How Far We Have Come

Here is Eli from about 7 years ago when I had started an in-home ABA and Floortime Approach programs with him. He was so tiny! You can also tell that video was nowhere near as good as it is now!

These programs were a lot of work on both parts and helped get him where he is now.

I had to start from scratch.. just the basics.

I started out with teaching Eli how to sit when asked, eye contact, and then moved on to things like showing him how to play pretend, throw a ball, and more.

It is so amazing to see how far he has come.

At the time I used an online ABA program that was available to parents for a monthly subscription, now it is only available to school districts and they have gotten rid of the parent portal. I think at the time, they just didn’t get enough people joining.

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The great thing about it was that they had doctor’s and BCBA’s actually showing video examples of how to proceed with your child for each exercise, they gave you paperwork to print off to keep track of responses, and they had an online area where you could enter all the information you collected, so you could see how your child was progressing over time.

I did contact them, they said that as of right now they don’t have any intentions to bring the parent portal back… but that it didn’t mean they wouldn’t in the future.

As Autism Lion grows, I will be contacting them again.

Personally, I do believe we need to be able to teach our children within the comfort of our own homes. There are too many children not getting the appropriate services because of lack of finances, funding, insurance, long waitlists, and more.

Ice Cream Mishap and Communication 1 of 2

Meltdowns are hard.

Meltdowns, as your child gets older and into their teens and adulthood, are extremely hard.

You want to keep them safe, keep yourself safe, and everything around you safe.

Eli has behavioral issues that just take over at times. His aggression seems to stem from his Anxiety and then not being able to express himself and communicate.

So we constantly talk and communicate.

By repeating and communicating over and over again, it helps to stick with Eli. You will notice by the end of our chat, Eli was able to answer a few things he couldn’t before. You could also tell he was quite sick of me… I think I saw an eye roll at one point lol!

For us, it is always better to use calming techniques first and then discuss the situation later.

Then, I will recreate what the trigger was in a controlled situation to help Eli get past it, and grow from it so it isn’t an issue in the future.

When Eli was little, I couldn’t talk to him… there was a huge communication barrier. He would just scream. So I would keep it short and pretty much go straight into the exercises.

There was a time I didn’t think any of it was working, but I just kept doing it.

What could I possibly lose? Nothing.

What could I possibly gain? Everything.