I know a lot of people start blog’s and then give up, which you may have thought happened to Florida Autism Center as we haven’t posted in over 2 weeks. Not so, though. We’ve just been amazingly busy, which is a good thing. I haven’t posted all the things we’ve been busily doing to our blog yet, which is a bad thing. So, here goes . . .

SCHOOL: We made it through our first week of school. Mind you, this was school both in Daytona Beach and in Sanford. I’m pleased to report success in both locations. If I’m not mistaken, both locations have full programming in place for all their kids as of today, and also have their schedule for the entire year completely mapped out (except some TBD field trips). We’re really lucky this year. We’ve got some amazing parents and some really great kids. School is off to a good start with 11 kids. We are adding Daytona Beach kids October 1. We are adding 2 – 4 more Sanford kids in January and might consider another 1 or 2 in Daytona for January as well. Let us know if you’re interested in making the switch – we’ll take waiting list enrollment and see when it makes sense to move you from the public school to our program.

Speaking of waiting list enrollment – it’s time to get it started for January in Winter Park. We have 2 families currently in Sanford who are interested in moving to Winter Park. We need 4 more committed, contracted families before we will begin searching for a building. So, if you’d like to send your child to Florida Autism Center’s Academy program beginning in January, we need to know about it now.

EI: Wow, EI has been through some craziness lately. I’m extremely happy to say things are going along really well with United Healthcare (UBH). Our contract with them is really moving along and we have secured authorizations for kids up to 20 hours per week. Incredible.

Concerning Blue Cross, we’re resubmitting claims from some of our EI summer kids. Apparently the State of Florida has let Blue Cross know ‘in no uncertain terms’ that behavior analyst claims are to be paid. We’re hoping so, because sadly a few of our families had to drop service due to cost, and it’s really not fair when their insurance should be helping. We’ll keep you updated. Currently, we do have some EI spots open. We have one after-school slot in Daytona (3 – 5PM daily) and 3 daytime slots in Sanford (9 – 12 daily).

BIRTHDAY: We’re still working on plans for the FAC 5th Birthday Party. I’ll be posting about it soon.

MATERIALS DRIVE: We pushed our August Materials Drive back to September. If you have outgrown toys and activities, we’d be happy to get them. Jess is still working on her yard sale to create some help for private pay families, so things you have that FAC doesn’t need will go towards that. I hope she chooses the date for the yard sale soon. There is a REALLY old dresser of mine sitting around in the center, looking terrible, and waiting for the yard sale!

GRAD UPDATES: 3 of our babies started public school this week. I’m thrilled to say all 3 did great. So far so good with joining their classrooms and peers. I can’t wait to hear more from their families, which I’ll report on to all of you.

Well, there’s a lot more I could talk about – especially after a 2 week hiatus – but I don’t want this post to be too long . . .

Martha will be back tomorrow – yeah!

Readers, I have a favor to ask – please go to our site and fill out surveys and, more importantly, reviews. I’d really love to get a few reviews that we could post to the site. You can link into the page from the main page or go to it at www.FloridaAutismCenter.net/survey.html

If you are a happy current or past client or if you’ve visited us and found us to be helpful, we’d love to hear about it. THANKS! So, today I want to do a little mini behavior lesson. We have a new client who hits frequently. The intensity isn’t too bad, but it’s near constant and on anything he can get his hands on, literally. A previous behavior provider did a functional assessment and found the behavior to be multiply controlled. For those of you that aren’t behavior analysts, that means that he does the behavior for more than one reason; maybe he does it sometimes to get attention, but other times he does it to get out of doing work, for example. For him, the behavior seems to have a component of ‘self-stimulation,’ meaning that we can’t find a really good reason that he doing it other than maybe that it ‘feels good’ or is somehow ‘self-rewarding.’ Self-stimulation is kind of the behavior analyst cop-out for ‘can’t really figure out exactly why’ this behavior is occurring. The previous behavior provider put in a simple blocking procedure, but this seems ineffective as he engages in the behavior frequently, sometimes less than 10 seconds between incidents. At this rate, it seems most of the provider’s time would be spent holding the child’s arms down. We are considering using a DRO procedure, or differential reinforcement of other behaviors plan. What this means is that we will set a timer for an achievable interval, maybe 10 seconds for this child, that he can go WITHOUT hitting. Then, whenever 10 seconds go by that he DOESN’T hit, well give him a reinforcer (a little treat of some kind that has the goal of increasing his ‘time not hitting’). Gradually, we will increase the interval that he needs to go without hitting in order to get the treat. This is just a starting point for procedure. What we’d ultimately like is that there is a much bigger DRO program in place and he’s getting all kinds of praise, etc. for all the good work he’s doing and forgets all about the hitting! I’ll give you an update on this new one in a few weeks. I think I’d like to start giving some info about new kids (we’ve had 3 this week) – their behaviors, issues, etc. – and then give progress updates after a month or so. Maybe this will be the first child I use to begin to tell little mini success stories after a month or two of treatment. This will be REALLY easy to do when school starts and we have LOTS of new kids in the building!

So, yesterday was a trying day. I spent the day with a couple of our awesome moms on the phone with Blue Cross Blue Shield getting red tape and circular reasoning as to why the insurance company won’t pay for the family’s ABA. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’ve decided that we’re not going to take this sitting down. What BCBS is doing is immoral and unethical, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal as well. I’ve contacted a lawyer on the families behalf. I’ll keep you updated as to how it goes. I should say, however, that the people working at BCBS that we spoke with were kind, and I think they understand the families’ concerns – they are just following their company policies. I actually wrote quite a bit about the insurance fiasco for the blog yesterday, but when I went to post it, it disappeared! I’m still learning about blogging, I guess! Well, getting on to something more positive and happy – I was thinking about our super successful kids and feeling like I should share their stories with everyone. We built a page on the website and are going to post stories of graduates. It’s http://www.floridaautismcenter.net/EI-Site/stories.html

When I was posting the story I wrote about Will a few weeks ago, I started thinking that I should be posting other stories as well. Lots of things constitute ‘success.’ While mainstream kindergarten is our ultimate goal and very impressive, sometimes simple things make a big difference in a child’s life. For example, we’ve got a little guy who used to have daily meltdowns that were uncontrollable. He’s 8 years old and wasn’t toilet trained. Now, he rarely has a tantrum or hurts himself or others and is toileting semi-independently when reminded. That’s a big difference for a family, and I think we need to remember to celebrate the small successes, too. So, check the site often, as I’ll be writing about successes big and small and trying to dig up some of the old success stories from 5 years ago through now, as well. I hope you enjoy these stories and find them encouraging. I know I’m jumping topics today, but here’s another one. I read an article today about a new online system where families can watch demos of how to run ABA
programming and create their own programs at home instead of or in supplement to having a Behavior Analyst. I’ve got really mixed feelings about this. I think it’s great for parents to replicate what we do at home, but I don’t think it’s a replacement for top quality treatment and programming by a certified individual. I’d really like to hear what
some of you think about this idea. Well, I guess I don’t have much else for today, other than that I don’t want to be writing this blog just for my own gratification. Please read and comment, send questions, and help me make this interactive. I want to be a resource and a help to families locally and nationwide, so don’t be afraid to send your thoughts. One caution – be careful about last names, etc. Remember that this a public blog and I want to be cautious of
confidentiality concerns. I’ll be writing something tomorrow, but then taking the weekend off to be with my hubby – we’re taking a trip without the kids!

Chrystin Bullock, Board Certified Behavior