17 Lives

   I thought it would be kind of cool to reflect on all the kids I have worked with over the three years working with kids with Autism at Children's Behavioral Health Services. I have changed the names used here for privacy reasons. 

Chris: Chris was the first kid I worked one on one with. He was a special case because he had made a lot of progress, but then started reverting backwards. I think he was eventually taken out of the program because little progress was being made. I would watch him make his bed, and brush his teeth, and we would go on walks. He was still learning how to tie his shoes at 11 years old, and we would also cook simple things together. He had a twin brother who was also on the spectrum but less severe. He had a fear of going to his grandma’s house nearby due to her dog so we tried to extinguish that fear by walking to her house and having him step foot on her property or touch the garage door. His favorite celebrity was Taylor Swift and if he could he would wear a Taylor Swift shirt everyday, as a reward I would play songs from the album 1989. He wouldn’t really answer any of your questions if they were more than yes/no questions but ask you the same questions each time you were there. He walked on his tip toes, and liked watching home videos or videos of babies getting shots. (Now: 13 years old)

Ryan: Ryan was the second kid I visited when I started working with CBHS. He’s nonverbal and we would work with him on many different things including getting him to talk, potty train him, get him to eat something besides baby food, drink from a cup instead of a bottle, learn colors/shapes, tolerate the vaccumn, wash his hands, tie his shoes correctly etc. When I first started working with him, he showed a lot of refusal and would instead scream, whine, or glare at you. He was good at that. We think he showed a lot of refusal because usually his mom would give in to him and do things for him. Put on his coat, spoon feed him baby food, tie his shoes, brush his teeth, etc. This made it harder in the long run to get him to do things. His favorite thing to do was go outside for walks or run. I got him to say “Ready set go” before we’d run together. He didn’t say much but he said a few words including: “potty”, “help”, and “wow”. He also liked playing hide and go seek tag in the house. He would hide around the corner and you’d chase after him. He had the cutest smile and giggle. His favorite book was an elmo book, and in the beginning I would have to read it to him every single time I was there, and pretty much have it memorized now. (Now 7 years old) (currently not in ABA anymore)

Justin: Justin was another non-verbal boy which I worked with in his home and at his daycare. He was very smart and could write his name and the whole alphabet in very neat handwriting, at the age of 4. One of his favorite words to write was pop. The thing about Justin was he would talk a lot, however could not hold a conversation. He was in his own little world a lot of the time and the things he would say would be from shows he had watched, etc. One of his favorite things to recite was the pledge of allegiance. Justin would often write in the air with his finger, and could even read. We think one day he might be a genius J His parents are really good at following through with doing what he’s working on and have him signed up for ABA therapy, music therapy, and occupational therapy. Justin's biggest accomplishment while I was with him was being potty-trained. One day it clicked in his mind and he was then able to go pee in the bathroom. Though you would have to take him to the bathroom to try and go, because he usually wouldn’t tell you if he had to go. Sometimes we’d get to the bathroom and he’d say no pee pee if he didn’t have to go. Justin was a very dense kid, so he was hard to pick up due to his muscle tone even though he was 4 and not overweight. By the end of my time working with Justin he started to get rebellious and would do the opposite of whatever I said. Including jumping on the bed, slamming the door, swinging on the counter, and laugh while doing so because he knew it was wrong, which got a little tough. (7 now?) (still in the program)

Alex: Alex was an interesting case. His mom had severe depression and would hardly get up from off her armchair located in front of the TV, she and her older son were smokers. The older son was in his mid 20s? and would take Alex a lot of places because his mom would hardly ever take him anywhere.  The inside of their house was very dirty. There was piles of trash and stuff everywhere. The house reeked as well, and I got a skin infection due to it. By the end of my time working here there were mice running around. Thankfully there was a table we could sit at to work on stuff that was semi clean. The mom would often forget when you were supposed to come to her house. During the summer I would take him outside a lot, anything to get out of that house :P. He was very disrespectful with adults, and would swear. Repeating lines from bad movies. I made a whole list of rules, and made a reward sheet for good behavior after a while to get him to behave better which did help. Rules like he wouldn’t throw stuff when he was angry, he would listen to his mom and not tell her to shut up, no swearing etc. I would say them and have him repeat them. His favorite thing was fidget spinners and he had a whole collection of them. For the most part he was nice and only hit me once in my time working with him. If anything he would usually hit himself if he were angry. I think they ended up moving and then left the program. (Now 13).

