Listen to Jonah laughing toward the end of this clip… It brings a smile to my face every time I watch it.
We started in-home ABA back up last week after a summer hiatus.
Our therapist anticipated a couple weeks before Jonah would settle back in to the routine.
Day one went about as expected.
First, Jonny had joined a special olympics-sponsored bowling league, to which typically, his school will transport him after school.
Except, the first day, transportation was not provided so we had to drive him ourselves.
I couldn’t just drop Jonny off so I had to take both boys into the bowling alley even though Jonny was the only one bowling.
Jonah did not understand why he couldn’t bowl too.
We had a tough time leaving (as I expected.)
It wasn’t the meltdown I was expecting, but I still had to carry him outside crying and flailing.
I finally put him down and he walked with me the rest of the way to the car, sat down in his seat, and bucked his seatbelt (all while still crying).
In the past, he would unbuckle his seat belt and scream while climbing out of his seat when he was having a tough time.
But this day, he sat in his seat… crying about the disappointment of not being able to bowl, but able to control his emotions enough to calm himself down in the 10 minutes it took to get home…
Our therapist was waiting for us when we got home. It was probably the worst possible time to have a therapy session.
Jonah was simply not in the mood to work.
So even though we still had the session, we didn’t do any work.
Jonah avoided his therapist most the session and that was fine. He was able to control his emotions enough to simply say “no.”
The goal of day one was just to rebuild rapport between them.
This video was from day 2.
Day 2 was a better day all around. Jonah avoided his therapist for about 10 minutes and then we were able to redirect him to the table.
Jonah found a timer that we were planning on using to assist with potty-training… (yes we are still working on it)
But it turns out, the timer was more fun just to play with by itself.
He sat like that working with the therapist for about 2 hours straight, even though he can get up whenever he wants.
I hope this trend continues!
Original Facebook Post.
