in favor of ABA and parental teaching

[Guest guest]

ABA has been wonderful for my daughter. To think a couple years ago, I thought,

" Oh my God, she will never learn her colors, she will never learn her body

parts, etc. " and now she knows these and a million more things like the back of

her hand. All thanks to ABA.

Biomed or not and ABA or not, you yourself need to continually be interacting

with and educating your child as much as possible. At our house, we always try

to have one designated person interacting with my daughter at all times. When I

am home alone with her and have to do something in the kitchen, she plays with

water in the sink next to me, or if she is not engaged with any toys, I have her

watching DVDs of herself doing ABA with her beloved therapists or DVDs of

herself just interacting with us. She continues to learn watching these DVDs of

herself interacting with people and playing with toys.

I am continually making books for her. They are more suited to her continually

changing levels than the library books. I always have several projects going on.

I have made books on counting, reading sight words like map/nap,

block/rock/stock, action words of people engaged in various activities, colors,

clothing, foods, body parts, anything and everything. No magazine is safe from

my scissors. Everything goes into books for her. I am buying multiple packets of

scotch tape every week. It takes a several readings to get her used to new books

but once she is used to them, she asks for them over and over again and learns a

ton with them.

While they are small, we need to make their recovery a priority and let go of

our other time-wasters. Did I mention I have been showering once a week for a

couple years now? I don't mean to be preachy, but I just wanted to give my two

cents.

Mel