Another therapy update

Speech
We started speech therapy. We have gone twice. The way it is set up, Joyce is basically training me for the first 12-24 weeks depending on how fast we go. Each session she demonstrates a speech therapists method that she wants me to try and then has me try it with Josh and she coaches me. Then during the week I'm supposed to practice the stuff at home. For instance this week we are working on playing his games his way and imitating what he says and does. It helps him understand that he's important and mirroring his actions and noises helps him see what he's doing. It gets him looking at me and engaging which leads to being able to learn.

OT
We have gone once, and we go again tomorrow. We are still doing the starting evaluation part. It looks like tons of fun. He got to play in a ball pit and swing on a swing and roll in this big padded barrel and we also sat and worked on drawing and cutting with scissors. OT works with sensory stuff and life skills. Donna seems great. We have more eval tomorrow and then after spring break I expect we will get started full speed.

ABA
We met with Melanie on Friday. She seems great. I was thinking once we met with her we would pick some therapists from her team that fit our schedule and get started. However, it doesn't work like that apparently. She doesn't have a "team". The parents she runs programs for each hire their own therapy assistants or whatever they are called to come in and she trains them and writes the plan/curriculum. So we have to find somebody to do it. She says she normally gets people from the university's speech and autism programs. I am talking to somebody I know in the program and then if she can't do it, I have to email fliers to the teachers in those sections at 2 of the local schools and then field calls from strangers if anybody is interested. The whole hiring an untrained stranger thing is freaking me out. It was hard enough researching for the Behavior Analyst who is a trained professional. Melanie did refer one of the girls she's already working with who will be doing a couple of sessions a week, but she's busy most of the times we wanted to do stuff. I think my main problem is the paradigm shift. I walked into that meeting expecting it to go like the other therapy startup visits and that's not how it went at all. Now I have to adjust my thinking and sometimes that isn't easy. I'll be fine once we find somebody to work with, I'm just nervous about finding people.