6-month review today. Otherwise known as sucker-punch day. We are almost 3 years into this therapy, which is hard to believe. We had a couple of good... GREAT reviews early on. We thought we were tracking toward best outcome where B would actually "recover" and lose his Autism diagnosis. We found hope. And then we didn't. And today we got another tough pill to swallow.
They started with the positive. B has made remarkable strides in his therapy. He is learning and progressing. Slowly but surely. He can learn. But he is having to be taught every little minute thing. And everything is having to be broken down further. He doesn't generalize things and he doesn't learn a lot on his own.
Then we looked at his overall scores relative to his peers. Less than a month of development for each month of therapy for the last year. He is at a developmental level of a 27 month old and he is 5 and a half. 40 plus hours of therapy every week. 4-5 hours of parent training every week. 2-3 hours of Mom/Brady therapy sessions. 2 weekly planning/progress meetings. 6-8 people in our home ALL. THE. TIME. Thousands AND thousands of dollars. Absolute and total devotion to this therapy and our boy. Sacrifices. Stress. How can this be?
We were told that we are likely looking at about another year and a half of this intense ABA therapy and then we need to figure out what's next. And during this next year and a half, we should switch our focus... no longer strive for "recovery" but for what will best improve his and our quality of life.
How do we do this? How do we stop hoping and dreaming for our little boy's future? How do we accept that he may never live independently? That he may never have friends? That he may never even functionally communicate?
Rhetorical questions. I wish I knew.
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