ASD - # of therapy/therapy homework hours and schoolwork per day?

[rafiki]

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[FrogMom5]

We did 3 months of floor time when my ds was 3. It was exhausting but worth every minute. But, I only had one child at the time. Is there any way to have your older 2 dc participate? It will give you some relief and keep one or the other of them occupied. Otherwise, can you afford to hire someone to come in for a few hours a week to help w/floor time?

 

For us, this therapy was not as critical as the other treatments we did. Don't beat yourself up if you can't do floor time.

Denise

[specialmama]

Honestly, it is very draining. I had IBI aides come to the house Mon-Fri 9-5 minus one hour lunch. I worked with him afterwards every evening and on weekends. If you can't afford therapists or they aren't provided in your area, do yourself a favour and contact your local University ASAP. Speak to the head of the Psychology department and see if there are any under-grads needing to fulfill their hours of practise. It is your best shot. They will have so many hours (30 a week here) that they must fill during the summer, and most will continue through the next term(s) because it looks great on their resume. Other options are students becoming an SLP and OT, but Psych would be my first choice. Good luck! And really, I do understand. The load is too much for one mama, it is really time to call in all favours... aunts that live near by, a friend who wishes to support you, etc. You need help with programming, but also with respite... trust me, you need respite before you think you do. We tend to overshoot and keep at it, then with very little warning we have a breakdown. Been there, done that. :grouphug:

[Niffercoo]

What I'm reading it takes to stimulate these kids is quite frightening when I have three quirky kids to juggle.

 

Just finished reading about floor time and the minimum was 5 hours spread through the day and that didn't include formal academics!

 

How on earth?

 

Any words of wisdom reguarding the early elementary years with ASD and juggling 2 older quirky children?

 

I'm going to go against the grain and tell you that you don't need to "stimulate" your child all day long and still make progress. My daughter was diagnosed with autism at 3.5 years old and she was functionally non-verbal. She used quite a few words at that point because she had started speech therapy at 3, but she talked at people or she repeated what others said, or she had a script she wanted you to run through with her and would accept no deviations.

 

We use RDI for our therapy and we started when she was about 4 years old informally and then later with a consultant. The idea with RDI is to slow down your pacing (of your life, your speech, your actions) and allow the processing time for the child to engage with you in meaningful activities. Our first year of RDI we put academics on the back burner (because I have 2 kids on the spectrum and a very demanding middle child who some days seems like she's on the spectrum) and we focused our attention on RDI. But that doesn't mean we spent hours a day doing drills and engaging. I wanted my kids to develop the motivation to want to engage with me, which first meant for me having to drop expectations of "getting something from them". And then we had to work on them not controlling the interaction which was hard for them. And I have had to learn to change my own patterns of interaction with them because I had learned how to artificially arrange things to avoid meltdowns. Everyone needs some down time in their day, even kids on the spectrum. It's stressful to have someone 'wanting' something from you in terms of expectations or demands for proper responses. RDI takes typical child development and breaks it down so the child has a chance to fill in the gaps that may have been missed because of the autism.

 

In time, RDI became our lifestyle. We added back in the academics, dealt with the addition of seizures and epilepsy care to our list of stressors, and got 2 kids through puberty (well, still working with the 2nd one - hopefully we're nearing some stability, soon! LOL). Both of my spectrum kids are pretty much back on their developmental path - my son is dealing with the typical teen stuff like girls, feeling self-conscious, trying to decide what he wants to do with his life. My daughter, because she had so much further to go, is still delayed but is on her own path as well. She is so much more aware of what is going on around her now, and she wants to be a part of the world.

 

I would encourage you to look into RDI. The website is http://www.rdiconnect.com. If you are going to use a consultant, research very carefully and interview a couple of options. We were not pleased with our consultant but wasted too much time thinking it was our problem and not hers. If you decide not to go with RDI, there is still a lot of really valuable information in their books, and in the suggested reading. I especially recommend the book, Awakening Children's Minds.

 

Hope this helps!

[Holly IN]

Niffercoo,

 

Thanks for your post. Not the OP. We bailed out of RDI due to crappy consultant that refused to advance faster based on my daughter. She got very very bored with it and we asked her to speed it up or make it a bit harder. She had accomplished many goals per our view but the consultant felt it wasn't enough. We would spend 2-3 months working on one concept. Believe me my daughter got very frustrated with us and the whole thing. Hubby and I believe that RDI does work however if you do not move forward fast enough it is a lost cause as was the case with my daughter.

 

Would love to get back into RDI but without consultant. Just felt like she was holding us back to get more money out of us. :confused:

 

Holly

[heart'sjoy]

Given we've only been in RDI a year.

 

I work in about 4- 30 minute chunks a week. Many times the therapy is a tweaked school/ academic lesson since my ds is 9. A flashcard drill for Latin would be an example. DS is working on noticing and using nonverbal communication. During the Latin flashcards I look at his shoulder if I want him to call out the Englisn and I reply in Latin and look at his foot for the reverse; then we switch roles. Other times we make lunch together as he works in matching his pace with mine.

 

We did have to clear out our outside activities down to leaving the house twice a week other than errands like groceries. But this had more to do with slowing things down and decreasing the stress level.

 

RDI is also filtering into my other 2 kids lives as well. As we get more skills built up, it will be even more essential for me to incude the other two as we try to appply ds's skills to group situations.

 

 

Speaking of consultants, I work via skype and uploaded video and see ours twice a year. It was slow going until we got about half way into level two (=child can attend and carry their load in communicating/ working together with you), but now things are speeding up.

 

My consultant and I are creating a current pot of about 6 objectives to pull from. This way I can pick one each week that fits what we're already doing in school. The objectives are not all in a set lineup. Of course you wouldn't want something on the square roots level when you haven't mastered addition, but you can pull from different tool categories.:grouphug:

 

:bigear:I hear you about the tough decisions as to what therapy will fit your needs and how to get things moving.

 

Melody

[chiguirre]

Just finished reading about floor time and the minimum was 5 hours spread through the day and that didn't include formal academics!

 

How on earth?

 

Any words of wisdom reguarding the early elementary years with ASD and juggling 2 older quirky children?

 

Is that 5 hours for a child that can already focus on academic tasks? Ds1's day is focused on academics, social skills and language learning are folded into his school day at his ABA-based center. In fact, they work on academics even with young kids as a normal part of their day. We didn't do Floor Time, so it may be different, but I don't think it's unreasonable to work on joint attention, pragmatic speech, OT goals, self regulation and self advocacy using academic activities. That way you can do 2 things at once.