Last week, Mia and I went to our weekly Occupational Therapy appointment with Liz. As has been the norm for the last couple of months we went into the kitchen first. Liz prepared Mia some grilled chicken bites along with strawberries. The strawberries were meant to be the incentive to eat the chicken. It quickly became apparent that Mia had no interest in playing along.
"Mia, can you touch it?" Liz asked at she touched the piece of chicken in her bowl with her index finger. Mia let out a shrill scream and threw her fork at Liz's chest. Liz didn't let on to any frustration but asked me if Mia has been doing this when we work on eating at home. "I cant think of any new food we've tried at home this week" I said. Liz took a beat and then asked "Do you want to continue to work on this or should we work on something else"?
"Youre right, I need to make sure I do this at home" I said, "I'm sorry I'll be better". "It's ok, she said. But honestly, I don't think it's going to matter what we do here if Mia's behavioral issues aren't being addressed more directly". For the next hour Liz and I had a frank and honest discussion about the plan for Mia's future therapy. Liz had told me before that Mia's behavioral melt downs, anxiety attacks and temper tantrums were not really being addressed. She told me about in home therapists that get to the root of the problems by working with the child and parent in their daily routine.
I was open to the idea, but was trying to give it a little more time. I thought much of her behavioral problems could have been due to the chronic ear infections she was getting or even the trauma she had felt when she was wheeled away into the surgery. Liz point blank told me she didn't think those were to blame. "This is what Autism is" she said. "We see kids make progress at first, but then they can plateau and even regress." I think this is just what Autism looks like".
We ended the appointment 10 minutes early on with the conclusion that we should put Mia's Occupational therapy on hold until we have some supplementary behavioral therapy. I called a therapist and we have a meeting scheduled. We'll see how it goes.
