Introduction and Questions

Hi there,

I have been lurking here for a while now and have already learned so much.   I am a SAHM with a 14 year old, 2 1/2 year old, and 11 month twins.  Our son that is 2 1/2 has been diagnosed with a speech delay.  He is going to be having an evaluation for autism, as there is a question with him being on the spectrum.  

Background:  We first had him evaluated by the developmental pedi at roughly 21 months for his speech delay and started working with our counties regional center to get him services.  He had chronic ear infections from about 12 months until he had tubes put in at 22 months.  His pedi felt that his speech delay was connected to this.  He had fluid in his ears after each infection that would linger until the next infection so his world sounded like he was under water for almost a year. 

Current:  He started speech therapy at 26 months as well as therapy in a center based program at The School of Imagination and Happy Talkers which is a WONDERFUL school.  He attends school 2 days a week for 3 hours and has speech therapy for 1/2 hour on each of these days before class starts.  He has really started to progress and just started singing the ABC's.  We love this!  He has the correct tune, but says most of the letters how they sound. (which sounds a lot like the spanish version=)  

We had our progress meeting this morning with his teacher, which is also his speech therapist, his case worker at the regional center, and my partner and I.   They offered us 2 options for his therapy that will continued to be paid for from through the regional center.  The first is we can continue his therapy at the school, moving him up to 3 days a week ( 9 hours) and continuing his speech therapy 2x a week.  The second is he can have ABA therapy for up to 25 hours each week.  The regional center will only pay for 1 of these options.  His teacher said in a perfect world he would do both.  My partner and I ( as well as his teacher) do not want him to loose his interaction with peers his own age so we are going to be paying for this out of pocket.  OUCH.  He still qualifies for speech therapy and will continue to do this with her at the school on the 2 days he would attend.  We were told his ABA therapist would be able to go with him to the center to continue to work with him on that 1 on 1 level.  He is going to be having the evaluation that would qualify him for ABA therapy in the next week or two.  They do not believe this will be an issue do to his progress report that still shows significant delays, it is more of a formality for the funding approval.  He is also going in for a OT eval to see if he qualifies for therapy as he also has delays in this area.  We could have OT come to the house or have his OT at the school.  

Thank you if you are still with me.  Here are my questions.

If you have had ABA therapy for your child, can you tell me a bit about your typical day with the therapist?  I was given a brief description over the phone about how the therapist say was with us at the park, he/she would help him facilitate playing with other children and appropriate play (he is very oral and puts everything into his mouth)

Is there any negative issues associated with ABA therapy?  I started a search online and have read just a bit on it.  I prefer to hear about peoples experiences and not just the text book version.

Finally, what type of Dr. does the evaluation for possible low muscle tone in the mouth, I believe it's called hypotonia, or apraxia of speech?  If your child has this, what was the red flag that this may be an issue.  We have talked briefly about this with his teacher and she believes it may be an issue and we are going to explore it.

Again thank you for reading and I am looking forward to getting to know you ladies and absorb your wisdom!  If you have any questions feel free to ask.  

Thank you again!