So Bryce is about a quarter of the way done his 60 Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) sessions. Today we had an appointment with our naturopathic doctor, Dr. Tasreen Alibhai, to follow up and see how the treatment is going so far and if we have noticed any changes in behaviour.

I want to say Bryce is more vocal, but Daniel’s argument was that I notice he’s more vocal because Bryce is home all day now with me since he’s out of school. I guess that makes sense. It’s like, obviously I would like there to be progress, clearly it would be nice to see something out of all the time, energy, and money that has gone into this therapy, but on the other hand, we would have no regrets at all if this didn’t do anything to help his behaviour.

Anyways, we had to fill out a questionnaire called Hyperbaric Autism Rating Evaluation. I’m not particularly a huge fan of standardized tests or quizzes that give you results for anything autism-related because each autism diagnosis is completely different and as they say, when you meet one person with autism, well, you met one person with autism. I realize it’s good to have on file, but would be even better to have a personalized test for each child. Ask me questions that I want results and answers for, and we’ll see where we are down the road when we have a follow up. To me that just makes more sense.

Here’s how you answer the questions for the evaluation:

N - Not True At All (Zero Times Per Week)
S - Sometimes True (1-3 Times Per Week)
M - Moderately True (4-7 Times Per Week)
V - Very True (more than 8 Times Per Week)

The questions ask how many times can he/she do this or that, rather than if he/she can do this or that. That part I like a lot and it sort of gives you a sense of what has been mastered, and what needs to be worked on.

Question 1. Can say own name when questioned?

No idea! We’re not usually asking our own son what his name is, and when ‘strangers’ ask him, I’m usually up there real quick not even giving him a chance to answer and say, “This is Bryce.” (I’m such a mom sometimes.) So we decided to ask Bryce to find out if he could say his own name when questioned.

Mom: “What’s your name?”
Bryce: “What’s your name.”
I pause for a minute and ask again.
Mom: “What’s your name?”
Bryce: “Old MacDonald had a farm. Sing song mommy?”
Awww! I love it when he says ‘mommy’. Wait, no distraction, not gonna happen! Work with me here!
Mom: “Bryce pay attention! What’s your name?!”
I looked at Daniel and said, “Oops.”
Bryce covers his face like he’s hiding. He does this when he is overstimulated, confused, frustrated, just plain annoyed, or playing. You’d be surprised how hard it is to tell which one of those reasons he is doing it for.
Ok, one more time!
Mom: “Bryce, what’s your name??!”
Bryce: “Bryce!”
Mom: “That’s right. You’re Bryce! Good job! High five!”
Daniel: “I’d say S – Sometimes True (1-3 Times Per Week)

We laughed.

We will be documenting this whole HBOT experience and sharing pictures, videos, and reporting everything we can on our blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

If you have any questions for us, or just questions in general that we may be able to answer, please contact us.

Thanks for reading,
Tanaya

To learn more about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to treat autism, please visit Vitalia Health Care.