It should have been a call forgotten without hesitation.
The daycare director called my office to let me know my 18-month-old daughter, Lilly, had eaten sand on the playground. She just wanted to let me know. I mentioned the call to a coworker, and she acted like it wasn’t unusual at all. “Kids test out the world one bite at a time,” I recall her saying. Yet, I didn’t forget the call and probably never will.
With April as National Autism Awareness Month, it’s a good time to recalibrate where we are when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
While there is much to celebrate, there is also a reminder for continued vigilance: children receiving Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services achieve better outcomes with fewer hours of intervention, but its use is still well below the ASD prevalence rate.