Friday afternoon, there’s no ABA session today so we decided to take William to the park in Irvine. He loved to sit on the turtle and play with water, getting his shirt all wet.
Then we had dinner at the Ajisen Ramen in Diamond Jamboree Plaza.
Friday morning, we had appointment to see the Neurologist Thanh Le in Newport Beach. Its location is hard to find so I ended up park in the business center near by and walk to his office. The building is so beautiful with water fountains and green landscape. His office is on the 2nd floor, William enjoyed riding the elevator as usual but he he cried and kicked when we approached the office door; once we got inside he refused to get off the stroller.
I filled out all the paperwork at home so it didn’t take long to check in. We waited for only 5 minutes then the lady took William to the scale to measure and weight him. 37 inches and 36 Lbs. About 10 more minutes waiting in room #1 for the neurologist Thanh Le. The doctor came in, said hi to me and started talking about Autism. He didn’t try to gain William’s attention or communicate with him but I know he was observing him while talking to me. About 10 minutes later he turned to William, gave him a little tape measurement so that William can play with and he has another one that he used to measure William’s head. Then he used some metal tool to knock lightly on William’s knees.
He said William met all the criteria of autistic. The most important thing is William didn’t look at him when he walked into the room (no eyes contact). Dr. said normal children would just look at the him and use eyes to observe. Normal children would point to this or that when they like some thing, but William would just take my hands and lead me to the things that he likes. Dr. Thanh explained that autistic children would not understand body language. If we say the same sentence in 3 different voices: normal, angry or happy. Normal children would understand that but autistic children only understand the words (if they can), not the differences in the way we say. He used Blind and Deaf person for examples a lot. He said we don’t yell at Deaf people because we know they can’t hear us. Autistic Spectrum Disorder, why they call it Spectrum? Because spectrum is a range. 1 end is Autism, in the middle is normal people and the other end is Politician. A Politician can talk about 1 small for 2 hours, while Autistic person doesn’t want to talk at all.
He said, ABA services is more important than speech therapy because William doesn’t have problem with speech at all, he can echo what we said. It’s just that he DOESN’T WANT to TALK! and it’s one of the characteristic of autism.
He also mentioned that in San Jose there’s a company that has a whole building for autistic people to work where they provide foods, shower and couches/beds facilities. The doctor was trying to say that there’s hope for my boy if I raise him in a right environment, he can find a job and work as normal person. But first need to teach him to talk so that he can communicate even just at the minimum level.
The meeting took about 30 minutes total, I think, and Dr. Le gave us a report right after that. And he said it’s recommended to see a neurologist every year.
Dr. Thanh Le has been a neurologist for 20 years so I trust his expertise in this field; and plus I really like the way he talked and explained things to me, very easy to understand; and his approach of waiting 10 minutes to interact with William to make sure William is getting used to his presence in the room is brilliant.
Saturday morning, Tim went to work so I took William to the little pumpkin patch at Walmart near our place. Turned out he’s more into the Xmas decorations than pumpkins :).
Thursday afternoon 1:30 PM. As usual I picked William up at Mitchell school and dropped him off at Children’s World Preschool. But today he refused to get off the car seat and go in!
I said, “Let’s go in”
He said, “No”. I asked why not but he didn’t say anything. William just learned the word “No” and he has been using it a lot.
Every time I tried to unbuckle the car seat straps, he put it back in and cried and kicked his legs. So I asked Mr. Gary for help. He came out to the car, William did the same thing: cried and kicked his legs. Gary was so determined to take him so he ignored his behavior. William’s head almost hit the car floor while he was trying to escape. Mr. Gary carried him inside while William still crying; and took him to the kitchen, let him sat on the counter and offered him water. I peaked thru the window and he still crying but I needed to go back to work.
Fri day afternoon, William did the same thing. This time Mr. Gary was not there so Mrs. Anita (new teacher) came out. William shook his head refused to go in.
Wednesday 5:30 PM.
As I was told before, today we met a new ABA technician named E. Afzal; she’s a young Indian lady. Supervisor Kevin came too. William mostly came to Kevin, I guess because he needs time to make acquaintance with Ms. Afzal. At first I didn’t see her smile but maybe she was nervous being with a new client? Later on she smiled more but I’m not sure if William likes her yet.
Later Mrs. Nhu came to talk about the situation with Magellan: we still have not heard from Magellan yet and the contract with RCOC is about to expire in 2 weeks. I’m a little bit worried.
Noon 1:10 PM. When I picked William up at Mitchell school, Mrs. Hana said he had a hard time today. He refused to sit to eat breakfast and lunch, he cried several times and ran to sit in a corner. On the communication book on Monday, the note said he cried multiple times too. So i’m not sure what’s going on with him.
