#450 Saturday 10 December

Naah ... Did'n 'appen! Last night she was upstairs hogging the bed as usual.

A little win this morning .... as she was going out the door (to go swimming with Kat) we did the usual routine of "Bye Kaylia" .... always hoping for the correct response.  This morning she did the usual of parroting back what I had said .... then she stopped and clearly thought about it ... and said "Bye Dad"  .... Yes!!

It is amazing that such social behaviours that we take for granted  .... and that normally are just absorbed as a child grows .... can be so hard for her.

#449 Friday 9 December

Two days of school left. Four sleeps. Speaking of sleeps ..... last night she slept in her bed downstairs for most of the night! (Very pleasant for us ... we had some room!). Tonight she appears to be settling down to repeat the performance. It will be good if this is a new stage she's reached.

#448 Thursday 8 December

Five sleeps to go.

Funny story!  When we take Kaylia to school, we park the car outside the school grounds and walk about 30 metres to the gate ... from the gate it is about 150 metres to her classroom around several buildings.  This morning  Kaylia decided that she was going to walk backwards!  So she did!  All the way .... holding onto my hands and giggling her head off!  She's a very funny thing at times.



When we got to the classroom, she saw other kids running round .... so she did too!  She had no idea why she was running ... she just ran to & fro ... giggling!  She's happy.

#447 Tuesday 6 December

Twice now the blogging app has crashed and I've lost all my work ... so I'll resort to writing the blog in a different app ... then copy it into the blog as a finished entry. If the blogging app crashes, I will still have the original to try agin with.

Now what had I been saying? .... I was talking about the current therapy for Kaylia .... what is the aim currently ... and I was just about to start telling you about why we need to do such things ....

OK ... Take three.

Kaylia has therapy on Monday and Tuesday .... 2 hours per session. We're all having trouble thinking of ways to implement the current exercise. ... it aims to change her social behaviour ... not reactive behaviour but self-initiated behaviour. Quite hard.

Why do we need to do this? Firstly quantity ... the research says that a child needs around 40 hours of ABA for it to get the best effect. Clearly you cannot have 40 hours of sessions .... so it depends on the parents being able to reinforce the exercises in everyday life.

Why do we need to teach her social behaviours? Autism 101! My concept is that she is so bound up in her internal world that she doesn't observe /see the behaviours of people around her .... so she never learns them. A child without autism is constantly observing and imitating the behaviour of people around them. They include these observed behaviours into their play activities ... and the behaviours become deeply embedded.

Not so for Kaylia .... I think she is only dimly aware of other people much of the time .... or she is aware of them but only to wonder why.











Bed time:
Kaylia has done it again! While the adults were in deep discussion we missed the fact that Kaylia was quiet. Bad mistake!
Naughty things upstairs and down!

Assembly at school today ... award for K

#446 Sunday 4 November

Kaylia has been in fine form this afternoon .... Naomi's sister Mim (and Steve) were over .... and Kaylia got into dance mode! She had us all up and dancing .... and she was using Steve as a dancing pole!

This morning we had a long Skype session with Zoe (Number 9) .... she was able to see Kaylia and talk to her.  Zoe is in California USA .... studying for her International Montessori teaching qualification and we have fond hopes that she will find her way back to us again when her study is finished in June.    It was so good to talk again.

Kaylia has been in a very calm, laid-back mood today ... very cuddly and happy.  The good results of the medication change continue ..... it's made me ponder some further 'fine tuning'  ideas.  I'll discuss them with her doctor.

Villa .... I have placed a link to the right side of the blog page .... so you can always find it easily.  Don't forget to tell your friends that it is available for rent!