Our first week...

Andrew has had his first two therapy sessions this week.  He did pretty great.  He willingly ran to the back room when we arrived because he remembered all the fun things that were there when we previously went for the evaluation.  During the second session there was a pretty minor meltdown when he didn't want to do a certain activity.  He tried to head butt the therapist and then the floor.  She reacted amazingly by telling him she understood he needed a break.  She calmly sat across from him on the mat and gave him his favorite therapy putty for him to play with. Then she immediately joined in with the putty and within a couple minutes he was smiling and laughing with her!  She just seems to have a way with him. 

I LOVED watching through the little one sided window to see how Andrew is when I'm not around.  I've never been to a place that had that before.  I snapped a few photos through the window so hopefully they don't mind.  We also got some at home exercises that we'll be trying this weekend as well as a CD to listen to daily that is supposed to have certain sounds that stimulate certain parts of his brain.  We'll see how he tolerates that!  Keep checking in for updates with us.  We only have one session next week due to Thanksgiving but are excited to keep on going!

 

Here we go!!

    Well, tomorrow is the big day!  Andrew will have his first therapy session with the Brain Balance program tomorrow after school.  We are overjoyed with the generosity of all our friends and families.  We have officially raised $5420 as of this morning to pay for the initial start up costs with the program.  This will cover 36 hours of therapy for Andrew.  We can't wait to see how it goes.

   For "typical", verbal children the program suggests one hour sessions 3 times a week but with non-verbal children on the autism spectrum they like to start off a bit slower to see how things go.  They want to make sure that Andrew stays engaged the entire session and since he has a short attention span we will be going twice a week at 30 minutes per session, but will most likely increase as time goes on.  The good news is that no matter how fast or slow you go with the program, the results should be the same.  Kids don't "lose" the progress they make.  We will update at the end of the week to let you all know how it goes in his first couple of sessions.  He has not been a very good boy lately so pray for us that he is cooperative for the therapist!