At what point does therapy become too much for a family of special needs? - Autism Spectrum Message Board

Willstrideryder · 05-28-2006, 01:08 PM

Recently we just began Intensive Behavorial Integration therapy (30 hrs/wk), for our 2 1/2 year old, on top of weekly PT, speech, playgroup, and OT. It has been difficult for me as the mom, to have someone here (the therapist) around all of the time. I really like our IBI therapist, we really click--but now I am feeling so overwhelmed. I was wondering what others have done and how they have dealt with juggling everything. I feel like it is too much-especially with 3 other children--2 NT, and 1 PDD-NOS. Maybe it just takes some getting used to. Then, last night, we took our NT son in to the hospital and found out he has pneumonia. How does one survive? I've been taking things a day at a time, but boy, maybe I should knock it down to an hour or minute...Any advice is very welcomed!!!

MOM23ANGELS · 05-28-2006, 06:02 PM

i, too, feel overwhelmed lately with the amount of therapy my son receives. he has 4 plus hours a day of ABA, 3 hours a day of school, OT (2X a week) and ST (3x a week). it's really just the ABA that i am starting to feel like "enough is enough". he is well into his 2nd year and i am starting to feel as if he's not getting anything out of it anymore. i am so grateful to have gotten the therapy for him but i think it's time to sit down with his ABA team and discuss the reality that he's probably done with the program. the other part of me says "are you nuts!" this is school funded just ride it as long as you can....but my son cries 9 out of 10 times now that his therapist's show up. he wakes up in the morning asking me if he has "therapy AGAIN today, mommy." i have a feeling the end is near anyway, i have his transitional meeting from pre-k to "school age" in July and from what i understand getting ABA at that stage is almost impossible.

my opinion for you would be to stick with it, at 2.5 years old your son would definately benefit from the therapy. my son also started at about 2.5 and made huge gains with the therapy.

Liz Cook · 05-28-2006, 06:32 PM

our son is almost 5 and has a 30 hour plus a week schedule and we are looking at -adding more time to that this summer... it is very hard. it takes alot of juggling and organizational skills that i wish i had more of

but if the IBI works anything like the ABA my son recieves then yes he should stay in it. isaac is very severe and will always be by the looks of things but he has gotten to the point where we can give him one or two step instruction and he will follow them... as long as he isnt having a normal defiant moment that any kid his age would

but as far as taking care of younger ones i find the only real time i have to bond and take care of my newborn is during those 6 hours isaac works with his ABA instructor. i think you should keep that going just get yourself a break if you dont have to be involved with the treatment. and cancel the rest of his therapy for the week that is outside of the house until the pnenomia gets a bit better, i am sure they would understand. where isaac receives his outside of the house therapy has been great about that sort of thing if i havent been able to arrange someone else to take isaac to therapy for me (my sister has a daughter that receives services at the same place so we can carpool as needed)

and once things settle down a bit... the best thing we do here is wrangle a babysitter once and a while! doesnt happen often and generally we spend the whole time talking about the kids but it doesnt a parent good to play hooky once in a while.

sross24 · 05-28-2006, 07:19 PM

The therapy is really overwhelming. My son has about 10 hours a week right now. He will be increasing to 20 hours a week in June, and by September we will increase to 30 hours a week.

Here is a suggestion, that we too, are going to try:

-Think up some different things to do with the therapist. My son has both ABA and Floortime. His Floortime therapist will be coming for 6 hours a week, and she has agreed to having his therapy at my moms house this summer. My mother has a swimming pool, fenced in play area for the kids, swing-set, huge sandbox, and a playroom. The therapist said she could even get in the pool with my son (as long as I was there too), and do therapy right in the swimming pool.

I'm not sure how flexible your therapy schedule is, but the therapist around here will even go places with us. Next week, we are going to get my son's haircut during his therapy session. She is going to try and help him through it (as he hates it). She also said that she is going to take pictures so we can make a social story for him to prepare him for the next time he gets his hair cut.

I think it is definately overwhelming to have therapists in our house all of the time. First of all, I feel like my house always has to be spotless for them. Just the pressure of that is enough to drive us insane. But also, I miss my privacy. Not that you get tons of privacy when you have 4 kids, but I still miss it. Good luck to you, and keep us posted.

-Steph

jeffreys mom · 05-29-2006, 07:58 AM

It's very intrusive to have all that therapy in the house all of the time, but the bottom line is it does help your child. Believe me when I say ; eventually you get used to it. We had 18 hours in the house when my son was in early intervention. The time flew and then the services ended when he turned three. Now we have 4 hours provided by the school district which isn't nearly enough. We also pay for private therapy but unfortunately can't afford the level of services that would benefit him the most. We are in battle with the school district to get them to step it up.

Scross; Oh how I can relate to the house cleaning. I found myself so exhaused because you can't do the cleaning while the therapy and the kids are happening so at 11pm you find yourself cleaning so the house is ready for the 8am therapy session.
I finally hired a cleaner for the every other week thing to assist with the things I could never get to just to keep me sane during this period.

It's alot to deal with while it's going on, but for my son it made a world of difference so it was worth the intrusion and while at the time it seemed like forever, it was really just a brief moment in our lives.

Hang in there, you'll be glad you did