Therapy dilemna

[Guest guest]

is almost 9 years old and has been doing intensive autism natural

environment ABA therapy for a little over a year. We have had nothing but

therapist issues the whole time. I've had to fire 2 therapists and 4 have

quit either for personal reasons or for another job. The therapist we have

on board right now has been with us since March and is wonderful. The two

newer ones are questionable for various reasons, and I am not optimistic

that they will work out. We need 3 therapists on our team in order to

attempt to make our hours every month.

We have to make 80 hours each month (minimum) to remain in the 3-year

program. You need to meet 12 consecutive months of 80 hours each, or 12

aggregate months of 80 hours in a 18 month period to quality for post-intensive

therapy services. This past year we have only met our hours for 6 months.

If we don't make our hours in November (I honestly am not sure if this is

even likely at this point), we will have 3 months in a row of not meeting

our hours which can jeopardize being in the program. So, my county

coordinator has suggested that we seek another service provider and gave me

two suggestions - I had originally had a tough time trying to find the

service provider I did due to 's age, because we have her in school

full-time (although have been taking her out early a few days to accommodate

therapy hours), or she wouldn't be a priority because we didn't want the

maximum of 35 hours per week, etc.

One thing I have noticed with this therapy is that has made

progress, but it has been what I consider slow given the fact it's supposed to

be

intensive but it has not been consistently intensive that's for sure.

But, what I question is that what she does learn, she has a very hard time

transferring over with us in the home. She seems to be able to do things with

the therapists and then we don't see it or not much is seen independently

which is obviously what we are striving for here.

So in order to try and make a decision to continue therapy or not (since

it's been a nightmare), my questions are, since she also has a cognitive

delay due to the DS and does not have just autism, which is the type of dx this

therapy is geared toward, does that mean this type of therapy may not be

right for her? It seems she's lacking the applied knowledge, the carryover,

she can get things in the moment and after trying over and over, but most

of it seems to get lost later on in a similar situation here at home when

the therapists aren't working with her and we are trying to get her to do

something that she's learned (like cleaning up her toys) - even though she

gets therapy at home. Is this normal for a child with not to be

able to apply things very well even though getting intensive therapy?... know

what I mean? I'm wondering if all the therapy in the world would change

this for her, especially if it's geared to autism?

Anyone out there go through a similar situation with the intensive home

therapy? Any therapy suggestions? Any therapists out there that can confirm

what I'm thinking that it might be just too hard for to always

apply things in the same way? I hope I'm making sense.

My dilemna is should I even be bothering trying to see if the other two

service providers can help us(and I think one of them I may have already

called a year ago and they didn't work out)? With all the stress the

inconsistency and therapist issues have caused on me, I'm wondering if I should

just

drop the therapy. This past year has not been easy on this family at all.

Thanks!

Heidi -- Wisconsin, USA

(Mom to 8-1/2 w/ DS, ASD, epilepsy; Clara 3-1/2 going on 13!)

No two flowers bloom in exactly the same way, but all are beautiful !