Today we are starting something a little bit different where I'm taking a classic podcast
and I'm rebroadcasting um, and right now I would just want to give you a little clip
of an episode that was previously broadcast way back when I first started my podcast in early 2019
with Kelsey General, who's a single mom of two boys on the spectrum and she's living in Canada.
So I'm just going to present this older clip. Um,
and then next week we're going to do a little clip with an update from Kelsey on her boys,
her life and her work within our online course and community. So let's watch this little, um, clip to
go way back in time when Kelsey's boys were four and three.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, Board Certified Behavior Analyst and bestselling
author. Each week I bring you a video. So if you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel,
you can do that now. This week, I am presenting a short clip from a very old podcast. One of my
first original broadcast with Kelsey General, who is telling us about her, um, life and her boys
starting to show delays, getting diagnosed. Um, and how she weaved through the maze,
the autism maze and, um, where she was at when her children were four and three. It took, yeah,
until he was 25 months. And this was when he was 18 months that we got the referral.
Okay. So just under a year, um, yeah, so. And during that year you were doing what?
Well, during the, during that time I was dealing with, uh, I wasn't doing that much
with him. I mean, I was staying home, trying to live a normal life, trying to read these books
and do as much as I could. But I really didn't know I was in a high stress situation at home.
Um, things were getting worse and worse there. And so while we were waiting for the evaluation,
I actually left my ex and became a single mom and moved in with my behavior analyst friend,
oh wow for a few. And. Yeah, and started kind of planning the next stages,
but I knew I wasn't going to leave Alaska until he had his evaluation.
So all the court dates happened. I got full custody of my kids and planned to leave the
country, but, um, we waited until diagnosis day and then we basically left the next day
after he was diagnosed and move home back to Canada. Okay. Cause you're a Canadian citizen.
Yes. So you were your, your life was basically on hold, waiting for that diagnosis day.
Yes. And I wasn't doing much at that time, because at that time, I mean,
you know, my behavior analyst friend, ethically couldn't
support, you know, any therapy with, with Brentley other than giving me some resources
and I was just under the impression that I just needed to wait to get that diagnosis
so that he could get 40 hours of ABA. I just thought that was when my hands
were washed clean of, of anything. I, you know, which is funny now, but I thought, oh, that's
the end. Once I have the diagnosis, it's done. It's fine. That's all I need to do. That was my,
you know, most people say that they're upset on diagnosis day. I was relieved.
I was like, okay, now we have this diagnosis. We can go get ABA. We can go back to Canada.
Court's done. You know, I was thinking it was good.
Okay. So you move, you moved back to Canada and then ABA, miraculously started right.
I wish that would be nice. No, um in Canada the system's very different. Uh, every province is
different, but in British Columbia, children who are under six, get $22,000 a year for the
parents to basically do whatever they want with, um, under some guidelines,
but you can't access that funding until you're a British Columbia resident for three months. Um,
so during that time I still, you know, we were adjusting to new life
here. He did regress again. He basically started just screaming as his form of communication.
Um, and he stopped eating a lot of foods. He was already pretty restrictive in his eating,
but it got worse when we moved to Canada. Um, there was lots of different brands. You know,
I couldn't get Jimmy Dean sausage, which at that point was what he really enjoyed, you
can't get that in Canada. Um, so we just waited. I had to pay for a private, uh, psychologist to
confirm his diagnosis so that we would qualify for funding. Um, but once all that wait was over. We
signed our funding agreement. We got the 22,000 and, and then ABA, miraculously started, right?
No. Well, I guess it kind of did. Yes, I found, um, but it was not 40 hours.
So $22,000 does not go very far if anyone's wondering, um, it qualified him for about six
hours. Six to eight hours a week of therapy. Um, yeah. And there was no behavior analysts
in my area. There were a couple programs saying they were autism programs and
you know, that they were helping these children. But I knew from my history that I needed a
Board Certified Behavior Analyst, that was really important to me. And so I found one
about an hour away. Um, we met, I interviewed her the best at that time I knew how.
Seemed okay. Um, and then I started driving him an hour, a few an hour, each way, three or four times
a week to this, uh, it was a room in a community center. And it was a type of preschool program
where each child had a one-to-one. Okay. So how old was he at this time?
