Therapies

[Lavada Robertson]

Hi everyone! A new member to the site asked if their was a place on here that we could talk about the kids. Ages, progress, therapies current and past, what has worked and not etc.

[Lavada Robertson]

I will be the first to start.
Audreanna is 3 1/2 years old. Within one month of diagnosis she was on a gluten-free diet and melatonin. We actually went all out with what Dr. Van Dyke recommended and had her GFCF and soy free, corn free. Along with about 30 supplements. That got way too expensive fast. Now we are gluten-free and taking about 4 supplements.
As for educational, in April we started our own home therapy program with the Blue Ridge Autism Center. Since that time we have seen her grow tremendously!!! Intensive ABA was the key for her and it works. I have said many times that she is the poster child for biomedical and ABA. The combo.

Please share your thoughts and info about your child. Learning from each other is one of the best resources we have!!
Lavada

[nixmome]

Hi Lavada:) I will be the second. Nickalas is also 3 1/2 years old. Nickalas was diagnosed July 24 2007, he started in Early Intervention in January '07 and was having speech, OT and PT. From the time Nickalas was 19mths old I have spent every hour possible working with him. He learned his colors, shapes, alphabet, animals, could count to ten in three languages and to thirty in english by the time he was three. Before I had even heard of ABA, I was spending 5-6 hours a day just working with him. With the help of a wonderful in-home SLP we pulled him out of his shell. We did GFCF for three months this year and we didnt see any difference, his gastroenterologist said that he had enough food issues as it was so to try it and if we didnt see results to justify the diet then not to worry with it. Nickalas started pre school in August, right now he is in the class for 18hrs per week and also has three hours of speech and three hours of OT per week. He is doing excellent in school, he loves it and shoves me out the door every morning when I drop him off. I know its sounds cliche but it is like watching a butterfly coming out of its cocoon, he is amazing!

[Lavada Robertson]

Terri,
I totally agree. Nickalas is emerging little by little!! And of course GFCF does not work for all children with autism. If their was a universal common with all of these kids then it would. N has made great progress with just you working with him and he is thriving!!! Thanks for the input!!
Anybody want to talk about therapy balls??

[Lee & Wendy Talley]

My son Harry is 6. He has been receiving services since he was 19 months. He is very bright and very loving and gentle. He is PPD-NOS but at this point he has been progressing so well we are not quite sure where his diagnosis will end up. (Aspergers maybe). He has expressive/receptive language disorder, however his communication is increasing every day. He could always speak, but not conversationally. He did not walk until he was 2 1/2. He knew his colours, numbers, etc. at 2 and he is reading now. www.starfall.com was one of the reasons he picked up reading quickly. I do spend alot of time working with him as well as I am a SAHM. He attended pre-school at the DAC center here in Portsmouth starting at age 3 and then transferred over to the SECEP program. He is in a SECEP (www.secep.net) class in a regular public school here in Portsmouth and attends part of the day with the regular kindergarten class and has an IEP. He is presently receiving OT, PT and Speech through the school, however, it is not enough, so we do supplement with additional OT and a program called Social Butterflies which incorporates OT and speech in a group setting for socialization purposes. This program has been the #1 program in helping Harry with his social skills and improving his speech. He can now tell you his name, his address, his phone number and ask to play with a friend. You can read about the program here (http://www.ast-vb.com/Social.html) He also has additional speech therapy at ODU and that has been a wonderful program as well.

We have used picture cues, social stories, reward system throughout. He has high sensory issues, food textures, etc. being one of them, however, this too is changing and he is willing to try things more and more. He is not on any special diet but I do give him a multivitamin and Omega-3 and he has a Pediasure once a day as well.

He plays T-Ball in a Challenger League and also plays soccer as well. We do not do ABA however, some of the principals of ABA are used in his classroom.

So that's just a bit about Harry. Its' been a real journey for us and we continue to learn from Harry and others. We do attend support groups here locally and attend seminars, etc. when we can through ASA, Autism Speaks, CHKD etc.

Harry requested this summer that he wanted a cat like the Fancy Feast Cat in the commercials, so we finally got him one the other day and her name is E-vah Fancy Feast. E-vah is from the movie Wall-E and this too has made his language explode. He knows he has to feed her and talk to her. I've attached a picture or two.

