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Our 8-year-old son, Alan, has PDD, cognitive impairment and is hyper-active. Gina Truesdell-Todd has been our ABA consultant for 1 & 1/2 years.
Before coming to Behavioral Building Blocks we tried many different therapies and treatments but none were effective enough to justify continuing. Medical and educational professionals had told us that there was little or no hope of Alan getting any better. As Alan continued to grow physically, but not cognitively, his behavior worsened and it got increasingly difficult to manage him. Public outings were almost impossible, even daily household living was extremely stressful for our family. This was the situation when we learned about Behavioral Building Blocks and decided to give them a call.
At the initial evaluation, Gina assured us that our son does have great learning potential, but that it would take a lot of time and hard work. She also assured us that she would stick with us for as long as we remained committed to the treatment program. Because Gina has always been honest with us about what we can expect from our son, what we can expect from her and what she expects from us, we have learned to trust her treatment recommendations.
Gina did not come to us with a cookie-cutter program. She took a lot of time evaluating Alan's needs and our family situation before she began designing an individualized and unique program for us. Then, after presenting the treatment plan to us, she was there every step of the way helping us implement it, working out any kinks along the way, and educating and training us (his parents) in the ABA method.
We have been impressed with the way Gina is able to apply her knowledge and experience to design very effective treatment programs. With Gina's guidance over the last 1 & 1/2 years Alan has learned good behaviors and useful skills some thought impossible: Table manners, toilet training, basic academics, self-help, and play skills. But the greatest accomplishment is that, even though he is still non-verbal, Alan has learned to communicate basic needs and desires using PECS (pictures). His ability to communicate has had tremendous benefits in all areas of his development.
Our son still has a long way to go, but because of the quality ABA therapy provided by Gina, we now have great hope for his future.
Alan's Mother
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We have benefited from the expertise of Behavioral Building Blocks in the school and the home setting. Based on the success of the behavioral plan supervised by BBB two years ago in my son’s first grade public school classroom, we initiated a home-based program. At school, my son’s IEP team continues to employ ABA-based methods provided by BBB that are practical and effective in the real world of the regular classroom. BBB has good rapport with my son’s classroom teachers and is respected in the school. The ability of BBB to provide continuity and consistency between home and school has been important in my child’s success. At home, I rely on BBB’s regular oversight to maintain the effectiveness of our program and to avoid the pitfalls of applying behavioral methods inappropriately. We have been learning how to use behavioral approaches to help our growing child (now 9) to learn social skills like listening and responding to conversations, peer interactions, perspective-taking, and coping with teasing. BBB has even helped us in other environments, like helping us to prepare our son to attend a lengthy but important religious observation in our place of worship. The behavioral techniques as taught by BBB are flexible, adaptable, and successful in diverse settings and stages of development.
Anonymous
8-31-05
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By the time my son Benjamin was 18 months old I had already been urged by family members to have him evaluated; they saw behaviors that weren't troublesome individually, but together signaled that he may need professional help.
Although my husband and I were skeptical (since Ben was such a quiet and independent child) we agreed to have him evaluated. We began his evaluations in the local school system; they also felt Ben had developmental delays. We then took Ben to the child development experts in our area for further assessment. Ben was diagnosed with "high functioning autism" with possible genetic syndrome. The experts handed us a myriad of literature and told us to "take action immediately". We felt crushed and bewildered.
I got information off of the computer and from friends and family. I read and read. I began to learn that the only proven treatment was based on the principles and procedures of a science called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Upon further examination I also learned that a behavior analyst with formal training, in the science of behaivor analysis and state licensure would have the knowledge and creditials needed to provide this treatment. We were referred to, and phoned, Behavioral Building Blocks, P.C. a company that met these criteria.
Gina E. Truesdell-Todd contacted us for a consultation and we did go into action! Gina gave us hope and a ton of work (there's no getting around that!). We began with mass trial teaching to get Ben to imitate simple actions such as putting a block into a bucket. In the beginning attempts at getting Ben to imitate even simple actions like that were met with huge tantrums which were at first heartbreaking to endure. At times I wanted to just give up and cry; but I couldn't do that to my son so I persevered "a day at a time".
Now, four years later Ben has exceeded the expectations of my husband and myself. He is currenty enrolled in a regular-education kindergarten class (without an aide) in our neighborhood school. We continue to provide Ben with home support through ABA programming 3-4 days per week. We continually assess and work on behavioral and academic difficulties before they become obstacles.
All of our family members, friends, and school officials are in awe of Ben's continued progress, none of which could have ever been possible if we had chosen a different path. We are indeed ever grateful and often broke!
Sincerely, Linda Fink
9/16/04
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We are parents of a 6 year old boy with ASD. At 3 years of age he was diagnosed with severe Autism and language impairment. The following year we spent learning about Autism and getting help from our district public school. Our uneasiness on the amount and type of help he was getting led us to Gina Truesdell-Todd at Behavioral Building Blocks. When we started with Gina around two years ago, our son would not imitate any gross/fine motor intructions, would use his hands to lead us to his needs (usually food), and was totally non-verbal. At the beginning of the program when Gina would ask him (Do this...) to imitate clapping, our son would not do that; he would cry, hit back, try to run, or just sit motionless. While as parents we were fearful if he would ever be able to learn anything, Gina would reassure us that those were all good signs; that he was very intelligent and was trying everything that had worked in the past to get out of tasks. Today he amuses himself by indepedently playing computer games, writes alphabets, draws simple pictures and enoys art projects. He follows simple instructions and helps his mom at home with a variety of chores. A year ago mastering oral motor skills, Gina started his verbal program. Gradually he learned phonics and started repeating multi-syllable words. Now he is improving in spontaneously using words to request objects, which is an exciting indication of beginning verbal functional language. Earlier this year Gina started a home-based "classroom" program with some other Autistic/Typical children. In the class he is learning school readiness skills and behavior which help him with intergration into the public school system. Gina is genuinely loving and caring for our son, and is very intelligent about aspects of behavior psychology. She takes the challenge of teaching our son very seriously and take her time in developing individualized solutions. We are very excited about our son's progress during the last two years and are very thankful to have a caring and strong partner. Ahmed Family October 2008
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