Orion ABA

04/22/2023

Eid Mubarak

03/13/2023

We completed our Behavioral Health Accreditation!

02/12/2023

Love these suggestions from Bright Expressions LLC about how to expand language through play with your toddler or child. Even if you’re not actively trying to work on speech goals with your child—even if they’re right on target for speech—it can be hard as adults to break out of playing with them in the exact same patterns that we always play with them. Some parents, just like all people, are naturally more or less imaginative or more or less creative. It can be hard to think in the moment about what kind of new concepts we can explore with our children through play.

My kids—both of whom *have* had speech delays, speech goals and intervention—have just now gotten into an explosion of intense interest in the concepts big and little, at ages 5 and 3. They talk constantly about how the older one is big and the smaller one is little. They insist on splitting things up that way too—big kid gets a big bowl of oatmeal and little kid gets a little bowl of oatmeal. Right now they both love that and love talking and philosophizing about it. So much of our play is about big and little: the big bear and the little bear, the big mom and the little boy, a big sandwich and a little sandwich… I take what they’re fascinated by and learning the linguistic concept of, and look for opportunities to put it into conversation and play.

This post is also not suggesting that you have to be your child’s only or constant playmate! Kids also pick up on these concepts by playing with their peers or siblings and being exposed to new ideas through friends, school, media, etc. But the next time your child invites you to sit down and play with them and you do, maybe this gives you an idea of what kinds of ideas you can have in your head for your language through play to make their world a little…bigger. 😊

[Image description: The title of the image is "Play Farm", and it has a small clipart of a barn out to the side of it. There are two columns. One says "Instead of...animal sounds, animal names." The second one suggests "Try...Animal sounds, animal names, open/close, in/out/on/off, eat/drink/sleep, up/down, big/little, hi/bye, your turn/my turn, and stop/go" as concepts that you could talk about during play with your child to expand their language. The image was made by Bright Expressions AZ. End description.]

02/06/2023

We have immediate openings for ABA therapy during the daytime. We accept most insurances including medicaid

12/24/2022

Great resource for parents of autistic toddlers.

The ASD Video Glossary is a web-based tool built to help families and professionals learn more about the early signs of autism. This tool was developed by the Florida State University Autism Institute in collaboration with First Signs and Autism Speaks and has been available to the public free of ch...

10/25/2022

We are approved to help clients with Meridian at our clinics in Riverside, IL and Elk Grove Village, IL!!

08/04/2022

So many of us have been living in the neurotypical world for too long thinking we failed. I believe the neurotypical world actually failed us.

Identifying you are neurodivergent enables you to realise you never were a failed neurotypical, you have always been an incredible neurodivergent person instead.

That knowledge and the way it enables us to take a different path and shift our mindset towards authenticity and self compassion is powerful.

After decades we might wobble back to the other path and recreate old thought patterns. It isn't as linear as this graphic shows and it's a longer process but we definitely have more chance when we are identified!