Ariana's Posts
346 posts
A few months ago, Stephanie (the super fab Case Manager for Tony’s ABA programs), recommended we transition the funding of our little man’s ABA therapies to the behavioral health division of his long-term care benefits. I was assured that she and her team would remain as the primary providers of service and given a list
Several months ago, Tony, the Fabulous Miss Whitney, and I had just strolled a few feet into our local Costco. I was wearing an Autism shirt I had recently purchased from a vendor on Etsy. A woman we were passing looked up, read my shirt, and fired off the following: “Lucky. I can’t even get
I want you to imagine with as much detail as possible plunging into an encounter with your deepest fears- the ones that instantly and efficiently sever the communication between your intellect and your reactions. These are the things that cause you to panic, raise your voice in fear, flee, or propel you to act before
When I was just under three years old, my mom began taking me along to her lab hours at our local community college. I would mostly listen to other people’s conversations as I sat and put together little wooden dowels and colored balls that were meant to be used to build 3D molecule models. Sometimes
To Miss Leah, Many Thanks and Best Wishes As you have stepped forward and begun to sing your life’s song looking toward a new future so far away, I wish to share a quick note expressing my deep appreciation for your kindness to our son. Thank you for working so patiently with Tony and for
In November of 2017, our family took a long-planned trip to Disneyland. That trip, and the extensive work we did to help Tony prepare for it, is mostly a topic of a future post. I suspected (translation: totally knew it) we could be in for a few challenging moments given his sensory differences. However, I
As we stroll through this second week of discussion about speech therapy for Tony, I want you to keep something very important in mind: Ms. B deserves just as much loving picture wise as every other therapist who works with Tony. This post however, is going to be lighter in pics than some of the
I have discovered that when people with typically verbal family members think about speech therapy, most assume that it exclusively involves the process of teaching appropriate verbal speech. This certainly can be the case, but when an individual isn’t capable of producing vocal sounds or putting them together in ways recognizable to others, the approach
To Ms. B, Tony’s Sweet ST, For Insane Amounts of Patience If someone were to ask me who I think has the hardest job on Tony’s therapy team, there is no doubt it would be Ms. B. Not only is she having to work with Tony on some of the skills he’s least interested in
This year, I finally got everything I wanted underneath our petite living room Christmas tree- not a single gift addressed to me. Somehow a gift for every occasion has become such a culturally ingrained tradition it is almost reflexive. I find that people often don’t understand why my preferred present is a hug or a
