Unity Begins: Day 1

What is UNITY?

 

Unity is an Intensive Parent Training program at The Summit Centre for Preschool Children with Autism:

•for select parents of children with ASD, under 5 years 8 months;

•high-quality intensive ABA training to selected parents so they can effectively teach children;

•parent & child attend together 5 mornings per week for 12 weeks; and

•monthly follow-up consultation group.

 

And what exactly is ASD?

ASD means Autism Spectrum Disorder. ASDs are developmental disorders characterized by
 

•Low social interest
•Disordered language and communication skills
•Stereotyped behaviour and restricted interests.

 

 

Okay, so, what is ABA?

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is a systematic method of
•Selecting teaching Goals
•Breaking tasks into small steps
•Repetition of teaching
•Positive reinforcement
•Keeping precise track of progress
•Teaching children to apply their new skills in all settings.

 

Thanks to The Summit Centre website for the basic outline presented above. :)

 

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A Few Notes to Get us Started

• It is Ryan, our just-turned-three-year-old, who has started the Unity program with Mommy.
• Mommy has taken 3 months off work to dedicate herself full-time to Ryan and the program.
• Yesterday was our first day.  For the first few days, I might just be posting snippets of things I've shared about our Unity experience on Facebook. I hope to share more details in the future, but who knows? It might all be random snippets, because this is intense, mostly mentally and emotionally, but sometimes that can make you more exhausted than physical strain, right?

 

 

First Impressions of Day 1 (a.k.a. Panic Mode!)

As posted on Facebook, yesterday afternoon:

 



"Morning 1 of Unity was--well--sorta crazy. I left 15 minutes extra early and we still arrived 10 minutes late (bad weather and no parking); I didn't notice Ryan had lost a shoe as I carried him in; I left our bags in the car in my rush. Then we ended the morning at 10:45 because Ryan went into meltdown at Circle Time. He was done. In between things were okay. Ryan was fairly cooperative, we found some toys he liked to use for reinforcement, and I even got him to take a sip of milk from a cup at snack time. He liked running his hands through a tub of dried beans but he also got them everywhere. The therapists thought it was great. All I saw was an embarrassing mess. It's definitely me who needs to relax and change my way of looking at things, because the staff insisted he had a great first morning and did a lot more than they expected. I think Ryan and I are both exhausted and glad to be home, though. 12 weeks of this? Yes, if this is just day 1, it's definitely going to be intense!"

 

Ryan had to come with me to pick up the kids after school, too. He didn't like the waiting in the car. Plus he didn't nap enough. Surprisingly, Kevin came through as a great helper, holding the iPhone in the car while it played some YouTube Thomas video for them, as I stepped out for a few minutes to get Andrea.

 

I need to add, on a lighter note, that I found several dried beans in Ryan's shoe when I removed it at home, but it gets better:  I found some in my bra when I undressed last night!