autismfamilystory. com

We all know kids with autism need specialized individualized programs put in place for them to make progress in their learning goals in terms of their academic, behavior, social skills and self-help skills. This is the reason why an IEP (individualized learning plan) is put in place for every child. I struggled to find appropriate resources for my son right from the early days. The community classrooms did have resources for kids to work in the school but they did not have enough to send the resources home for me to practice with my son. Also the commercially available resources available in specialty stores were too expensive to buy. I started doing some research in this area to see what kind of resources were available online at a fraction of a cost. I came across a site Teachers pay Teachers accidently five years ago. Thus started my journey of making resources for my son. This is the world's first and largest marketplace with millions of resources. The greatest benefit of ...

One of the core deficits of autism is difficulty in communication. This is evident from the fact that 40% of kids with autism are nonverbal even though most of them have average or above-average intelligence. The cause for why such a high percentage of kids are nonverbal is unknown. In the case of our son he started babbling around the age of two but never really developed verbal speech as he started showing signs of autism and began showing regression in skills. He became silent even before a formal diagnosis. He remained silent for the next couple of years. He started saying some single words around the age of four and we used to hear a new word every day even though it never progressed to saying a sentence. Even though he was still not speaking we were very hopeful he would speak one day.  Around the age of seven Aarian got diagnosed with a rare seizure disorder due to which he is nonverbal till today. In the meanwhile, during this time at home, he would take our hands to sh...

It is a well-known fact that Autism affects the whole family not just the child with special needs. Siblings play a very important role in the life of the child with special needs It affects them in a myriad of ways . They will be their longer in their brother or sister's life long after we are gone. We all know having a child with autism takes a lot from families. The first thing which happens is as parents we feel responsible to help our kids that we dedicate countless hours to help them and in turn are not able to spend as much time with our typical kids. I am personally guilty of it as well as now somewhere I feel I missed out making a connection with my older son. Even though he is grown up now and understands why I was not able to devote more time to him I do realize somewhere deep down he has developed resentment towards me. please don't get me wrong our older son loves his brother a lot but it is natural for him to feel that way. The other common thread which worrie...

Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI) is an evidence-based practice designed to improve core learning skills in areas of language, cognitive, and social development. Aarian started a clinic-based IBI program in September of 2012 around 7 years of age. He used to attend school 2 days a week during this program. The program included a team of instructor therapists working with Aarian supervised by Senior therapist for up to 30 hours per week. A clinical supervisor was responsible for overseeing the development of the child's curriculum and monitoring the overall progress. VB-Mapp assessment was conducted for Aarian and a program was put in place with the following goals. Aarian will increase the scope of his manding which is also requesting for his desired items and activities using PECS book. A total of two 20 minutes sessions per day were run in order to introduce Aarian to a variety of new stimuli in order to identify new reinforcers. In addition to manding for desired ite...