Josh: I worked with Josh at his daycare program and at his house. I would mostly watch him interact when he was at daycare since his binder didn’t have many programs. His biggest goal was calming himself down when he got frustrated. He’d get frustrated a lot because he held himself to a high standard and was a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it came to drawing. He was excellent at drawing but wanted them to be perfect. Josh usually played alone at daycare so we tried to get him to interact with the others, although most of them were a lot younger so it was harder for him to relate to them anyways. Like all boys he was into poop/fart jokes. When he got angry he got really angry and would usually start screaming, crying, and shouting. He was not in control of his actions when this happened. The littlest things could set him off. Like losing a game, or getting a bad grade. He was not aggressive thankfully, and I’d just take him somewhere else like to an armchair until he calmed down, and then he was okay again. By the end of my time working with him he was able to calm himself down pretty quickly. He would sometimes get really distracted and be quoting Spongebob which was his favorite show. He needed reminders to focus and not do this at times when I was there. He had a little sister and was really good with her. (Now 13).

Jacob:Jacob was fun to work with most times. We shared a similar music taste so it was fun to talk about music with him. His other favorite thing was video games, and would talk to you a lot about them, and get frustrated sometimes if you didn’t understand what he was talking about. You would have to remind him that you didn’t know about said game. I worked a lot with Jacob on social skills. How conversation was a back and forth thing, so not to take control of the conversation. He also had trouble with reading and comprehension and read at a lower level then his peers, but he was from a bilingual family. His writing also needed help so I would help him write sentences that made sense grammatically and help him spell. Jacob considered the therapists coming to his house his friends, and during the summer didn’t really have any kids his age come visit. He didn’t want to be involved in any outside programs though. He ended up graduating the program because he had made enough progress to not need our help anymore. (Now 12?)

Tyler: Tyler had been one of the kids at another job I worked at the previous summer, so I had already known him, but not worked with him yet. Tyler was always excited to do work, which made it easy, and was refreshing. He had an interest in vacuum cleaners and would often watch videos of vacuums, and vacuum for fun. When you would say no to a one of his requests he would say “say yes”. He didn’t like taking no for an answer. We would play “Trouble” a lot because it was his favorite game. He would often ask about old therapists and when they were coming back. When I would say I didn’t know he would say “today?” another example of not taking no for an answer. He was good with most tasks but socially odd/out of it. He thought everyone was his friend and nice, and loved helping people. (Left the program after one of his dogs attacked me). (Now 12?)

Ally: I currently work with Ally now and I feel like she has come a long way since I started working with her 2 years ago. 2 years ago she couldn’t sit on her chair longer than two minutes before getting up and going somewhere else. She had that little of focus. Her binder work was pretty simple and she didn’t really talk much. Now you can have decent conversations with her as long as it’s a topic she likes, and she flies through the programs in her binder like they’re nothing. Her biggest challenge is that her older sisters are higher on the spectrum than she is. We’re starting to think she doesn’t really have Autism at all and learned from her older sisters and how they acted. On her good days, she’s fantastic to work with. Other days she can make it hard by acting out. She seems to go through phases of making work difficult for us or easy. We think the work in her binder becomes too easy for her quickly so she’s no longer interested in reviewing it again. She makes hilarious comments sometimes and one of her favorite songs is Do the Panic which is a song I introduced her to. She loves being outside even when its cold out. She has a big imagination and loves playing with her dolls….usually violently. We’re working on that. (Now age 7.)

