Amanda’s Journey to Recovery (Susie’s Diary) Blog #7

We have been doing ABA therapy 40 hours a week for now 7 months for Amanda my 2 year old daughter diagnosed with autism. There are no words to express my excitement and amazement at her progress she has made in such a short time. She now has about 50 words that she uses meaningfully which is huge considering I have two older sons with autism who are for the most part non verbal. She is a completely different child than she was 7 months ago. She is social with anyone who comes over to the house. She can point to all family members and say their names. She is putting words together like my favorite saying she says to me these days when she is walking down the steps and turns around to me and says “come on mom”. We called her grandma on the phone the other day when she learned the word grandma and papaw for the first time and she cried her eyes out she was so shocked to hear her say the words. She comes up to other therapists in the home for my older kids and reaches up and says “up high” to be picked up by people she isn’t around that often. Her favorite saying is ” I color” since that is her favorite thing to do. I just can’t say enough of how much this means to our family to get these services and see so much improvement. She is even initiating play more with her brothers and other peers now that we have opened up her world and surroundings. We have such an amazing therapist that works with her 40 hours a week and has made it so much fun for her she doesn’t realize how hard she is working she thinks she is just playing. I have very high expectations of her future now every day she is just making leaps and bounds and I couldn’t be more proud of her. Now I know all the hours are worth it and pushing forward each day truly makes such a difference.