Small and Simple Things

Today we had our second ABA Therapy session AND Desmond's first Speech Therapy session! We had double trouble without the trouble today. It made for a long day, but over all both sessions went really well.

ABA
We got a few more of our questions answered today about Desmond and where we go from here. Moral of the, "Where do we go from here?" question is that getting Desmond back on track is going to be a slow process with a lot of repetition. For example, today we did a lot of, what they call, imitation. The therapist would do something, like stacking Lego's, and then tried to get Des to do the same thing. After each imitation she would then give Des a reward for imitating (like blowing bubbles, watching Sesame Street, playing games on the iPad). She would limit the time he got to be rewarded though. She would set a timer on her phone for a minute or so. Once it went off she would put the reward away and it was time to work again. She explained to us that she does this so that when he hears the bell go off that he knows the reward time is over and it's time to go back to work. She also spent a lot of time just playing with him. This is what we're going to see a lot of moving forward; a lot of small things that hopefully add up and move us forward. One thing that was nice to see today was Desmond signing for "more". We have been working on the sign for "more" for about 4 months now and he's finally getting it! He signed for "more" a bunch while she was working with him! It's the little things right? Des was up at 6:00 this morning so by the end of the session he was getting tired. We decided to put him down for his nap early. He got about an hour and a half nap and then it was time to start Speech Therapy.

Speech Therapy
Speech Therapy went really well today. It went just as I expected it to. Like most first appointments, the majority of the session gets eaten up by explaining Desmond's history. We spent most of the time explaining Desmond's behaviors, his speech delay, his hearing exams, and our road that lead us to start ABA. It was nice because the Speech Therapist actually has a daughter who is autistic so we didn't have to explain in detail what we have been seeing. She completely understood because she has dealt with it firsthand. The last bit of the session was dedicated to what we can be doing to help Des with his language. I'm trying to think of a simple way to explain what she wants us to do...but I'm coming up with nothing. Bare with me and I'll try to explain the best I can what she wants us to do. Basically she wants us to get him to "share". "Share" meaning, 'steal the things he's playing with to get him to look at you'. I know that sounds rude, but let me explain. The example she used was Desmond's sippy-cup. He was drinking out of it and she grabbed it from him (of course nicely), put it up to her cheek and said, "cup" and gave it right back to him. What we're trying to do here is to get him to look at the object, put it up near our mouth so that he will look at our lips, put a name to the object, in hopes that he'll start paying attention to our lips and the words we're saying. There is probably a WAY simpler way of explaining this, but this is the best I can do. Imagine for a moment if you were playing intently with something and someone took it from you. You'd turn your head, look at the person, and be like "What the heck?!". We hope Des will do this too. In therapy terms, this is interaction. Interaction is the KEY to getting Desmond to start talking. Of course, just like with ABA, this is going to be a slow process. The hope with consistency, patients (on my end), and daily baby steps we'll start to see some progress down the road.

4 months ago we started teaching Desmond how to sign for "more" and now we're seeing the fruits of our labors. I think this is how our journey is going to be in the long run. This scripture comes to mind, "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."-Alma 37:6
I may not understand the small steps that Desmond is going to take, but I am sure that as the days start adding up that "great things" will come to pass in our little family. I may not be able to see our future, and the unknown can be scary, but I know God is in control. I know that He loves me and I know He loves my Desmond. I know that if I lean on and follow His understanding that someday these small and simple things will turn into something great. Baby steps.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...

August 19, 2016

Today was our first session with Desmond's new therapist and it went really well. I don't know what I was expecting, I think the worst. This whole week I was thinking, "She's going to come in and tell me all the horrible things I've been doing as his mother and that we need to change everything!" I tend to do that. I tend to think of the WORST possible scenario. There is a positive to this way of thinking though, it never ends up being THAT bad. This was the case today.
She came for 2 hours and mostly spent time playing with Desmond. She wanted to spend the time getting him comfortable with her being there. We spent most of the time trying to get him to play with us. This is sometimes difficult. He's not the type of kid who will sit down and play for long periods of time. He prefers to run around and be active. With that being said, he did okay playing with us. There were quite a few times where I had to grab him and bring him back, but over all he did well.
I think the biggest miracle is that he seemed to really like Rachel! He interacted with her a few times and didn't seem to mind that she was there. Desmond doesn't usually warm up to strangers, but he did with her. I was SO GRATEFUL!
Our game plan for now is to have her come once a week and then once Desmond turns 2 we'll hit it hard and have her come every day. I don't know much of what is to come, but she explained it a little to me. A lot of what ABA is, is choice/reward. She asked a lot of questions about what he loves and what would be good rewards for him. She said we'll start by getting him a little work station, a place in his room where he knows it's where he "works". The first thing we'll need to get him to do is to stay in the room and stay in the chair. If he does that he'll get a reward, like he'll get to take a 5 minute Sesame Street break (Desmond LOVES Sesame Street) or get a treat, something like that. Once we get him to understand his "work time" we'll move on to things like eye contact, imitation, social interactions, and language.
Today may have been just a little step for Desmond, but it was a huge step for me. I was so worried about having a stranger come into our home and judging me as a mother (I know, a totally stupid thought). This was not the case, at all. This process is going to be tiny steps of faith and I know sometimes huge steps of faith. I feel like a lot of this has been stepping into the dark HOPING that it will all work. Hoping that the future will be Desmond talking, Desmond interacting, Desmond looking at us. I hope these little steps lead us in this direction. But, until then we're going to have to really lean on our faith and keep hoping for the best.