Sarah: One of Ally's older sisters. When the company first started therapy with her, she refused to talk at all. She has selective muteness, and as far as I’m aware she doesn’t talk at school…at all. It’s surprising that she had ever had trouble talking with us there before, because she talks all the time now, even when she’s not supposed too. Sarah has a big imagination too so much so she pretends that characters from shows are there in the room and pretends to be them or talk to them, which is something we’re working on. When you’re working with her she asks where the other workers are. She always wants to work with someone other than who is assigned to her. Sarah can get really sassy and will usually whine or talk sassy at you. I don’t even really know if she knows she does it. Another thing we are working on is how she normally talks to you in 3^rd person. Sarah loves Rapunzel and Ariel especially the song “Under the Sea”. Like her sister she can make sessions really difficult or easy depending on her mood. (Now age 9).

Thomas: I just started working with Thomas this summer. During the summer when there wasn’t really a routine he wouldn’t like it when we would come over to do therapy. During the school year he’s gotten a lot better. Thomas is sweet but he can get aggressive when he’s upset and has even pulled my hair. He usually yells and kicks you under the table not very hard or he has dug his nails into skin before. He is usually pretty quick to calm himself down now. His usual mood is smiling and giggling during session. Thomas is nonverbal and his language skills have been really strong recently. He went from not trying to talk at all to requesting things both on his iPad and saying them. Including “couch break please” or “apple please”, which probably makes it a lot easier on his parents. Thomas is very smart but also can be very stubborn as well. In the beginning of working with him shoe tying was one of his programs and he absolutely refused to get up and go get his shoes no matter how close they were. This is the only program he gave us an especially hard time with, otherwise he’s pretty good with all the other ones. The thing about Thomas is that he will usually elongate words instead of saying them at an average pace. Not because he has trouble saying the words just because he likes to, for example cat would be caaaat. So we have a program that times him saying 15 words. Thomas's favorite thing is water. He will purposely spill water onto the table and move it around with his fingers. Removing the water bottle does little now that hes discovered he can make his own water with his spit, and will use that as his water if his water bottle is taken away, which is something we’re working on now. A surprising thing about Thomas is he’s great at the game Jenga and even takes the pieces out slowly and carefully….usually. (Now 10.)

Andrea: Andrea has sensory processing disorder and behavioral issues but otherwise she is neurotypical. I started working with her two summers ago. She constantly had to change her clothes if they got wet or dirty, we were able to stop her recently from doing that. Usually she is a kind little girl but sometimes she can be very defiant. She doesn’t like listening to what her parents tell her to do, usually. Sometimes she will. For instance one time her mom told her to fold some of her pants. She folded two pairs and made excuses as to why she couldn’t fold anymore and how much she hated doing laundry. Her mom asked her to consider how she felt doing everyone’s laundry all the time and folding it. She said that her mom liked it, so I tried explaining to her that there’s some things we don’t like doing but we have to do anyway. Like how her mom might not like to do laundry but does it anyway. She didn’t seem to have heard me and a couple minutes later she set the basket in front of her mom and said “you do it”. We had a talk after that. She also has problems with knowing about personal space and would sit in your lap if she could. She really likes makeup and doing hair, and is actually pretty good at it given her age. She likes going outside, and going for walks, and playing with sensory things like slime, and kinetic sand. She likes doing things that are simple, and doesn’t like challenges, she gets frustrated easily. Being that she is an older sister, her and her little brother fight a lot, but get along some of the time. Her mom is very sick so it helps when Andrea is able to help out. I think she knows this in her mind but actually doing the things we talk to her about is a little more difficult. (Now 4 years old).