Keep up all your good work everybody. You never know what is going to help until you try. :)

Wendy

[Cindy Davis]

Hi All,
My son Alex was diagnosed as moderately autistic when he was 3 1/2 but I knew soemthing was wrong at age 2 since I am a physical therapist and it took him 6 months to learn how to coordinate his muscles to jump. I love therapy balls for hypotonia and postural control, righting reactions and core strengthening, sesory input just sitting bouncing on them is great therapy, reaching past midline also is great on a ball. I did my son's PT, but when to OT for sensory integration, pool therapy, Somanas sound therapy, 40 hours of ABA-VB which is now decreased to 10 hours, speech 2 hours a week, GFCF, egg free, corn free Diet, biomedical treatment with Dr. Mary Megson which still is ongoing, chelation, social skills group, attending Montessori 3 hours in the morning then supplementing with 3 hours of public school ECSE classroom. Public School gives us half hour speech and 1 hour of academic resource room to combat his hyperlexia. I have seen him thrive and his eyes are clear and he is awake now! He has been in a mainstream Montessori kindergarten class last year without any support and he has been in Montessori 1st grade for 2 weeks and he is doing great. His eye exams were normal, stomach yeast is under control and the mercury is finally coming out. He has now tested in the Asperger's range and has average IQ but is doing 3rd grade math right now. I can carry on a normal conversation with him about his day nad it makes sense. We have been very blessed that he has responded well to every treatment, but ABA-VB made the difference.

[Lavada Robertson]

Wow Cindy!
It seems like since you knew what to do that made a world of difference!!! It is great to see another parent that has had such positive results from biomedical and ABA. I personally think that together they have made a world of difference in our house. Audreanna is nowhere the same as she was a year ago.

We will take the combo please?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cindy Davis said:

Hi All,
My son Alex was diagnosed as moderately autistic when he was 3 1/2 but I knew soemthing was wrong at age 2 since I am a physical therapist and it took him 6 months to learn how to coordinate his muscles to jump. I love therapy balls for hypotonia and postural control, righting reactions and core strengthening, sesory input just sitting bouncing on them is great therapy, reaching past midline also is great on a ball. I did my son's PT, but when to OT for sensory integration, pool therapy, Somanas sound therapy, 40 hours of ABA-VB which is now decreased to 10 hours, speech 2 hours a week, GFCF, egg free, corn free Diet, biomedical treatment with Dr. Mary Megson which still is ongoing, chelation, social skills group, attending Montessori 3 hours in the morning then supplementing with 3 hours of public school ECSE classroom. Public School gives us half hour speech and 1 hour of academic resource room to combat his hyperlexia. I have seen him thrive and his eyes are clear and he is awake now! He has been in a mainstream Montessori kindergarten class last year without any support and he has been in Montessori 1st grade for 2 weeks and he is doing great. His eye exams were normal, stomach yeast is under control and the mercury is finally coming out. He has now tested in the Asperger's range and has average IQ but is doing 3rd grade math right now. I can carry on a normal conversation with him about his day nad it makes sense. We have been very blessed that he has responded well to every treatment, but ABA-VB made the difference.

[Lavada Robertson]

Lee & Wendy,
Thanks so much for joining our discussion!!! The reason that I started this was so we could get ideas out to other parents. Please pass the word around. I am going to check out the websites that you provided.

Good luck with Harry and E-vah!!
Lavada

Lee & Wendy Talley said:

My son Harry is 6. He has been receiving services since he was 19 months. He is very bright and very loving and gentle. He is PPD-NOS but at this point he has been progressing so well we are not quite sure where his diagnosis will end up. (Aspergers maybe). He has expressive/receptive language disorder, however his communication is increasing every day. He could always speak, but not conversationally. He did not walk until he was 2 1/2. He knew his colours, numbers, etc. at 2 and he is reading now. www.starfall.com was one of the reasons he picked up reading quickly. I do spend alot of time working with him as well as I am a SAHM. He attended pre-school at the DAC center here in Portsmouth starting at age 3 and then transferred over to the SECEP program. He is in a SECEP (www.secep.net) class in a regular public school here in Portsmouth and attends part of the day with the regular kindergarten class and has an IEP. He is presently receiving OT, PT and Speech through the school, however, it is not enough, so we do supplement with additional OT and a program called Social Butterflies which incorporates OT and speech in a group setting for socialization purposes. This program has been the #1 program in helping Harry with his social skills and improving his speech. He can now tell you his name, his address, his phone number and ask to play with a friend. You can read about the program here (http://www.ast-vb.com/Social.html) He also has additional speech therapy at ODU and that has been a wonderful program as well.

