New "school" year for everybody.

Joy Lin started Middle School this week (sort of)  and Gracie started a whole new set of therapies. She still goes to preschool one day and does her equine therapy but she has started a new intensive therapy known as ABA( Applied Behavioral Analysis ). Most of the definitions of ABA I found were a little confusing but I think this one explains it in the simplest way.

"Applied" means practice, rather than research or philosophy. "Behavior analysis" may be read as "learning theory," that is, understanding what leads to (or doesn't lead to) new skills. (This is a simplification: ABA is just as much about maintaining and using skills as about learning.) It may seem odd to use the word "behavior" when talking about learning to talk, play, and live as a complex social animal, but to a behaviorist all these can be taught, so long as there are intact brain functions to learn and practice the skills. That is the essence of the recovery hypothesis--for many children, the excesses and deficits of autism result largely from a learning 'blockage,' which can be overcome by intensive teaching.

Typically developing children learn without our intervention--the world around them provides the right conditions to learn language, play, and social skills. Children with autism learn much, much less easily from the environment. They  have the potential to learn learn, but it takes a very structured environment, one where conditions are optimized for acquiring the same skills that typical children learn "naturally." ABA is all about how to set up the environment to enable our kids to learn.

It is an intense program of one to one therapies with 4 therapists also known as TSS or Therapeutic Support Staff.
These ladies are so great. We have one three hour session during the morning and another in the afternoon. That's ALOT compared to what Gracie has been getting. It's going to be a huge change but I think she can handle it. I really think she is ready for it. She seems to be seeking engagement with people. She is open to new things. And she is starting to think of new ways to get into trouble!!
She had her yearly checkup at CHOP last week and everything was good there. Her cleft repair is just great. The professionals she went to see all said we were on the right track with this line of therapy and didn't think that it would be too much for her. So I feel better about our new course. She has gotten great therapy up to this time but I just think that we should take advantage of her new adventurous disposition  and capitalize on it. She will be eligible for kindergarten next year !!!! But i don't know if we will be ready for that but by the time she does go, I know she will be ready.