Kyle: I only worked with Kyle for a short amount of time but I don’t think he had Autism, but behavioral issues. When eating he refused to use a fork instead using his hands. He rarely would listen to you or his parents. He would yell at the other kids at daycare and refuse to sit still. Getting him to do any of the programs was complicated but he usually did better when a session was at his house. He would tantrum a lot and I even caught him about to draw on the TV screen with marker. I only worked with him a short time and two summers ago so I barely remember specifics. (Now 5)

Brandon: I just started working with Brandon a little over a month ago. Brandon is one of the cutest kids and I like to work with him. However I don’t like having to wake him up after naps. The last few times he has given me a really hard time. I usually have to put his shoes on and carry him to the snack table while he refuses to sit on the chair and instead lays on the ground. I have to forcibly sit him up or he’d just lay on the floor for a half hour. While I’m doing this hes yelling, crying, and sometimes screaming no! After he gets over the crankiness of being woken up then he’s usually great. I can hardly be mad at him long because he is so adorable. He’s another one that I don’t think has Autism since he doesn’t show the typical signs. He loves playing with his stuffed owl and takes it everywhere with him referring to it as his baby. He loves being outside and having us there to work/play with him. He has a hard time sharing which is something that we’re working on because he’ll get angry if someone is playing with a toy he wants or takes it from him. But has been getting better with that. (Age 3).

Adam: Just started working with Adam the same time as Brandon. Adam is one of my hardest clients. Not because of his behaviors, but because he isn’t interested in much, so it’s hard to get him to sit still. His favorite thing to do is dump things out of their containers. Puzzle pieces, cars, anything. He has a hard time sitting still and will walk around aimlessly the entire day probably. He really likes Disney Movies with Toy Story and Cars being his favorites. Sometimes he will sit with you while you read a book and use your finger to point to different pictures as you say what they are aloud. He’s another one who is nonverbal, so getting him to use any sort of language including sign language is a big goal. We hope that by saying words, or having devices that say words he will eventually try to form words too. Adam has a high-pitch squeak he makes when he’s excited. Adam is really cute and also has the cutest baby sister. When Adam is upset which is rarely he will bang his head on the wall or ground, so we protect him from hurting himself in those situations. (Now 3 years old?)

Dylan: Dylan is incredibly smart and unlike Adam can keep himself entertained for hours with one activity. He knows the whole alphabet frontwards and backwards as well as his numbers up to 100. The thing is he is nonverbal too and likes to hide how much he knows because he’s stubborn. Stubborn enough that if you let him he’d cry and tantrum for hours straight. However it is easy to get him from being angry to okay again through distraction. Distracting him so he even forgets why he was even mad in the first place. Like Dylan look at this! One of Dylan’s favorite things to do is color and usually anything that has to do with numbers or letters. Unfortunately since he knows these things really well we don’t get to spend much time on them. (Now 3 years old.)

Emma: Emma is a really sweet girl who is nonverbal however can talk just chooses not to usually. When you are working with her she’ll probably say 6 words max the whole time. She has a lot of sensory items in her bedroom and especially likes playing with the dried beans and burying her small figurines. She likes when her dad listens to metal music but hates the sound of a baby crying, and will get angry if someone brings a baby over. Though she rarely gets angry and is usually a sweetheart. She usually uses sign language to communicate or says “no” when she doesn’t want to do something. She is really good at doing puzzles. (Age 4).

Hazel: Hazel is very new to getting therapy so she is very defiant, which can make her difficult to work with. She is young, but aggressive and has been known to push her little sister over and even pushed a girl to the ground at school. She is nonverbal and can be very stubborn. When shes in a defiant mood she makes things extremely difficult. She will scream, try and kick you, pull your hair, throw whatever your working on, and even put her arms around my neck once. When she wants something she will rip it out of your hands. In the little time we have been working with her however she has made improvements. Including waving bye when you’re about to leave. Using sign language, but right now she only knows “more” and signs that for everything. She has learned how to point and can usually point to the things she wants. She is excellent at matching/sorting and is slowly learning her colors. She absolutely hates when you wipe her nose even if it’s really runny and will fight against you if you do this, she does the same thing when she has to wash her hands. Sometimes she knows what she’s doing is wrong like when she’s throwing and will smile while doing this. Her favorite thing to do is jump on a small trampoline and she could probably spend hours just doing that. Whenever she has something in her hand she shakes It, and usually has a small figure in her hand 24/7 and shakes it in order to stay focused. She has been able to stay mostly calm and focused the last couple of times I have worked with her.