ABA Update

Tyler is doing really well in ABA therapy.  And I have to say it has been a blessing in our home.  It's not only helping him, but it is helping me too.

They are here 5 days a week, but it will be cut down to 4.  They are here 12 hours a week but it will be cut down to 11 due to company policies changing and them not doing therapies on Fridays and instead have Fridays as make-up days.  But the help here in the evenings is so wonderful.  I don't have to deal with Tylers behaviors on my own.  I have help!  In fact the therapists would rather THEY be the one to deal with the behaviors. Hey, fine by me!  It just makes our evenings SO less stressful.

Tyler IS making good progress.  One of the biggest things that he is progressing in is saying excuse me.  Tyler is very very very attention seeking.  You can't talk to anyone without him rudely butting in.  And I don't mean this on a typical 5yo level.  This is to the extreme.  So we have been working on "excuse me" since the beginning.  He still needs prompts every now and then but it is getting so much better.  Once he gets down "excuse me" in general, then we move on to him saying excuse me and waiting.  That will be a tough one!

They are also working on him having some independence.  Again this has turned into a big success too!!  They are teaching him to pull toys out on his own, play with them, and put them away...without having to ask me or needing prompts and suggestions and then fighting with him to put the toy away.  They do this by him having his own activity schedule.  He can chose what he does.  The goal is 5 activities but right now we are up to 2.  He chooses them and puts them in his schedule.  Then he has to follow it.  He has to go in order, he has to do each activity.  He has to pull them out, play with them and put them away with NO help or verbal prompts from the therapist.  If it is an activity that includes people, the therapists can of course play and do them with him.

So far success has been on and off.  The therapist has to point to the schedule and that's all she can do.  So he can get frustrated easily.  They did wean him into it.  They started with a different schedule where they did it both together.  Picked out the activities, pulled them out, did them and put them back.  So he has graduated from that step.

As a result, Tyler has on SEVERAL occasions outside of therapy, pulled out activities on his own and played with them!!!  This is the purpose of the goal!  So it's working.

They are also working on getting him to dress himself without prompts, whining and crying.  They are working on whining and crying and tantrums in general.  He has put on quite a few for them.  He didn't have these issues at first.  I warned them there would be a honeymoon phase.  That he would not exhibit these behaviors for about a month.  After a couple weeks I could tell they didn't "believe" me.  Then BOOM, about the 5th week, the real Tyler has arrived LOL.  I'm glad because they work with him THROUGH the behaviors with the goal of eliminating the majority of them.

So that's about it for now.  I am very happy and impressed.  It won't be much longer that we'll have someone working with him on weekends too.

-Tylers Mommy