How Is He Doing? Making New ABA Therapy Goals For My Autistic Preschooler

Hi Friends!

We recently sat down with Isaiah's BCBA and planned new goals for him. He's coming up on six months of being in therapy for 21 hours a week. He's made tremendous progress and is communicating his needs so much better. We also took another crack at potty training and it's working! As far as new goals go we talked about adding in some gross motor work, continuing working on mask wearing and handwriting practice.

Isaiah's gross motor skills have never really been a issue, he loves running and jumping! It's more of the balancing and coordination he needs help with along with listening to directions and outdoor safety skills. ABA will be taking him on scooter rides helping him practice using his scooter and most importantly staying safe when he's outside. Isaiah is known for running and naturally not having an awareness of his surroundings. We've been using a harness backpack for outings but I'd like to phase that out because he is getting bigger!

I've been working on Isaiah wearing a mask and it has been going well. I did request it to be a goal for him because he listens to his therapist so much better than me and I feel they can help him wear it for a longer time period than I was able to do. He'll be the second child in his clinic to go through the mask wearing program they have in place and I'm excited to see how that goes over the next few months. If Isaiah is able to wear one that opens up so many opportunities for us to venture out more as a family while keeping himself and others safe.

The last is copying handwriting prompts. They just started working on his pencil grip and following directions on copying straight lines or circles. Isaiah was gifted a magna doodle for his birthday and I'm using that on our homeschool days to help reinforce what he's learning. I would love to one day be able to see him copy his letters and start print work, this will be the foundation to do so since he is delayed in fine motor skills and needs some help in that area.

If you'd like to keep up with our family, I post updates on Isaiah here on the blog! I also share fun things we're doing along with tips and ideas for working moms- subscribe to have new blog posts sent straight to your inbox! I hope you have fun learning and playing with your little ones today!

-Najah