I have to say that we’re so thankful to Emily, the speech path that first saw Sammo.  She told us about Monarch house, wrote a letter to them on our behalf, and guided us through the early stages and gave us a lot of reassurance and helpful advice.

After we got the diagnosis, we then got busy learning about autism, telling friends and family the news, and went about figuring out the next steps.

If you break a leg, there is an established process and treatment.  You get referred to a specialist who takes X-rays and comes up with a treatment and rehabilitation.  With Autism, once you get a diagnosis, there is a myriad of treatment options ranging from nutrition, alternative therapies, behavioural therapies, diet supplements, hyperbaric chamber treatment, speech pathology, occupational therapy, etc.

In BC, we had to find a behavioural consultant, who would come up with a plan implemented by Behavioural interventionists or BIs.  A behavioural consultant may use ABA or some other form of treatment, but ABA is the only officially recognized form of treatment with scientific backing.

That said, parents are free to choose their BC, and may hire their own BI to implement the intervention, which could be from 8 to 40 hours per week!

Going back to our analogy, we are not experts in helping kids with autism, but yet we needed to make some key decisions about what direction to take for treatment.  If I broke a leg, the process would already be laid out… But now we needed to become experts on the difference between ABA, RDI, Floortime, and a bunch of other therapies… And make a crucial decision.

In the end, we found that we had to be Sam’s primary advocate and make the best decision we could.  Again, based on a recommendation, we checked out Reference and Regulate, sorted by David Loyst, a former speech path.  We just didn’t think that ABA was best for Sam, and found that r and r just made better sense in terms of getting to the core problem and would likely be a better option than having Sam sit at a table and learn things through ABA.

So we did our homework, asked our questions, and by November, had selected a behavioural consultant.  There was a lot of paperwork to go through with our family doc and the ministry to get funding sorted out, but by December Sam had started his first session…  3 months after he was officially diagnosed.