Autistic adults also have the knowledge and insight as to how it continues to affect them decades later. There's a reason why so many are against it.

Any progress is good progress no matter how slow or fast it happens 😃

I hope you see good progress too!

@@TheWeeFamily thank you💕

It’s made so much difference for her!

We love the professionals who work with our girl every day to make her the most independent and confident self ❤️ it means so much and we know that her staff loves her like we do. It means so much. Know that what you’re doing matters so much to the parents and their kiddos.

The Wee Family it’s the greatest job in the world to be able to help kiddos with such important skills that help them become more independent and more able to communicate with the world!! Thanks :) so true!! All of the staff in my classroom are the most loving and caring ladies ever, and we definitely love our kiddos so much! I actually haven’t even been able to meet all of the parents yet but I think we will have an open house soon for the official school year starting and I can’t wait!

I think everyone has different experiences but definitely good to ask your questions and do what you feel most comfortable with. ❤️ just like any therapy type.

Yes!

I love that there are people like yourself who are passionate about helping teach and empower kids like B to learn the skills and confidence to be as independent as they can be. The team that she is with full time means so much to us and we really put our trust in them 🙂

Braylee’s receptive gains alone have been amazing for us. The progress with potty training has been great too, she’s not fully there, but getting closer. She’s a nose painter when sick too.

I’m glad he had a great first day!! Hope you have great progress with it 🙂 Yeah they were always scary haha

Right, it still varies place to place so I can’t speak for all of them, but it’s not all bad like it may be thought to be by some. It in general, has changed quite a bit from what it used to be. Braylee truly enjoys going, we make sure they don’t suppress stims or change her in ways that make her who she is. She is allowed to say no and have boundaries too. It’s helping her tremendously with life skills, communication, socialization and more and it’s the only therapy that we have seen this amount of progress from.

LOL!! You aren’t wrong there! I’ve been trying to get him to go for at least the last year and he’s always met me with a strong no. 😂 but now he knows it isn’t bad.

The things it has helped her learn, are things that she didn’t learn in years of other therapy. Not to say that’s the case for everyone, but it’s been huge for us.

We were really impressed!

🤣🤣 that sounds even less appealing!

❤️

That’s so awesome!! 😀

Do you guys ever come to the Closing the Gap conference at Mystic Lake?

Isn’t it so great? It’s helped really lessen Braylee’s meltdowns as well which were pretty frequent when we started. And similarly, her ability to understand what’s being asked of her has really helped so much and she has gained so many great pre-verbal skills!

Thank you! ❤️

We will have to look into that, it sounds very interesting. 🙂

I don’t know what person ever thought they were a good idea 😂

It’s unfortunate that a lot of people, even know, can’t get ABA for one reason or another (typically not offered or covered). It has been the most impactful for B.

The Wee Family I agree.

I had a French teacher in high school who taught us a lot of things through song so we were more able to retain it. Music is such a great learning tool!

It’s always interesting to see how far they’ve come with autism and knowledge, resources etc. and hopefully it will just continue to improve. Did you enjoy that place as well?

She was! We miss going there. Someday we will take her back 😊

Sometimes part of it is figuring out how to make it work for you! It’s just sometimes interesting that we don’t always notice her dyspraxia and then in situations like that it really showed more apparently

She was excited!!

We thought about gymnastics here as well. From what I’ve learned dyspraxia impacts all people who have it differently as well. It’s very interesting

@@TheWeeFamily Yes, everyone is so different!

Thanks Rob! Hope you’ve been well!

@@TheWeeFamily yeah been good i have interesting question on next live, lined up

Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) is a branch of science concerned with the application of basic principles of behaviour and learning to solve socially important problems and teach functional life skills. ... In Australia ABA is one of the most commonly used early interventions for children with autism.Nov 19, 2018

Right, I am sure that when people experienced it in the past that it was that way. I just wish more people recognized that it can and has changed in most cases and has been very useful to many people. We never want Braylee to not stim or make her “fit in”. Our goals with ABA are about her being her happiest, most successful self.

