Therapy update

We went to Josh's first speech appointment with Joyce. It went well. They thought we were coming in for an eval, and I thought we were just starting therapy, so that was a little bit of a mixup but she knew what was going on and said she'd straighten it out. Josh was himself, which gave her a good picture of what he does and doesn't do. She took some video so we'd have some before to compare to later. She also noticed that when he does talk he doesn't make clear consonants and she knew what caused that and asked some questions about his eating that when we answered them said they are linked. She seemed to have plans on helping him. It's basically an ennunciation problem. When he talks it's all vowels and soft consonants, you don't get sharp T's or P's anything that requires cheek muscles I think. I'll have to do some research. She seemed very knowledgeable. We meet with her weekly and for the first 24 or so visits she will be training us to do the speech stuff with Josh ourselves. They call it parent training course or something. She sent us home with two pages to just read this week and then she'll start getting us to do stuff next time. She's going with the Floortime Relationship building model where we try to get him engaging with us then build on that for actual learning. I read a little bit about it but the book was hard to get through so I'm gonna have to read more. The method is designed? by Alan Greenspan. She is looking forward to coordinating with Melanie our Behavior Analyst. Coordination is very important for all this stuff to work. We are meeting with Donna, his Occupational Therapist (OT) for the first time tomorrow morning. We are meeting with Melanie BCBA for the first time Friday afternoon for the initial meeting then we will come up with a plan and a schedule for his autism/behavior therapy. Oh and we are doing the month later follow up appointment with Dr. McCoy at OHSU today. Busy week. I feel good though because all this stuff is finally getting started.