I really enjoyed therapy yesterday. The whole day seemed much more calm to me, perhaps because it was a holiday and I didn't have to work at the same time her sessions were taking place. Or maybe it was because Mike was home and kept Gabby entertained. Whatever it was, it was nice.
Elizabeth came in the morning. Raquel was very stubborn and in her throwing mood, so we had to use soft toys. She mostly wanted to stack and knock down soft blocks. We spent a good part of our session discussing the ABA program in more detail. Currently, Elizabeth is one of the behavior therapists in this program but her job position is now transitioning to a more supervisory role, which is why she would not be able to stay with Raquel. She is not taking on any new "cases" and is actually going to be evaluating kids and recommending programs for them.
After speaking with Karin last week, I was under the impression that I would have a team of 3 people coming to the house daily. That is not the case. I will have a team of 2 or 3 therapists coming daily, but they rotate days to prevent Raquel from getting tired of them. It's still a one-on-one session. She says it is very intense - that they don't let Raquel get away with anything, and it will be very hard at first watching them put all the demands on her. I will also receive training and be held accountable for keeping things consistent throughout the day. But, she said by doing so, I will see immediate progress.
Raquel has been a little more physical this past week in regards to the hitting and scratching, so I was very happy to see Elizabeth. Again, behavior is communication, so we discussed the different scenarios when she is the most aggressive to see if we could determine causes. Instead of reacting (which is hard NOT to do when you are being hit), she wants me to ask her questions to force Raquel to communicate her needs. Even though she is not being verbal, her actions speak for her. For instance, Elizabeth had her sitting on her lap doing blocks. She started getting really fussy. Elizabeth held up two toys and asked her to choose which one she wanted. She continued to cry. Then Elizabeth asked if she wanted down. She immediately stopped crying. Elizabeth then gave her praises for "answering" and put her down.
Elizabeth's boss meets with the Regional decision maker on Wednesday for some unrelated matter but she is pretty confident Raquel will be discussed and a decision will be made. I personally feel that she has already been accepted into this program or Elizabeth wouldn't have spent so much time preparing me for it. And she just had this look about her yesterday - that she wanted to tell me more and couldn't.
Trish cancelled physical therapy because of the holiday, but we didn't find this out until after we were already at the park waiting for her. We decided to do our own version of "park therapy" and let the girls run loose. Mike was really happy to see how well Raquel is doing walking on unsteady surfaces, and he even went down the slide!
Mary came for speech in the afternoon. Again, Raquel wanted to do her own thing and wasn't very cooperative. She was babbling - a lot - and Mary was very happy about that. Mike came inside towards the end of the session and was able to sort of see how it works. I always tell him that speech therapy is the silly one where we get to sing and dance and be very animated. She never gets Raquel out of her comfort zone so behavior issues seldom occur, which is very refreshing. Mary is also the one that brings 3 bags of goodies and can easily move on to something else, like yesterday, if Raquel seems bored with it all.
All in all, a good day. We even made time to squeeze in a BBQ once Mary left!
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