A Team Player!

Another small pin prick of light at the end of a very long tunnel. That's what we saw today. For financial reasons, we have been scaling back on William's ABA therapy, in the hopes that we can stretch our savings to the end of the year. (Not that anything happens at the end of the year, it's just a goal...a line in the sand, I guess you could say.)

So today at breakfast, it's just William and me. Everyone else is either still sleeping or downstairs in the basement. (Thunderdome, as I call it) All of the sudden, he looks out the window, and says "Sure is a bunch of 'em"

Now, to the casual observer, this is fairly meaningless, but for William this is drop-your-spoon-in-shock kind of stuff. This was a spontaneous colloqualism -- he does not say something unless he hears it first, and I am sure I didn't say it. Admittedly, I couldn't get him to eloborate on what there is a bunch of: leaves? grey hairs? Who knows.

But it's a signal from him that we're maybe we're doing the right thing by cutting back on the ABA. This therapy's criticism is that it tends to create rote behavior, it does not encourage dynamic thought. It's a very good treatment to get a kid to learn basic things brush his teeth or ask for what he wants, potty training, and other basic skills that are necessary.

(As far as therapy goes, we are starting to move in an additional direction, to something called RDI. We'll write a bunch more about that later, that's a lot more posts all by itself.)

The point of this meandering rant is that the affirmation that we're doing something right isn't coming from a doctor, therapist, teacher, or anyone else outside of our 4 walls. It's coming directly from William. That's HUGE. We've got a long way to go, but at least we know he's coming along.