Today was a busy day at Hope Center 4 Autism much like every other day. I saw a new client, she is 25 yr old and so amazing. Had a few meetings and finished with a parent meeting.

The parent meeting this afternoon was my last appointment of the day and well, I do not know how these parents do it. Four kids, one with autism, dad is a first responder so he is gone a lot, mom is a teacher. WOW, they are so awesome.

They are so sweet and kind, seeking help, wanting to do work at home to help their son. Layers and layers of information being shared, very quickly, our one hour meeting quickly turn into 2 hours. They need help with getting him to eat, timeout, sharing, taking turns, speech, birthday parties, getting their families to believe he has autism, the holidays and sleep.

What would you pick to work on? Where do you start?

We have to prep parents for change. They are in survival mode, doing the best they can and I want them to change what they are doing and do things our way? That cannot be easy. They don’t really know us very well at this point. It has to be scary to think about changing even if it is to make changes for the better, change is always hard. So today we talk a lot, we share a lot and we listen a lot.

We pick one thing for parents work on at home and we start a plan. We pick taking turns. Mom and child will play a game, they will follow a plan to play and take turns, mom will use the words we set up for her to use in the plan, they will play, they will take turns. This will create change. Mom will collect data ( keep notes) Once they are successful to our BCBA we will add to the plan. Everything is broken into small steps and taught one step at a time. This is how hope changes things, baby steps so everyone is successful.

I am blessed.
Autism looks different with therapy,
Autism the way I see it at Hope Center 4 Autism
Please excuse my typos and poor writing skills but I hope you hear my heart.

-Susan Wood, Executive Director