[Hwei Siasc]

Hi everybody,

One of my questions in my email to the agency:

"The Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), [SLP's name] told us that she can't teach Warrick articulation and speech sounds, could she please give us her reasons again as detailed as possible?"

and this is the reply:

[SLP's name]’s role in this program is that of a consultant. This means she provides programing for the BI to carry out every day not direct intervention like articulation and speech sounds. [SLP's name] cannot provide programming for the BI for speech because Warrick distorts speech sounds.That means that the person doing speech related intervention with him needs to be able to hear and identify these distortions every day as the intervention is done.BI’s and other paraprofessionals do not have this training.Only an SLP does. Our ABA SLP’s do not provide this type of direct intervention (see attached document which states that the SLP’s role is to provide, monitor and consult to the team)."

Is there any parent here who has children who distorts speech sounds like my son (car prounouced as "ca", shovel as "shobel" etc)? Who is carrying practice/intervention session with your children? Behavior Consultant, BI or SLP or someone else?

Your reply is appreciated.

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi everyone,

Can a behaviour interventionist develop and write a Behavior Plan of Intervention for children under six if she is supervised by a behaviour consultant on RASP? According to the following information, I don't think so.

Autism Manual for BC Page 2-17 on ACT Community Training's website:

Please be aware that only behavior consultants on the RASP are eligible to write a Behavior Plan of Intervention for children under six.

A Parent's Handbook:Your Guide to Autism Programs Page 9:

Your child's intervention program must be based on a plan that takes into account his or her unique strengths and needs. This Behavioural Plan of Intervention (BPI) is written by a behaviour consultant, with input from family members and other intervention team members, such as the speech language pathologist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, and/or behaviour intervetnionist(s).

The behaviour consultant you use to develop and monitor your child's BPI must be selected from the Registry of Autism Service Providers (RASP).

I am confused. Anyone here can enlighten me?

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

My email to the agency:

"Since everybody is busy, let me draw the workflow for you from the start to the point where the 1st team meeting was held (25 Jan 2012) based on the items billed to me from 5 Dec 2011 to 25 Jan 2012. Please see attached workflow in Word Document and two invoices for Dec 2011 & Jan 2012 and confirm the workflow correctly describing the process of how the behavior plan was developed. If it is not right, please correct it. I don't think it requires several hours to correct it. I just took 1 hour to create it."

The agency's reply:

"Thanks for your response. I am not in a position to comment on your workflow since I am not involved at that level of intervention. As I have stated, I do not see any benefit in having [Agency Name] staff spend time to create it, review it, or correct it as it serves no purpose in resolving the issues you have identified and it takes away from services we could be delivering to our community and families."

I even take my time and initiative to draw, and they give me such response. It definitely wrong with their process. That's why they refuse!

Post by Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi,

Sorry for not mentioning this in my previous post.

Stay clear/away from my child's speech language pathologist from the agency I mentioned before in case she left the agency. Her service was terrible. My child was 5 years at the time seeing her. He has mild autism. He can talk. She didn't assess his speech at all and didn't include speech in my child's intervention program. To find out her name or the names of whole team, please email johnsiasc@yahoo.com

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

For those whose service provider is an agency:

Below are my experiences:

1. Ask for the assessment tools they used to assess your child (standardized assessment such as ABLLRS, curriculum etc). Request a copy if possible. Go through it. In my case, I didn't ask at the beginning. By the time I sensed something wrong, it's already too late. They used EIBI curriculum, which I find not fit to my child's needs as my child has mild autism only. I would say, they developed a cookie cutter program for my child.

2. Make sure the person who do the assessments and develop the behavior plan (whether it's initial plan or final plan) is your behavior consultant level A or behavior consultant level b under supervision of the behavior consultant (they must be on the RASP list), not anyone else like associate behavior consultant or behavior interventionist (not on RASP list). In my case, it was done by the associate behavior consultant and behavior interventionist.

3. Interventions are based on the behavior plan developed in point 1.

4. Ask the agency to provide you two behavior interventionists, the 1st one will be working with your child regularly, the 2nd one will be covering the 1st one during her absence, unless you don't mind your child misses the session. In my case, my child missed 17 days of session (equivalent about 1 month) in 6 months of intervention. It will be more missed sessions if I didn't request and then they provided a subs for my child (but different person each time). Also ask what arrangement when the behavior consultant is away for long leave that will affect your child's intervention program.

5. Ask agency to give you a copy of session notes, observation notes etc as the intervention session going on, daily if possible, otherwise weekly. For my case, they can't even give me monthly progress review report after I requested 2-3 months later.

6. If your child can talk, they should design a program that gives more chance for your child to speak, not just "Touch your, Show me your, Where's your", but also teach your child to say the word(s).

7. If you have speech language pathologist in your team, make sure he/she assesses your child language as well as speech (unless your child can't talk at all).

8. If you have a team that not only has behavior consultant(BC) and behavior interventionist (BI), but also other professionals such as speech language pathologist(SLP) or occupational therapist(OT), ask them to update the progress data before atending your progress review meeting, instead of the whole team sitting at the meeting and updating the data. If you have BC, SLP & OT each at $120/hr, you have to pay $360/hr just to update the data. This task can be completed either by the BI alone, or the most need 2 persons, i.e. BC and BI, and you just need to pay about $150/hr.

9. Ask what is their intervention closure/termination policy.

Hope these are useful.

Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi everyone,

Anyone here who has child with mild autism. What are the interventions that your behavior consultant developed for your child's communication (speech and language)?
Any input is appreciated. Please email johnsiasc@yahoo.com

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi everyone,

My service provider didn't even tell me the intervention process for its ABA program, and now I request for one, and the service provider replied is "I have no concerns about the transparency of the process by which [agency name] delivers its services (which is point 6 of your email), and we are very happy to discuss this process with you if there are questions or concerns. You are not the only family with lots of questions, its part of the process of getting an ABA program in place. I know its a lot to take in at first and can be very overwhelming. I have two sons on the autism spectrum (at the severe end unfortunately) and we have run two independent ABA programs out of our home for many years when our kids were young, so I can understand how you might be feeling. We are all are very lucky that there are now services available in the Lower Mainland. When we started our programs our consultant was in Los Angeles and we had to fly her out every month or two! We also had to select, hire, and train all our BIs ourself. Its come a long way in the last 15 years thankfully".

What does he mean "We are all very lucky that there are now services available in the Lower Mainland"? I have to accomodate and accept whatever they did even though the program and service quality are poor.

Please don't go for this agency for their ABA program. Anybody who likes to know which agency, I can be contacted at johnsiasc@yahoo.com

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi,

Is Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI)Program equivalent to Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Program? Anybody knows?

Thanks,
Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Hi,

I'm new to this discussion board. Just would like to know if anyone here engaged these agencies for their ABA program: Pivot Point Family Growth Centre, Reach Child and Youth Development Society, and Pacific ABA Academy. How is their program and service quality? My email is johnsiasc@yahoo.com

Thanks.

Hwei

[Hwei Siasc]

Anyone here has hired a speech language pathologist and the SLP has already worked with your child? What are the assessments the SLP has done for your child, such as the PEABODY PICTURE VOCABULARY TEST, Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation etc)? Any input will be very much appreciated! Thank you.

Hwei

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