evidence to explain the potential healing effects of dietary intervention in the lives of children on the autism spectrum. I have met more families with autistic children than I can count, and I know from that experience that not all AS children respond positively to dietary intervention. However, I have also seen dietary intervention be nothing short of miraculous. It was most of the puzzle for our daughter, and I've seen it have huge impact on other AS children as well.
Upon completing that book, I then found a website that sold not only a 3 ring binder detailing how to implement the diet, but they also had already done the research on many, many brands that were gluten and casein free, and it was not expensive. That information can be found at www.gfcfdiet.com.
We also researched the Autism Research Institute. At one time I did have the pleasure of speaking briefly with Dr. Rimland. I ordered the DAN protocol. It was weighted with very heavy science, but I highly recommend it! ARI has truly been a cornerstone for research in autism.
We also had our daughter do Berard Auditory Integration Training. To prepare our daughter, her OT started her with Somonas. All of this was nothing short of miraculous in healing her auditory processing issues!
There were additional steps we took, and I will go into more detail in the future. Of course, speech therapy was a must, among other things.
Every mom I have known of an AS child has worked the hours of 4 full time jobs. All I can say is that our hard work paid off, and we are very, very blessed to have seen complete healing.
I hope that our story encourages other families and provides ideas and resources in your journey. We found that not every therapy was necessary for our child but that every therapy was worth our time and energy to research, pray about, and with discernment attempt certain ones. That is not to say that some therapies are better than others. It is to say that what worked for our daughter may or may not work for another AS child and that it is worth it to gain as much knowledge as possible about every therapy that is available.
More tomorrow on the speech therapy and ABA we implemented at home.
Recovery: it can happen
I don't know that I have the emotional energy to start at the beginning of our story, so I will fill that in another time.
What I do want moms to know is that there are kids out there who have recovered from autism, and I hope my blog will be a place where we can encourage each other and also encourage moms whose kids are still in the process of recovery.
I say "process of recovery" because any progress is movement towards some level of recovery. I know that not every child will make a full recovery, but many, many of them make significant progress, and some, like our daughter make a full recovery.
Please keep your comments to those that are uplifting and encouraging. I do not want to use this blog as a place to debate. It is a place for moms who need a place to share their victories and their discouragements and for other moms to lift them up and share in their journey.
Our daughter is now nine and a half years old. She is full of life, very happy, has lots of friends, amazing (almost gifted) social skills, and academics beyond her years. I don't say that to brag; I say it to encourage you that progress and even, at times, full recovery can happen.
Our journey started when Alysa was just about 12-15 months old. By the time she was three, she was fully recovered.
More on my next post on things we did to get her to that point.
What I do want moms to know is that there are kids out there who have recovered from autism, and I hope my blog will be a place where we can encourage each other and also encourage moms whose kids are still in the process of recovery.
I say "process of recovery" because any progress is movement towards some level of recovery. I know that not every child will make a full recovery, but many, many of them make significant progress, and some, like our daughter make a full recovery.
Please keep your comments to those that are uplifting and encouraging. I do not want to use this blog as a place to debate. It is a place for moms who need a place to share their victories and their discouragements and for other moms to lift them up and share in their journey.
Our daughter is now nine and a half years old. She is full of life, very happy, has lots of friends, amazing (almost gifted) social skills, and academics beyond her years. I don't say that to brag; I say it to encourage you that progress and even, at times, full recovery can happen.
Our journey started when Alysa was just about 12-15 months old. By the time she was three, she was fully recovered.
More on my next post on things we did to get her to that point.
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