COVID has been tough for all families. However, it has simply been tougher for parents who have very young children with autism spectrum disorders or who are delayed in their social communication skills. These children have a very hard time interacting and communicating. They NEED predictability in order to figure out what is happening around them, which has been obliterated by the ever changing demands of a pandemic that is impacting daily schedules, the ability to attend school, parent roles and responsibilities for work, and may be eliminating or limiting access to their developmental interventionists like speech therapists, occupational therapists, and ABA providers. Many of these families will have a full weekly schedule of services that is “on hold” or disrupted by physical health and safety limitations. The staff at Kids BRAIN has been in collaboration with our favorite ABA therapy group at Ability ABA to try to bridge this gap. We feel your frustration and want these kiddos to get the help they need now, without having to wait for a pandemic to pass.
One of the hardest parts about parenting and intervening on behalf of toddlers and preschoolers who don’t have the language and social skills to effectively connect, is that there is only so much time that insurance and parent schedules will allow. Even when ABA services are approved on a full time basis, that 40 hours still only accounts for about 47% of the time that a child in this age range is usually awake for a whole week. Not everyone has access to 40 hours of direct ABA therapy per week. For families who don’t have insurance, can’t get that much time approved, can’t afford that many hours of intervention, or are currently in a “holding pattern” trying to determine if their child does in fact have an autism spectrum disorder or other developmental delay that requires early intervention services, they may be getting zero support. Maybe they can squeeze out the time and money to pay for these services, only to find that there is not an ABA group close enough for them to get their child there. Early intervention services are essential for future success for these little ones. Research suggests that the more intervention can be provided early, the better their long-term outcomes are and the fewer services they will require later in life. The bottom line is that services for children with social communication delays should happen as early as possible and as intensely as possible.
So, how is that even possible when a pandemic keeps you from getting the intensity and consistency of early intervention services your child needs? What if you don’t have insurance or money for out of pocket costs and are dependent on the public school system to provide services? If you have no insurance or a plan that covers developmental services minimally or are in a rural area without services near you, how do you build an intervention plan that allows for your child to get what they need? The short version of the answer to those questions is parent training. At Kids BRAIN, we see the process of building parent skill as essential to the future of children. Who better to provide support for a child than their parents? They are the experts after all. Psychologists that work with children with disabilities (like the team at Kids BRAIN) have spent years in graduate school and years after that working with children. We are really good at observing, diagnosing, planning for, and supporting children who process, think, behave, and function differently. But that only takes you so far. Parents are the experts on that ONE child. That can’t be duplicated with special diplomas and credentials after your name. Not only do parents know their child’s signals, behaviors, and needs better than anyone, they are with their child from wake up time to sleep time. So, if we can teach parents to BE THERAPEUTIC while they go about their normal daily activities, maybe we can bridge the gap that is there between what a child is provided and what is ideal. So, we reached out to a group of providers who are experts in behavior and behavior change to team up.
Ability ABA and Kids BRAIN have been putting their heads together in collaboration to see how we can offer an option for parent training to all of our patients that need this kind of support. We are calling this service Empowering the Spectrum of Parents (ESP). The ESP Program will be offered virtually to small group and are finalizing the materials and training content right this minute so that it can also be offered through an on-demand webinar course for those of you who are not local or who would rather do your parent training on your time and terms. This course will allow parents to use the same skills that a speech therapist, ABA provider, and a developmental psychologist would use to increase a child’s ability to engage with people and the environment, communicate using oral language and other ways to indicate needs, to imitate behaviors that we want to see more of, and to play in more complex and sophisticated ways. Most ABA providers are offered time through insurance to work with parents directly. But what if you could receive that instruction without having to leave your home and it was structured and thorough enough that at the end, YOU were able to work with your child therapeutically any time of day? We believe that this program will offer that opportunity. Stay tuned, because in the next few weeks we will be ready to start enrolling families for parent training. It will be once per week for about an hour, and will span 12 weeks of time. That probably sounds like a life commitment, and it is! In that time, you will build the knowledge and skills that you will need to give your child many more hours each day of learning and practice. This means exponential opportunities for you to help your child build social communication skills, decrease problem behaviors, build your parent confidence in your ability to work with and guide your child, and to be a teacher for others who share time with your child, like siblings, grandparents, nannies, and family friends. Talk about a life changer. We CAN’T WAIT to get you there!
If you are interested in talking more about participation in the ESP Program, contact Dr. Morrison at Kids BRAIN (www.kidsbrainllc.com/contact) or Amy Foxman at Ability ABA (https://www.abilityaba.com/take-action).
