Resuming therapy

Yesterday was the assessment for starting NET (Natural Environment Therapy) and our first day back in therapy since last Tuesday. I spent the morning reminding Mr N that his therapist would be coming and trying to get him excited about it. He fell asleep at about 11:00 yesterday but only napped for a few minutes. I wasn't sure how that would effect therapy. He tried to go back to sleep around 1:30, but I kept him awake since they were going to arrive at 2:00. It worked, he stayed awake for all but the last 10 minutes of therapy.

Mr N was on fire yesterday, he did great during therapy. He said new words, worked for rewards, and was in a pretty good mood all day.

The first bit of the assessment when we were going over his progress and determining new goals, I was quite sure that this just wasn't going to work, that we'd be forced to find a new therapist and coordinator. Once again they mentioned that Mr N would only sit down and stand up while playing ring-around-the-rosie. I interjected to assure the assessor that he complied for us on a regular basis and it wasn't an issue. The coordinator said that they had only seen him do it during ring-around-the-rosie. I mentioned that was the only time that he had been requested to sit down or stand up, it had not been attempted in any other setting. It was also mentioned by the coordinator that he only has 25 words, since that is how many have been recorded by the therapist. It's obviously a ridiculously low number compared to reality. He probably said at least a dozen or more words while they were here yesterday including several new words.

Words he said while they were here yesterday:
more
watermelon
again
popsicle
milk
diaper
deer
apple
car
ball
cat
hi
bye
I did it
mama
help
up
good boy
thank you


I think it's safe to say that 25 words is a huge underestimation of the number of words he has, in the 3 hours they were here yesterday he said at least 19 words.

After the first awkward hour, things seemed to get better. We went outside for a while, threw some apples to the deer, checked out the garden, and played baseball. The coordinator, therapist and I got a chance to talk more after the assessor left. I'm feeling much better about the direction therapy is heading and I feel like we are much closer to being on the same page than we were a week ago. I'm really hoping the new goals and new techniques will show Mr N's true abilities and progress.

I feel like yesterday was a huge turnaround and it relieved a lot of stress now that we are working towards something that will benefit Mr N and help him progress. Things are looking up!