About Ayden & His Family!
Ayden was three years old when we were officially told he was autistic. The signs of autism were present long before the diagnosis. He engaged in repetitive behaviors from a very young age. He would sit on the floor and flip through books over and over. He would often press a button on a toy over and over again. He also enjoyed tossing toys down the stairs over and over.

            Ayden had almost no language before the age of four. He was able to fill in words to songs. For example, I would sing “twinkle, twinkle little ________” and pause and he would say “star”. The lack of language and repetitive behaviors were the least of his problems. The following link is a video I took of Ayden just before he turned four. YouTube Video of Ayden

            He was a ball of energy and kinda and that made things pretty tough from a parenting standpoint. I would attempt to clean one room and he would be in the next room destroying it. 

            When Ayden was four years old, I read the book “Let me hear your voice” by Catherine Maurice. The book was an inspirational game changer for our family. I have recently been told it is very upsetting for autistics because it is insensitive and makes it seem like a child with autism does not have value (I didn’t think about that back then). Even though I was inspired by the book, I did not have access to any Behavioral Analysts and if I could have had access to them, I had no money. Yet I was inspired and determined so I decided to do ABA on my own. I ordered another book by Maurice “Behavioral Interventions for Young Children With Autism”. In chapter five of the book, there were different programs to use with a child with autism. I started with one-step commands.

            Prior to starting my own program, my son could not follow instructions. It was so frustrating for us and him that he could not understand what we were saying. At the time, Ayden could not follow simple instructions like “sit down” or “Wave bye bye”. I began working with Ayden in May of 2008. In the first month, I taught him 20 one-step commands. I was amazed and reenergized and he seemed so proud of himself I was so amazed in fact; I decided to put all of my efforts into getting him into an ABA program. There was a program 2 ½ hours from our house. It was a three month program that costs $12,000. We did not have any money, but armed with a tremendous amount of determination we mounted a fundraising campaign.

            He began the ABA program in January of 2009. We commuted each weekday for three months. Each day, we spent five hours driving (2 ½ hours each way) to attend the three hour program. During the 3 month program Ayden gained 8 months of verbal language skills and 13 months of receptive language skills. He was also gaining social skills. The following video shows Ayden right after our time in the ABA program. Ayden after the ABA program!

            In the years since the program, we have not had access to an intensive ABA program. Ayden spent the school year in a public school. We often felt that he made the most gains in the summer when we started our in home program back up. This summer, his Nana did discrete trail training (DTT) with Ayden and taught him to read over forty new words. She also worked on answering the questions “What did you do?”, “What are you doing?” And “How do you feel?” He is doing really well with these programs.  She and Ayden call it “Nana School”.

            In the fall of 2012, Ayden began his journey the Kalamazoo Autism Center where he received one on one DTT. In order to make this happen, Ayden and Nana moved to Kalamazoo (three hours from our home) during the week. The center provided him with 40 hours a week one on one therapy.  During the course of his therapy, he interacted with many different tutors which we believe significantly improved his overall social skills and the ability to accept changes in routine.  (New tutors every semester)

            Summer came and both Nana and Ayden had a need to be back in Saginaw a bit more.  So, we attempted to have Ayden go to the center 3 days a week.  KAC was not able to accommodate our request due to scheduling issues, so we decided to attempt to have therapy in the home.  We had three tutors and Nana work directly with Ayden in the Kalamazoo Home.  This worked out very well for us and for Ayden.  He really loved the interactions with the tutors and we think they may have enjoyed it as well.  Ayden was learning new words so fast that they could barely keep up!   Last summer, Nana created books in MS Word that had only the words that had been taught, however, with Ayden moving so fast, we found that was hard to do so we looked for some more traditional books.  We printed the words from the book and began to teach Ayden based on the end goal of having him read aloud, the entire book.  To date, he is able to read, “Brown Bear What Do You See” by Eric Carle, “A House for Mouse” by Kathy Couri and “Biscuit” by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

            All in all, this weekly commute is taking its toll on Ayden and especially Nana both financially and physically.  Nana needed to take care of her financial health so we decided that Ayden had progressed enough to hopefully return to a traditional school setting.  So Nana and Ayden head back to Saginaw this summer for a return to Nana School!