How Autism Parent Training Helped Michelle Teach at Home
Michelle’s story illustrates the four steps I teach through the Turn Autism Around® approach: assess, plan, teach, and take easy data.
1. Assess the Child’s Starting Point
Michelle recorded what Elena could actually say and do, rather than relying on what she remembered hearing once or twice.
She took a language sample and kept a word list. At the beginning, Elena’s spoken vocabulary was essentially “mom” and “dog,” with limited consistent meaning.
That gave Michelle a baseline she could compare with later progress.
2. Make a Plan for Useful Communication
Michelle learned to focus on foundational communication skills rather than rushing toward longer sentences or manners.
Later, when Elena started attending an ABA clinic, Michelle questioned a goal of expanding “cookie” into “Can I please have a cookie?” before Elena understood those additional words.
The course helped her understand what Elena was ready to learn and participate more confidently in conversations about therapy goals.
3. Make Learning Enjoyable
Michelle worried Elena would not sit at a table long enough to learn. But simple materials, including a shoebox activity, puzzles, and other toys from the course, helped her create activities Elena enjoyed.
In the original interview, Michelle described Elena running to the table and calling out “table time.”
In the update, she highlighted another important change: Elena began repeating words she heard. This ability, often called echoic responding, gave Michelle more opportunities to model language.
Over time, Elena began using more words on her own, too.
4. Take Easy Data to See What Changes
Michelle did more than notice that Elena seemed to be talking more. She documented it.
After 33 days, a repeat one-hour language sample captured 180 words and phrases. During the early months, Michelle also reported a growing vocabulary of more than 500 words.
Those are different measures: words and phrases heard during a particular sample, and a larger vocabulary recorded over time.
Michelle also reported a striking change in standardized speech evaluations. Before she began the course, Elena’s expressive language score was described as falling in a zero-to-three-month age-equivalent range. About three months later, Michelle reported a score in the 30-month range, when Elena was approximately 26 months old.
Those scores describe expressive language results, not Elena’s overall development.
For more detail, read the white paper about Elena’s early progress. It documents an individual case and was published as a white paper rather than a peer-reviewed journal article.
