Continuing on with our journey through autism.

After Jade was officially diagnosed with the 299 autism diagnosis, many new doors that I had no idea were available opened up for her.

During this time we lived in AZ and there was a special program designed specifically for autistic children in the early intervention program. This program offered state funding for hours each week of therapy. When I say hours I mean hours. Her therapy was basically a full time job.

She continued the physical, occupational, feeding, and speech therapies. Then in addition, she started receiving community support, ABA (applied behavior analysis), sacrocranial, and behavior modification. Basically, if there was anything that might help these children with developing skills they were given the therapy hours.

We told to put her in dance and gymnastics as well for additional therapies as they would work both fine and gross motor skills and offer even more therapy hours without her realizing it.

Her comprehensive team came to the house for the first meeting and we sat and developed her FSP or family service plan. Basically, what skills did she need to function and how would we great those needed skills into goals. Next, how would we break those goals into achievable steps for her. Finally, what role would each therapist play, and how would they use us as a family and team with the therapists to help her learn what was needed. Seems simple? Well not as simple as it seems. Especially when your child is not hitting any of the needed mile markers needed.

Finally we had a plan in place and started working with her team. The first few months were difficult as we had to weed though the therapists to find the right match for Jade. Not every therapists had the personality to work with her. Many she simply shut out and refused to work with. This had been explained as normal and that we would have to sift through their therapists until the right team was in place and they were used to moving until they found the right kids.

This was not an easy time for the family. Everyday Monday-Saturday we had therapists in and out the home. We had very little private family time. The therapists pulled Celidah in and taught her how to play with her sister. They brought in neighborhood kids, and they played with the girls. In time, the therapy sessions became neighborhood play times.

Learning to play was very important. Why? Well, children learn through play. They explore their world through play. In time, the things they learn from play develop their adult abilities and how they cope. It was through all this "play time" that Jade eventually started coming out of her shell and trying new things.

We created social story videos for the girls. They learned how to answer the door, make beds, play kid games, and many other things by staring in their own movies. They loved watching these movies and sharing them with their friends. Most important, Jade started responding correctly in some situations because of her movies.