A Great Speech Session

Today we had our first one-on-one ABA session with Cari. I was pretty optimistic that we'd have a good day since Raquel was pretty rested over the weekend. Gabby managed to set her off right when Cari arrived, but once we bounced her on the fitness ball for a couple of ABC song repetitions, she was all smiles.

She did really well throughout the entire session. She was frustrated at times, but stayed pretty focused for the most part. And not one tantrum. Yes! Cari commented on how great she is doing and at the end of the session reviewed some of the data charts with me so I could see how much she has progressed in just a few sessions.

Raquel was very happy to see Mary this afternoon. Mary brought her usual 3 bags of goods, and Raquel was all over them. I think she was happy to see a familiar face. Mary commented on how vocal she was and has noticed a big change in her since she saw her a week ago.

One thing that did stand out to me in the speech session was how much more Raquel "works" for Mary than her other new ABA therapists. Mary had her doing a lot of immitations. At one point, they were playing with these push cars and Mary would say, "Ready! Set!" and then Raquel would say, "Go!" and she'd release the car. During the ABA sessions, they say "go" in order to encourage Raquel to say it. Raquel was also repeating back many words and sounds to Mary and wasn't nearly as cooperative in that regard this morning with Cari. Raquel was choosing from a field of three with Mary, and only a field of two with Cari. I mentioned all of this to Mary and she said that it was very typical, that she has seen Raquel every week since mid-February and that Raquel just knows her better. She did note that Raquel is very stubborn and wants to do things when she feels like it, so that could be part of it as well. :-)