John's New Results

John was assessed on Sept. 8, 2008 for entry into the START program. I recently received his results. At the time of the assessment, John was 34 months old. There have been 3 assessments where I can compare his progress. You'll see the May 2008 scores, which were the Regional Center's. Second, you will see his Casa Colina July 2008 update scores. Finally, you'll see his latest Sept. 2008 scores.

---------- May (30 mths ) / July (32 mths ) / Sept. (34 months)
Gross Motor --- 26 months / 26 months / 16 months (??)
Fine Motor --- 21 months / 23 months / 31 months
Cognitive ---- 21 months / 24 months / 28 months
Language Receptive ---- 6 months / 17 months / 33 months
Language Expressive ---- 9 months / 17 months / 31 months
Socialization ---- 10-17 months / 10-17 months / 29 months
Self Help ---- 23 months / 23 months / 24 months

Other than Gross Motor, John improved since July and dramatically since May.

During the time from June-Sept., he attended Early Start Preschool at Casa Colina, had Speech Therapy two times a week, 5 hours a week of in-home, and 40 sessions of Neurofeedback. He began OT/SI the first week of September.

It is worth noting here: Neurofeedback claims training can make a child with autism attentive, calm, and sociable. We have seen certain behaviors disappear and have watched John become calm. John is a different person today than he was 6 months ago when all of this started. It is hard to say what specifically helped John because we've been doing so much. However, the Neurofeedback seems to show us some patterns that are worth looking into. First, when we changed his protocals (the location of the EEG monitor, training a specific part of the brain), he began to have accidents in the seat and aggressive behavior seemed to manifest. We removed those protocals and went back to the old ones and there were no more accidents in the seat during the sessions and his aggressive behvaior seemed to go away.
Secondly, for the last 4 weeks, John has not attended Neurofeedback (he went 3 times over the last 4 weeks, as opposed to 5 days a week that we were doing before)--- first, due a family vacation and then, due to a death in the family. Over the last week-to-week-and-a-half, Bill and I have noticed that typical Autistic behavior (and some sensory issues) that had seemed to disappear has returned.

Things like:
Biting & chewing on shirt
Biting own skin
Chewing on objects
Frustration level is awful
Cries inconsolable again
Angry - bangs hands on table or objects when upset
Has been hard to take out in public - clingy, whiney, cranky, tantrums
Cries when I leave him in class

Tomorrow, John will begin a normal schedule of Neurofeedback training of 5 days a week. I'll report back to see if these disappear once we resume it. The goal of Neurofeedback is to train the brain to self regulate. After a repeated number of sessions, the brain will "remember" its training and be able to self regulate on its own.

He also has developed a cold. I notice that everything seems to be magnified when he's sick.

This week is a big week. Tomorrow, we go back to Neurofeedback. Tuesday, we see Dr. Baumen, an autistic specialist. Wednesday is John's assessment with the public school system and Friday is Halloween!