Feeling Very Frustrated

So today I had an appointment with a psychologist to discuss potential ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) treatment for Zoey. My goal for today was to get a better idea of what areas ABA would be targeting for Zoey and how many hours she would need. I have a basic understanding of ABA due to my work in PA, but I have never been specifically trained in it so I don't know exactly what is looks like and there is a lot of conflicting information out in the internet world. Based on this very basic understanding of ABA, I have been having a hard time envisioning what specfic areas need to be worked on, with the exception of social skills. In addittion to social skills, I view Zoey's other deficits as being that she is overly emotional and will cry even when she is happy, and she has some rigidity and will get upset if things don't go exactly how she thinks they should (but the resulting tantrums are very short in duration). She doesn't throw major fits. She isn't physically agressive. She doesn't engage in self-harm or elopement behaviors. She's potty trained and pretty independent. In other words, from my perspective, her ASD symptoms are pretty mild.

That's why I wanted to schedule an appointment to get a better idea of what ABA would be working with Zoey on and how many hours a week/month she would likely need. ABA is not covered by our insurance policy, which is a whole different frustration, and we have limited county funds which currently go towards her speech therapy, so we will be paying out of pocket for anything we decide to do (cost is $140 an hour). Unfortunatley, I felt that I wasted that $140 I paid today because I walked away with minimal answers. The psychologist started by saying the Zoey needed 25 to 30 hours in order to make progress. I don't know if she was basing this off of the evaluation report I had given her from when Zoey was evaluated at Children's, but I kind of doubt she read the whole report in the brief time I was in the waiting room. Plus, when I asked about what areas ABA would focus or help with she would tell me "whatever her needs are" and then would procede to give me examples of things that Zoey has no problem with, such as potty training, learning her colors, and using two word sentences. I just found it very frustrating that she was telling me Zoey needed all these hours when she didn't have an idea of who Zoey is or what her needs are.

I asked about having a consultant come and do a needs assessment, which she said was a possibility. However, the way she reacted to my quetion made me feel like she thought this was a ridiculous request. She also told me that she could have a consultant come out, but that since I wasn't committing to a set amount of hours ahead of time that she couldn't gaurantee that the consultant that did the needs assessment would be the one that would work with Zoey. I am fine with that and understand the reason behind that, but it was said to me in a way that made it seem like she was just wanting me to say "sure let's go ahead and do 30 hours a week". I'm sorry, but it seems stupid to me to just commit to a set amount of hours when I don't know that Zoey actually needs that many hours.

So I left there not committing to anything. I told her I would discuss the needs assessment with Scott and let her know. The needs assessment would take 5-8 hours at the $140 an hour, so that's a significant chunk of change to pay out of pocket. I just don't know what to do. I don't want to not get services for her if she needs them and they can help her succeed. At the same time, it would be $4200 a month if I went with the 30 hours!!!!

This Week's Super Moments

So I've actually had a couple of times over the past week and a half where I've thought to myself "I really need to blog about that" and sometimes I write part of the blog in my head on the drive home from work. However, once I get the downtime in which I could blog, it just doesn't seem pressing anymore and there are other things I'd rather do. I guess that's a good thing.

The thing I don't want to skip blogging are the Super Moments. I've vowed to keep a positive attitude with all this and Super Moments help me reflect back and focus on what's going well. So here are this week's super moments:

1) Zoey amazes me with her memory and ability to learn. I have no idea if she is actually ahead of where she should be in these areas, and in a lot of ways it doesn't matter. Scott and I are amazed and proud of her, and that's really what's most important. This week Zoey has added the spelling of her last name to her abilities. She is also now able to tell me our address when I ask her where she lives. We also just got her to tell us her birthday as well. This one took a little bit more work because she's been obsessed with birthdays since there were so many in July. However she wanted it to be her birthday and was resistant to the fact that her birthday is in November. Seems she is resigned to this fact because she will now tell us her birthday is November 5th. Lol! I think the thing that makes these accomplishments super to us is that they aren't the result of frequent trials and repetition. I've been able to tell her once and then she has it. We do some practicing just so she keeps the info, but it's not drill after drill. That's just a huge difference from back in April when we'd ask her what her name was or how old she was and she wasn't able to tell us. It took a lot of repetition and drills to teach those.

2) I know I say this every time, but Zoey is making leaps and bounds socially. We visited Zoey's Godparents on Saturday and for the first time she actually interacted with them and wasn't really shy or hesitant. She still needed a little bit more time to warm up to the kids, but by the time we left I think she had started to play more with Nick. She was also very upset when we left, which as much as I hate to see her cry sand I really hate the meltdowns, it shows me that she is connecting enough to not want to leave.

Zoey and Kristy (who by BTW is seriously the best Godmother ever)

3) Sharing is also coming along better. Like with most kids, she has good days and bad days. But I know she understands the concept because I see it in her play. For instance, as I'm writing this she is playing with her zoo animals on the floor. She just had one of the animals tell the other one "I want to ride too " and the other animal said. "We can take turns ".  She understands the concept and has the words, so now it's just about making sure she is using those skills in real life situations.

4) Zoey got her first invitation to birthday party that wasn't for family or a family friend. I asked her teacher and the invitation came from a little girl that Zoey plays with sometimes, so it wasn't an instance of everyone being invited. I would be happy either way, but it means more that the child decided to include Zoey rather than it being a situation where she was invited just because everyone was. I realize that for most parents, it wouldn't really matter, but it just is more evidence of how far Zoey is coming socially. 

4) In JAM they are building up to a trip to the grocery store. Our trips to the grocery store have been pretty good since I started using the visual grocery list with her, but I still make her ride in the cart because if she's out of it she wants to take off. This weekend I took her to the store and the cart started to get way too full, so I reluctantly had her get out of the cart. She did really well and listened to me. Later in the week I had to go to Kroger to pick up a prescription and a few groceries. I got a cart, but let Zoey walk holding onto the cart. Again she did awesome and stayed with me for the most part. A couple of times she let go to move to a different said of the cart, but immediately held on again. I'm just hoping this trip with her JAM groups goes smoothly and doesn't throw any kinks in our well oiled grocery shopping machine.