Oh, um, just under two and a half. Okay. And then you, you also had Lincoln. Your baby was
they’re what 18 months apart? They're 18 months apart. So he was, I mean, he wasn't even one yet.
He was just about one. Okay. So when you started driving him
to the clinic at two and a half after you've been concerned, I mean, you were concerned
at six months, then you were really concerned after a year now it's, you're two and a half.
He's two and a half. You're driving an hour each way, not for 40 hours of treatment for
eight hours of treatment at best a week. Um, plus the hour, each way commute and
your baby. Yeah. And can you describe Brantley's behaviors at that point?
Yeah. At this point, things had gotten, had gotten pretty bad. Um, he
essentially had a lot of tantrums, uh anytime he heard no, anytime a routine
was different. Anytime he didn't get his way or, you know, we had to clean something up.
He would flop to the ground, throw himself back and slam his head, um, on hard surfaces and he
hit it hard. I mean, how many times a day would he hit his head? I mean, up to a hundred times a day,
sometimes more. I mean, it would depend on the day and the kind of stressors, um, that were
happening for him. He still wasn't communicating very much so. And he had some words? He had some,
uh, labels, he had some labels, um, but he was not using anything to communicate.
Did you know how to teach him language at that point? Teach him new words? No, no. And did you?
I was trying to find ways, but no. And how was because you were a single mom at this point, um,
you had your baby, you had him, you know, and you like to go hiking and go out in the community. So
can you describe what that was like? Right when you started ABA treatment.
Yeah. So that was, uh, scary, um, it was hard to take both out. Brentley would need to be, have a
backpack on with a leash because he wouldn't hold my hand. He would often bolt away. Once when we
got to therapy, actually he decided he didn't want to go. And I didn't have him on the harness cause
it was like a 10 foot walk into the building and he ran three streets over like, wow. He was gone
and I, and I could see him a lot of the time, but he was, you know, I didn't really expect that to
happen and outdoor activities I would normally either wear him in the pack on my back and Lincoln
on my front, or I would have him in the harness. Um, but even that sometimes didn't work. I mean,
he would flop to the ground, like we would call it the wet noodle and we couldn't even walk
into a store from the parking lot. Luckily in Alaska, they, they gave me a handicap
sticker so that we could be closer to the doors because Brentley is not a small guy.
He never has been. And so trying to manage dead weight
of an over 40 pound kid at this point was was very difficult. Okay. So, um,
so the ABA clinic that you were driving to that did have a Board Certified Behavior Analyst there,
um, was, were you seeing, um, a lot of nice gains with that? Or what, how was that working?
No, there was not very many gains with that. So his first assessment they did there, they did the
ABLLS assessment, which is, um, a type of verbal behavior assessment. He had about one box filled
I think, maybe not even that. I mean, he didn't respond to people. He didn't respond to anything.
And then they began teaching him colors and we're trying to teach them through
play and building and, um, having them engage with different toys,
which actually Brentley has always been very good at he's good at engaging with objects in
his own way. So it was really just allowing him, it was really almost just like babysitting, um,
and you know, trying to teach him skills that were pretty beyond him.
I mean, I'm not sure why you would teach a child who can't even request what he wants colors.
Right. So, and he was still having the major problem behaviors. Um, they were even coming
to your home a little bit, but he was still, they weren't really helping you to solve this
immediate safety issue of you even going to the grocery store without major safety issues.
No, no, they, you know, and, and, and the behavior analyst came once and watched me at the store with
him. And, um, you know, but really, again, no strategies that were, that were helping or that
were working. Um, it, it was just difficult to watch and it was frustrating to watch, um, because
they didn't really want me that involved either. And it was like, well, I'm the one who was with
them all the time. I need to know, you know, what's happening. I hope you enjoyed that
short snippet from podcast 175, which is our first classic podcast reboot. If you did, I would love
it if you would leave me a comment, give a thumbs up, or share it with somebody else who might
benefit and for more information about joining our online course and community, you can attend
a free workshop at marybarbera.com/workshop. And I'll see you right here next week.