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A graduate we’re proud of!

by Bob

Kai, the happy graduateNicole Berlowski is the Autism Services Coordinator here at Easter Seals Southeast Wisconsin, and her guest post today highlights some of the amazing work she does with our clients.

A grad we’re proud of

by Nicole Berlowski, MS

This week we celebrated a graduation for one of our Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) participants. I’m so proud of all of the progress that he has made in the past two years and couldn’t resist sharing this amazing success story.

Kai was adopted from an orphanage in China at 28 months. When his parents brought him home they quickly learned that he could not walk, speak, or interact with others. In May of 2010 Kai saw a nationally known specialist in Virginia and his parents were told that their 4-year-old son may never be verbal and would need long term care. He began services with Easter Seals in September of 2010.

After 9 months of intensive ABA-based intervention services (30 hours every week), Kai went from 10 requests to over 75, and from communicating by pointing to using complete sentences. He had less frequent negative behaviors and more interactions with family and peers. He began to enjoy age-appropriate activities and after a total of 21 months he learned to have age-appropriate conversations, too — including using eye contact and directing his attention toward the person he is speaking with.

These days Kai enjoys playing different games like Trouble, Sorry, Connect 4, and Chinese checkers. He enjoys time around his family and peers at school. He wants to be involved in what is going on around him. He has also become advanced in his academic skills (spelling, counting, naming numbers, reading, and writing).

Kai is no longer in need of special education services, and due to his quick advancement of skills, he no longer qualifies for the criteria for autism waiver funding. We will miss Kai, but are so proud of him for graduating from Easter Seals services and happy to see him looking forward to the summer with his family and friends. Congratulations to all!


 

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  1. Patricia Wright Says:

    June 29th, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    So awesome to hear about the positive outcomes for children who receive quality, evidence-based intervention! WAY TO GO KAI!