Hi everybody
My 3-y-o has pretty serious delay in speech and language development. Recently, we got a child psychologist to do an observation at his school, and the psychologist told us he's pretty sure my son is on the spectrum.
I have been reading up like mad trying to get as much knowledge on what I can do, but the more I read, the most lost I become. May I ask for some help from you?
At the moment, my kid's biggest problem is echolalia. He knows some words, but can't carry out proper conversations. There's no problem so far on behaviour. He sits in class well, zones out sometimes but responses when teacher calls him, plays well with his friends, is affectionate with people he is familiar with and displays joint attention. He knows his alphabet, numbers, shapes and colours, but have some difficulty completing worksheets because he can't quite understand the instructions.
My psychologist subscribes to RDI, but after reading, I think ABA seems to be more established. Anybody has thoughts on this?
If we do go for ABA, how many sessions do we need per week? I know the recommended number of therapy hours is 40 per week, but is that all by the therapist, or maybe a session of 3 hours per week by therapist, and 37 hours of practise by parents? Anybody has experience using "Autism Recovery Network"?
I'm keen to get a formal, unbiased assessment on my kid so I know where he stands in the spectrum, and what his needs are. Getting that from our psychologist is one way, but are there more neutral institutions we can go to?
Sorry for the slew of questions, and thank you for your help in advance!