Typical ABA Session

Currently, we have ABA sessions on M, W, F, from 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Mondays & Fridays we have Thomas as William’s BT. He’s been with us for about a year now. On Fridays we have Brenda; which is our new BT for about few months. Brenda is also responsible for Social Groups on Saturdays from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM.

A typical ABA session at home would be Thomas/Brenda asking William what he wants to do or what game he wants to play. Most of the time I’d be cooking our dinner while listening to their conversations. Some times I sit down and watch them. We’re so lucky to have BTs who are patient and dedicated to their job.

ABA session with Thomas

Now it’s summer so some times we go out to the back yard and William plays in the trampoline. We also walk around the neighborhood to practice our goals of “Asking permission/Elopement”. William tends to run off to whatever he wants so the goal is for him to ask permission before he goes and to stay next to mom & dad when going out.

ABA Services Is Stopped!

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.