One of the things I've always said about our journey is that I wanted to try to find balance. Among the autism community, there are different schools of thought on the levels and amounts of therapy that you should do. While I want to offer the boys as much therapy as they need, I also didn't want them to spend their entire childhood in therapy (hello, ABA, I'm looking at you).
Beyond the time consideration, there is also the financial consideration. We are fortunate to have pretty good health insurance through Josh's job with the local fire department. Since we started private speech therapy a little over a year ago, it's covered the majority of it. This summer we decided to add occupational therapy. Insurance, unfortunately, doesn't cover all of that. Mostly because the practice we found (and love) is out-of-network. But for now, it's working out.
So every Wednesday afternoon, I pick the twins up early from school. We head across town for their afternoon appointment, spend an hour in therapy, and then head back across town to pick up Connor as he finishes school at the end of the day.
We considered adding an after-school session, but we already do that with speech on Tuesday afternoons. And the boys have trouble sometimes focusing during that half-hour session right after a full-day of school. We weren't sure they could handle a second after school therapy, certainly not one that is an hour-long and also pretty intense. So we opted to pull them out, which makes for a busy Wednesday afternoon for me, but so far it works.
We also opted for two therapists instead of one, which means that the sessions happen simultaneously. I spend the bulk of my time with Sawyer, who needs a little more help and interpretation as we get started. I finish up the sessions by checking in with Xander.
There have been some pretty significant improvements since we began this summer.
Xander's patience level is so much better than it's ever been before. He's learning the concept of "wait" as well as "first, then," though he might be taking that second one a bit far in terms of wanting to bargain for EVERYTHING. Usually it's "first X, then computer!" or "first X, then myPad!"
Sawyer's ability to sit still and focus continues to improve. And his willingness to work on new things, and to work on those skills that come hardest for him (fine motor, using his hands), is definitely getting better.
Both boys have different OT goals, but some of them are also the same. The one that kind of runs through all of it, and which makes OT so much fun, is that the boys are constantly learning how to play.