The Wee Family I agree. I’m on the spectrum myself, and even I get upset when I hear other autistics talking about how ABA is bad.”

I’m not sure. This is the first time Braylee’s ever really had a nose bleed. It probably also happened because she was picking would be my guess.

Just keep trying and hang in there ❤️

@Taylor Fu Thank you for your comment. I understand what you are saying about ABA; however, I would like to share our personal experiences and why we have our daughter in that therapy. We had Braylee in OT and Speech for years with little to no progress. We were actually dismissed on breaks because progress was not being made. We believe ABA done the right way is not bad at all. In fact, because of ABA, she is thriving. An example is communication. Before ABA, Braylee had no way to communicate her wants and needs to us. She struggled with receptive communication. This led to a ton of frustration for her leading to violent meltdowns. ABA is the only therapy that has opened up communication through her speaking device, some words, and prompting. Effectively, ABA has given her a voice to let us know her likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. I could not take her out of her current ABA knowing that it is the reason she is communicating, making progress with toilet training, life skills, experience traveling, and seeing new places, etc. No ABA would mean none of that. It is easy for you, me, or anyone to say, don't do ABA because of peoples bad experiences. But, ABA could be the difference for someone living a life without having the chance to thrive and communicate like you and I can. With all that said. We understand there is very bad forms of ABA still out there. That is why it is up to us as parents to ensure we find the right place. We do NOT suppress her stims unless they are dangerous and we do not force eye contact. She truly loves going to the ABA center and staff that works with her. We can observe at anytime and the program is parent led. We have encountered many autistic individuals that agree with ABA. There are good programs out there. Sorry for the long response. I wanted to make sure I explain my position well.

@@TheWeeFamily I know the post you replied to is gone but I had to say that I love this response and the fact that you addressed that it’s up to the parent to ensure their therapy is in line with their values. There are some people who are strongly against aba and will go out of their way to tell people it’s bad, but discouraging aba altogether can stop some families from getting the therapy that can help their child have an improved life and it’s really too bad that some kids will miss out. You guys are amazing parents!

She does do therapeutic riding 😀 it’s her favorite

I completely agree. Kids really are receptive to attitude and how people feel about them!

That’s awesome!!!

She was so excited when she first saw it

We cannot wait to get her a horse of her own. 😍

We had never seen it before but it was a hit with her 😄

You can buy those on Amazon . The brand is Snug.

It’s possible. She loves any tactile sensory thing so she probably just reacted the same as she would and liked how it felt too.

We had one by us back when we lived in Colorado!! We don’t have them here that we have seen.

I remember as a kid they had the animatronic band and it was always broken and super creepy! The last time we went to a Chuck E Cheese location was so long ago and everything was outdated and this one was actually really nice 🙂

Because in the past children with autism have experienced abuse in the name of therapy, being forced to stop stimming, having aversives used to stop unwanted behaviours, whether or not they were harmful. Look up Lovaas and autism therapy. There is also one center that still uses electric shocks to "help" autistic people. Thus the bad reputation aba has received. There are plenty of autistic adults who have written about their abusive experiences in therapy.

Hand-eye coordination tip: get her to crawl as much as possible. It works. (ie, "be a cat.")

😂 I suppose so!

We do have her in therapeutic riding and she loves it! 😀

We didn’t even realize what happened at first, that was the most blood we had ever seen with her.

Yeah

Yeah that makes sense.

Which swing particularly? She has a teardrop, the carpeted platform, and then a hanging tent. I will try to find one of each and put them in our amazon link under stuff Braylee uses

thanks I like both of them!

Haven’t gotten to it yet, but many types of swings are available on the fun and function website 🙂

She started with a different company in January of 2018 and switched to her current center in October 2018.

😂

Same here! It has been so long since either of us had been

That’s pretty much what happened. Haha. She just walked in cool as a cucumber and at first we panicked a bit before we realized what happened 😂

She’s okay 🙂