Today was Kaylee's 'day with daddy' - Naomi was working a near full day. Kaylee spent 2.5 hours in the swimming pool and was very happy! I noticed (while at the pool) a good demonstration that Kaylia is now able to think sequentially - that is she expressed a desire for "X" but worked out for herself that she would need to do "U","V", & "W" before she could get to "X" ... and she went ahead and did it without prompting.
This was a confirmation to me of something that had been said in her therapy program review (yesterday). The clinical psychologist is very happy with Kaylia's progress this year and we are seeing behaviours that show a blossoming ability to think.
You might wonder "So what ... don't all children learn to think?" ..... No .... my understanding of autism is that the child can be so wrapped up in their own world that they never notice how we adults do things .... and that is how children learn - by watching us. So for Kaylia .... if she had been left without therapy ..... she would never have watched how we 'do things' - and so she would never have learned to think.
On the medication front, we are going to try 'weaning her off' Risperdal to see if the Lovan is sufficient alone. She is on a small dose of Risperdal but it still seems to be producing an undesirable weight gain. A few days to taper off the Risperdal and we will watch for any increase in stimmy behaviours. If this increase is seen (about Monday or Tuesday), we will try a different drug to see if we can control the stimming while avoiding the weight gain.
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