4/29/08

Well now we know why Tyler was a little off this weekend, he came down with a runny nose yesterday. He also seemed very sensory oriented today which happens when he's under the weather. Easily over stimulated and really into sensory things such as looking/trying to touch my eye, yes I know that sound weird but that is one of his self stimulating behaviors. Overall today's session went well, we had trouble up'ing the ante since Tyler was under the weather and easily overregulated. However, we also had a videotape session today and I think he did pretty well. It was a generalized video, meaning Tyler and I had to work on things that are not part of our study routines. One of the things I worked with was the vaccum. Tyler loves the vaccum, so I used it to help get him to communicate with him> I would vaccum for a minute and then turn it off and say "on" and try to get him to make sounds, eye contact, gestures, etc. It worked, he is very motivated by teh vaccume and by the end of the routine (which lasted maybe 10 mins total) he was making the "ahh" sound which is pretty close to "on" to me! It was hard to hold out because sometimes it's a good 30 seconds which is an eternity when you so badly want to help your son... but it worked becuase he would finally say it and give me eye contact. Yeah Tyler! Hand washing also looked great. He climbs the step, turns on the light, and turns on the water all independently :) Great job Tyler.

Tomorrow we go to floor time at the school district and we get to meet the new speech therapist, Lisa Meszaros, I'll also get to meet Jody Howard who oversees the therapists and who I've been working with to make some changes. I'm really excited to move forward with all this. After the initial meeting, our next step is to get the OT, ST and Carrie all together with Tyler so we can talk strategies moving forward.

I also was able to get a billing code from the potential ABA therapist so I sent this off to HR and am anxiously waiting a response. Carrie gave me info on two potential organizations that offer grants so I'm going to look into those and see if we can get some sort of grant to help fund some of Tyler's therapy. Carrie also mentioned a conference coming up in the fall which although is expensive, she said this would be one of the best conferences for me to go to for all in one shopping in regards to ABA so she's going ot get me some information on that.