As usual, I put the milk and hot dog on a small chair in my car so that William can have it if he feels hungry. He took the milk to drink, then grasped the hot dog! it’s the sign that he’s extremely hungry. As the teacher said, he didn’t eat anything so that explained it. Then he took the hot dog and climbed to the back of the car to get to the trunk! He sat there and ate his hot dog; he refused to get back on the back seat. He likes to hang out in the trunk a few times before but would climb back to the back seat after few minutes. This time he stayed there for a while. It looked like that he wanted to sit in a corner by himself.
When he almost finished the hot dog, he climbed back out to the back seat and came to the driver seat and hang out there as he normally would. Few minutes later he pooped. Right after he finished pooping, he pushed his nose against my nose and smile! So was it because he had an upset stomach that he behaved the way he did? I hope that’s just it.
He felt asleep on the way to Children’s World preschool; and when I put him down on his tiny bed, he was still sleeping.
Monday afternoon 5:30 PM.
Mrs. Han from ABEST is now back to teach William starting this week for 3 days a week (Mon, Tues, Thurs). I think he remembers her because he acted so happy to see her.
Ms. Han and Annie were the first ones to teach William since we started with ABEST. Ms. Han came to Children world’s preschool for almost everyday in the first 2 months when we got the fund from HealthNet insurance. There she helped him eat using utensils and read books to him. Other kids liked her too that they hang around when she read books to William.
I just wish that with the funding source from Medi-Cal, we can have ABA services at the day care.
Currently with the funding source is RCOC, they don’t fund ABA services taken place in the day care, in home service only. So this is why William can only receive ABA services at home AFTER day care hours, 5:30 PM – 8:15 PM everyday.
At the day care after his nap, William always finds a corner to sit in and not playing with other kids; this is the reason why I’m so desperately hoping we’d get funding for ABA services at the day care so that there will be someone there to “drag” him out of his favorite corner and to learn how to interact with peers or at least enjoy the playground or play with toys instead of sitting alone and watching other kids having fun.
Welcome back Ms. Han; We’re happy to see you, a very nice young and patient lady with a soft voice.
Bishop / Mammoth Lakes trip from Saturday 10/7 to Tuesday 10/10/2017.
Wednesday 2:30 PM.
Mrs. Nhu from ABEST called to cancel today’s session with William and also the rest of the week. She said they need to have the staff meeting first then she would update me soon. I had no idea what was going on but I did not ask more because I wanted her to have time to deal with it first (whatever it is) before I ask more questions. I simply responded “OK, hope everything goes well!”.
I guessed maybe it’s the billing/payment issue?
Friday 4:00PM.
I texted Mrs. Nhu asking when we could resume session. She said “I will reach out to you when you come back from vacation on Tuesday to set up a clinic meeting”. I had no idea what is a clinic meeting, but I just simply said “OK” because I knew we will find out soon.
Wednesday 12:56.
I texted Mrs. Nhu that “we’re back, what’s that clinic meeting that you talked about?”
– “Could I schedule a clinic meeting with you for tonight? At 6:00 pm for consultation. We will be discuss about our transition team and the barriers that we encounter and review client service agreement.” – Mrs. Nhu responded.
Of course I said yes because I want my boy to be back in ABA sessions as soon as possible.
Wednesday 5:30 PM, ABA technician Dan showed up at my house. I was so surprised; I thought all sessions were canceled until we had a talk with Mrs. Nhu later this evening.
6:00 PM at my house. Mrs. Nhu came. She was surprised that she saw Dan at my house too.
So after Dan left, Mrs. Nhu & I sat down on the table to talk. It turned out it was not the payment issue with RCOC like I thought. It was me who caused the issue!
Last week, the ABA technician Dan sent email to every one in the team that he felt “uncomfortable walking into a client house knowing that he’s recorded”. And that he requested to cancel all sessions with William last week! I almost cried! Is that it? he should know that we have security camera all around the house and in the living room where the ABA sessions taken place. “He suspected that I took photo of him”. This I did not deny; I got the new iPhone so I was testing the various portrait modes in the iPhone 8 Plus: I took several pictures of him and William during the session on Tuesday. I did not know that made him felt uncomfortable and did not want to continue the sessions; but why did he show up today acting like nothing happened? That Mrs. Nhu could not understand either!
Long story short, we had a long and clear conversation about the issue; Mrs. Nhu proposed the solution is to cover the camera in the living room whenever we have sessions with her staffs; and I will never take photos or videos of the sessions. I cried toward the end of the meeting; mostly because I think it’s just a silly reason that the sessions were cancelled. A few pictures would cause that big of a issue? (I cried later at night too; I felt so sad thinking that having an autistic child is hard enough, why people would add more to my burden because of some non sense reasons. I just simply don’t understand why people can be so sensitive about a few pictures.).
Thursday Morning.
Mrs. Nhu sent me email confirming the sessions would be resumed started today with Kevin. And that Dan would be out of the case; and Mrs. Han will replace him.
Now I’m relieved that William can continue to learn. I think he has been learning a lot from these sessions; that’s why I so value them and the ABA staffs that teaching him.
Wednesday noon. Picked William up and there he was with a nice hat. He looked happy as usual.
