Behavior Intervention Plan

Since the school keeps denying services to my daughter, I now have another idea to get her the help she desperately needs. Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I am requesting the school psychologist conduct an evaluation, observing her behavior (the scratching/skin picking) to determine the antecedents, causes, whatever, and develop a Behavior Intervention Plan to correct the behavior. Usually, I believe a BIP is used for problem behaviors such as hitting, kicking, biting, tantrums... but this is still technically a behavior that is causing her injury, so hopefully this will cover it, since nothing else does. They refuse to even evaluate her for OT, stating that OT can not be a stand alone service, so unless she is already receiving special education services, which she is not, they can not do OT. We just had a private evaluation and will get the results next Friday. So, cross your fingers that this request for a BIP works, and if you happen to know anything about the process (I believe it is called a Functional Behavior Assessment, which leads to the development of a BIP), please share! THanks!

Sleep? Sort of...

So my boy has been sleeping in his own bed the past few days. We are bribing him to do so. However, he is still waking up at least once and needing to be tucked back in. I know I should not complain, but it would be really great if he would sleep straight through the night so we can too. We have tried showing him how to tuck himself, but he apparently can't get it just right. I am going to make him a weighted blanket to see if that will help. More on that later, when I actually find the time and motivation to do it!

Sometimes...

every now and then... I feel like the worst mother and wonder if there really was a reason God made me infertile.

Sleep issues

My son does not sleep. Well, he sleeps, but he is awake by about 1am every night and used to go play or watch tv, occasionally dozing on the couch. We started letting him sleep with us after he got up. We tried a bed on the floor in our room, but he wouldn't use it. So for quite some time, he has been sleeping with us from anywhere from 11pm-3am on. He still tosses and turns a lot, and often ends up pressed up against me to sleep. This makes it impossible for me to sleep well. Plus, he is not getting enough quality sleep. So, we tried melatonin. Went up to 3mg on the neurologist and psychiatrist's advice and he would still wake up. Finally, we tried trazadone. The first night, on 25mg, he slept like a champ, in his bed all the way through to 6:30am! After that first night though, he started waking up again. We raised it to 50mg with no change. Now we are about to start locking him out of our room again, but I am concerned he will just go back to playing and watching tv when he wakes. Really, we need him to sleep, all night, in his bed. Doc said we could go up to 100mg on the trazadone but I am hesitant about medicating my kids. Yes, my daughter is on a couple of things, but we fought tooth and nail before giving in on it. So I am thinking about trying to make a weighted blanket. My son has a lot of sensory issues, and the fact the he likes to sleep pressed up against me makes me think he craves pressure during sleep. So I guess I will be fabric shopping soon!

Happy Birthday!

My baby boy turns 5 Monday! We had his birthday party today, the first ever with his peers. Three little boys from his preschool class came and everyone had a good time! Pizza, playtime, paper plate snowman craft, presents, cake, and it was all done! I am so happy that everything went well!

ABA

How to decide on where to get ABA? One place that was referred is almost 2 hours away. Other places are closer... but I trust the dr that referred us. Hmmm...

An update...

I will try to keep it brief. lol My daughter is now 8. Her dx include Asperger's, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Anxiety-NOS, and Mood Disorder-NOS. She has a very hard time controlling her emotions, be it crying uncontrollably or screaming in anger over the littlest thing. She also struggles with friendship and social situations. She does have 3 friends right now, one that she gets along best with, 1 that she has a lot of conflict with but still spends a decent amount of time with, and 1 more that she sees now and then. We have discovered that if she has more than one friend over at a time, it is very difficult for her to manage and there ends up being arguing, or my daughter getting upset over whatever. A while back, I decided to share my daughter's diagnosis with some women I thought were my friends, who were around my daughter frequently because this group of women and their children were always together. The response I got was quite shocking - from "it's really none of my business and we don't see it anyway" to "she just needs more love" to "I just hope you aren't medicating her for no reason", yes, I am serious. These people literally told us that the only thing wrong with our daughter is that we don't love her enough. Medication was not even mentioned, not like it was any of their business, but she was not on any. There is no medication for Autism. Along with all of this, they stressed how much they adore our daughter and would like to include her but they just really don't like us, though they would never take that out on our daughter. Needless to say, from the moment I shared the information with them, they began excluding our daughter from things. All of the girls would get together and go into one of the houses with their sleeping bags. There would be parties next door. My daughter would sit at the window and cry. At the age of 6, she had to learn what it meant to be excluded, along with learning to be different. No concern was ever given for how she was dealing with things. Because of all of that, I have been very hesitant to share information with anyone that does not absolutely need to know. One of my daughter's friend's Mom noticed some things and mentioned them to us. Our daughter was struggling to maintain her relationship with this girl, because of the problems caused by her difficulties. My husband and I made the decision to talk to this Mom, because this friendship is important to our daughter and we really like this girl and her Mom. So far, it has only been a couple of days, but she seemed very understanding and very grateful we had told her, as it explained some of the things she had seen. She even asked for suggestions on how she can help when our daughter is over there! Such a completely different response, and so much what I expected before - I guess you just have to be sure someone is actually your friend and actually cares about your child before you share. My son was recently diagnosed with Asperger's as well. He does not fit the mold quite as well as our daughter does though, so we are hesitant to accept the diagnosis right now. When he is a little older, he will be re-evaluated under the new DSM-V coming out, and that should give us some more concrete answers. He does have severe ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, and an Articulation Disorder (speech). He is in speech and occupational therapy weekly and has made great progress with his speech. I still question my sanity on a regular basis, but I would not change my kids for anything. They are my life, my heart, and I would do anything for them.

It's been a long time!

Wow, I am so happy I can finally do this again! I lost my log in information and then for some reason blogger or whoever would not accept my stuff to prove my identity. I decided to try a few new combos today and it worked, I got back in! Is there anybody here? Well, if not, I don't mind talking to myself, I do it all the time! lol I will come back and do an update soon!