After Day 1 of my mini "internship" things definitely took a turn. I found Day 2 to be very unorganized and chaotic. The "therapists" were unprepared, the day's activities had not been scheduled, and nothing went smoothly. Part of working with children on the autism spectrum is being prepared. You absolutely MUST have everything carefully and completely planned. Otherwise, the children become frustrated. Any downtime creates ample opportunity for them to become confused/overwhelmed, which in turn, leads to meltdowns.
I got the impression that the "therapists" were just starting to figure out what ABA therapy is. I felt like they were just doing behavior management and not encouraging peer interaction or conversation at all between the children (something I feel is VERY important). They all come from education backgrounds and I feel like they still have a lot to learn about actually doing therapy. It felt to me like they were just running a daycare and using loud/stern voices and time-outs to handle meltdowns rather than explaining why transitions are occurring, etc...
It was still a good experience for me professionally and I am grateful for the opportunity. I had a great time implementing the kind of therapy I prefer (encouraging interaction, encouraging verbal exchanges between peers, working on "wh" question and sequencing...) but I was the only one who was doing this, and I was only allowed to do this for a few minutes.
That being said, I decided to cut my internship short.
After Day 3 was a substandard repeat of Day 2, and some wise counsel from my mom and Evan's mom, I decided not to go back Thursday. I was getting nothing out of it, and neither were the children. Instead, Evan and I spent the day shopping and taking Eli (the world's best Golden Retriever) to the park.
The weather was so nice and all three of us enjoyed being outside!
Hope you all enjoyed your Spring Break! No more grad school letters yet... Hopefully this week?
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