Our ABA Intake Appointment

We had the intake interview yesterday with the Case Manager from Easter Seals for Ethan's Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy services. We mostly talked about Ethan's behavior, his likes and dislikes, his strengths, his favorites, his schedule and all about my sweet little Ethan! The appointment took about an hour and a half. As we talked about him, I can't help but to put a smile on my face as we recall some of his odd but cute behavior. The case manager told us she will submit the collected information over to their Customer Service who will then turn it in to our health insurance company which will determine how many hours of ABA therapy per week Ethan needs. It's pretty much a 6-week process to get ABA therapy started. She told us it's typically between 10-20 hours per week (some kids get 20-40 hours!) but it varies depending on the family's availability. We were asked what our end goal is, my husband and I said - for Ethan to follow age-appropriate directions, if he can master that, everything else would follow right? Like sitting still, remaining on a task, etc. It's also a pretty broad goal. I can't even follow directions sometimes (or maybe I just refuse to?)! I think what we really want to just get out of it is for him to cognitively catch up with his peers. We can deal with the physical and fine motor skills limitations but we need him to understand people around him and his environment especially if it involves his safety.

As we were talking about Ethan's schedule, I can't help but to ask myself - how are we going to make 20 hours per week apart from Ethan's 15 hours of school, 2 hours of Occupational Therapy, 2 hours of Physical Therapy and 1 hour of Speech Therapy weekly? If he has a 40 hour per week availability (just like our jobs), his weekly schedule + ABA therapy make up for it. What about him eating, travel time, napping and just taking a break? I also wanted to enroll him to some summer activities like swimming, how can I fit that all in our family's schedule? My husband and I work full time and occasionally we work from home. Thank God for understanding managers that value work-life balance! I haven't figured it out yet but I'm trying to find alternatives on how we can manage Ethan's schedule. Maybe we can take it slowly, maybe we'll start with 10 hours per week and see how he progress? Maybe we'll find a preschool program where they let an ABA therapist be with the child? Whatever the case may be, we will make sure we are involved in every step of the way.

How do you manage your time and your child's therapies?