We have used picture cues, social stories, reward system throughout. He has high sensory issues, food textures, etc. being one of them, however, this too is changing and he is willing to try things more and more. He is not on any special diet but I do give him a multivitamin and Omega-3 and he has a Pediasure once a day as well.

He plays T-Ball in a Challenger League and also plays soccer as well. We do not do ABA however, some of the principals of ABA are used in his classroom.

So that's just a bit about Harry. Its' been a real journey for us and we continue to learn from Harry and others. We do attend support groups here locally and attend seminars, etc. when we can through ASA, Autism Speaks, CHKD etc.

Harry requested this summer that he wanted a cat like the Fancy Feast Cat in the commercials, so we finally got him one the other day and her name is E-vah Fancy Feast. E-vah is from the movie Wall-E and this too has made his language explode. He knows he has to feed her and talk to her. I've attached a picture or two.

Keep up all your good work everybody. You never know what is going to help until you try. :)

Wendy

[nixmome]

My son saw a PT for I think three months at home. When he had been in speech for about a month, she started working with him straddling on a bolster and trying to cross his midline. You want to talk about some bad meltdowns, it was very hard for him. Once we got the PT coming in home to see him, he started climbing up in the kitchen chairs, I just had always thought he just didnt like to climb. Boy was I wrong! I told the PT since she had worked with him I was going to pull my hair out because now that he can climb, he climbs on EVERYTHING! He had the hypotonia, he really had a problem keeping control of his head, I still worry about it. The PT also had to make him shoe inserts because his feet droop and kinda tilt inward, his left is worse that his right. He has been in those for a little over a year. It took four people to hold him down when she made those things, I told the PT that was her fault LOL since he had gotten so strong.

Cindy Davis said:

Hi All,
My son Alex was diagnosed as moderately autistic when he was 3 1/2 but I knew soemthing was wrong at age 2 since I am a physical therapist and it took him 6 months to learn how to coordinate his muscles to jump. I love therapy balls for hypotonia and postural control, righting reactions and core strengthening, sesory input just sitting bouncing on them is great therapy, reaching past midline also is great on a ball. I did my son's PT, but when to OT for sensory integration, pool therapy, Somanas sound therapy, 40 hours of ABA-VB which is now decreased to 10 hours, speech 2 hours a week, GFCF, egg free, corn free Diet, biomedical treatment with Dr. Mary Megson which still is ongoing, chelation, social skills group, attending Montessori 3 hours in the morning then supplementing with 3 hours of public school ECSE classroom. Public School gives us half hour speech and 1 hour of academic resource room to combat his hyperlexia. I have seen him thrive and his eyes are clear and he is awake now! He has been in a mainstream Montessori kindergarten class last year without any support and he has been in Montessori 1st grade for 2 weeks and he is doing great. His eye exams were normal, stomach yeast is under control and the mercury is finally coming out. He has now tested in the Asperger's range and has average IQ but is doing 3rd grade math right now. I can carry on a normal conversation with him about his day nad it makes sense. We have been very blessed that he has responded well to every treatment, but ABA-VB made the difference.

[Cindy Davis]

Good for your PT! LOL!

[Lavada Robertson]

BTW,
I saw your lovely pics Cindy!!! You look so in charge at the podium. How did Terri do? She said that she was the last one to speak..........
Cindy Davis said:

Good for your PT! LOL!

[Cindy Davis]

I think everybody did a great job in Richmond, no one passed out, we all get a second shot at the JLARC local meetings and the momentum still has to keep moving. We won't have an answer until early November so keep calling your local Delegates, write letters, burn up the lines! This legislation cannot wait!

[Lavada Robertson]

Cindy,
I agree. For a lot of us this would be a lifesaver from the thousands of dollars that we have spent and are spending. I am bringing letters to the JLARC meeting in Roanoke from family members too. They know how bad the financial burden has been. They see it all the time and try to help as much as possible. Nobody has any resources now though.

Cindy Davis said:

I think everybody did a great job in Richmond, no one passed out, we all get a second shot at the JLARC local meetings and the momentum still has to keep moving. We won't have an answer until early November so keep calling your local Delegates, write letters, burn up the lines! This legislation cannot wait!