ABA

Well, there is some news for all my faithful blog readers (of which I am not really sure if there are many, let me know!). On Friday when I took Janey to school, her teacher stopped me as I was leaving and gave me a paper, and told me to come in for a minute. It turned out the paper was the long-awaited ABA evaluation, and that one of the special ed coordinators wanted to talk to me about it. I went down to talk to her before reading the paper, and found out it was recommending 6 hours a week of ABA for Janey, and they wanted me to sign an amendment to her IEP approving it. So of course I did, before even reading the report. Once I did read the report, I found it to be both extremely accurate and quite heartbreaking. The woman who observed her is I think the head of ABA services for Boston schools. She really seemed to understand Janey well with just an hour of observation. Basically it said that despite 1 1/2 years of school, lots of therapy,supportive teachers and special ed placement, Janey is "not accessing the cirruculum in any meaningful way". So what I knew to be basically true, she is learning nothing. It listed all the things she couldn't do, which are all goals on her IEP---body parts, shapes,numbers, letters, etc. It said she seemed driven by inner stimulation. They tried to get her to respond to her name and she failed, responding 0 out of 10 tries (that is an ABA type thing to do).

I guess the services are supposed to start right away. I really don't know how they will fit in 6 hours of ABA in a 12 1/2 hour week of school which already includes 6 other hours of therapy. It shows how ridiculas a half day of school is for her.

The nice part was how thrilled everyone was she was finally going to get more help. The special ed lady, the teachers, the secretaries, everyone seemed close to tears over how they love Janey and how they want her to get more help. It really made me happy but also made me feel a lot of other emotions, like that I should have fought to have it be sooner, that they should have helped it be sooner, that I still don't think ABA is the way to go for Janey, but she needs SOMETHING I know, that I am so tired of all of it.

I also found out yesterday that Janey could go to a swim thing each Sat. now at the Hyde Park Y. They call it a social swim, but you have to be in the water with your child, and I can't see her socializing much while she is swimming. Regardless, we went today, and the whole family is invited so the boys get to swim too. It's a great chance for us all to get a swim even if Janey doesn't get socialized, and it's free. She swam today with 3 floaties and holding a barbel type thing "by herself". She does love the water as do all of us. The boys swim like fishes now. They look so graceful in the water.

Janey is singing more again. She sings all the words of Black Sabbath songs that William plays, and sings show tunes I play, and most any songs she's ever heard. She might not answer to her name, but the girl sure can sing.