Yet another busy week...

Well, it's been a busy week, but a productive one. Let's see...

Sunday-Finished up Teacher appreciation web and flyer, made travel
plans to visit GG and Grandpa Jim (Mark's parents) in Bend, OR.

Monday-Kay's Therapy, Javi's Art class, Room Parent Stuff, Major house
clean since my parents and grandparents were coming the next day, made
more arrangements for trip.

Tuesday-Grandparents and mom arrive. We finally finished the bathroom
floor tile. Now it's just fixing some of the imperfections here and
there.

Wednesday-More room parent stuff for Ethan's and Javi's class,
shopping and errands,

Thursday-Behavior Mod for Javi and Kay's Therapy, more cleaning, more
errands.

We have come up with a new plan for Javi as far as behavior
modification goes. We are trying to curb a few of his behaviors. We
are trying to limit the flapping and keep it to certain times. I came
up with the idea to have a "baton" or "token" to signify to Javi when
it was ok to flap and the consultant agreed that would be a good
plan. Hey, I'll pretty much try anything for a little while. You
never know what is going to do the trick with Javi. We also came up
with a new token economy (reward system). I will explain the new
token economy in further detail when we are finished with creating
it. I know to a lot of people think that may sound confusing to have
so many different systems to follow, but really you are asking for the
same result. There is always a constant: good behavior=reward. The
reward may change, but the expectation is always the same. Think of
it this way, if you were a kid and every time you did something
positive you got a cookie. Your mom would say, don't do that, or you
won't get your cookie or if you are good at the grocery store, I'll
give you a cookie when we're finished. After four months of dangling
a cookie in front of them, the cookie wouldn't seem very appealing
anymore. This is why we have had so many different systems.
Eventually, Javi will learn exactly what behavior is expected and he
won't need the tokens anymore. Then the tokens will turn in to real
money as he gets older :) You know teenagers!!

Well, I better get started on dinner. TTFN!

Parent Education Night for Children on the ASD Scale

Tonight we attended parent education night. It was interesting to hear the other parent's stories and what they have tried to counteract difficult behaviors. The information presented was interesting, however, I think the lecture was a little hard to follow. Sometimes people that are experts in a particular field, forget that the lay person has a hard time understanding all the jargon. When you are relatively new to the diagnosis, you just want to know how to help you child with out having to learn a new language. Although hearing about artificial consequences and differential reinforcement is interesting. Listing it in a flow chart to keep us newbies on topic, would probably not help. Learning all those terms is an afterthought when your child can't make it through a grocery store run with out throwing themselves on the floor and screaming.

Fortunately, that is not the case for our family these days. Javi has really made a lot of progress over the past few years after using many of the techniques suggested by ABA. However, I must stress that you have to find what works for your child. ASD children cannot be put in to a box and categorized. What works for one child, will not necessarily work for another. The best advice I can offer that is more a "real world", realistic technique that can be applied to nearly every avenue of your life:

Recipe for Success for your ASD Child
-----------------------------------------------------
ADD:
time
a heaping cup of patience
a generous portion of love and understanding
a tablespoon of the professional techniques

Blend until you get the right consistency.