More Progress

Raquel is really doing well in her new ABA program. I am truly amazed at the changes I am seeing in her. It is so encouraging.

She had an awesome session with Jennifer on Tuesday. Again, the 11:30am - 1:30pm time slot makes me a little nervous, but Jennifer knew exactly how to handle Raquel and it wasn't even an issue. She was doing tons of imitations and was extremely vocal throughout the entire session. Jennifer was very pleased.

Yesterday, she didn't have a very good OT session, which was kind of surprising to me. Karin noted that even though she was doing the demands placed on her, she just seemed overall pretty stressed out. I asked her if she thought she could be tired from all the therapy and Karin said that was a possibility but also said that it could be that she's just trying harder to attempt things and is getting more frustrated at failed attempts. Karin will be overlapping with the ABA session in another two weeks, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that works.

This morning, Janine came with Cari. Raquel was all smiles when Cari walked in but started crying immediately when she saw Janine. This became a full on tantrum, her first of the week, with Raquel actually biting me (this is the first time EVER - and I'm not 100% convinced it was intentional), and I ended up having to leave the room. The tantrum lasted 15 minutes. Janine noted that it was directly related at her and is happy about that (meaning she is more connected to Cari & Jennifer - which was the goal for the first week).

Besides the tantrum, she had a great session today. She'll now pick Gabby in a field of three, she's matching in a field of three, and she's picking specific items in a field of two. Her receptive commands (such as "put in") scored at a 66% independent level (meaning they didn't have to do it hand-over-hand), and her interverbals (ready, set, then saying "go"), scored at an 80% independent level. This is wonderful! I'm actually seeing my little angel break out of her shell. Janine said I should get Raquel a t-shirt that reads, "I love ABA!" Maybe I should get one, too.