Physical Health Senegal Project #34349

Support Therapy for Autistic Children in Senegal

by Develop Africa, Inc.

Project Report | Feb 6, 2020
Happy Holidays from ABA Senegal! (plus some news)

By Amy Baty-Herbert | Project Coordinator

Baking holiday cookies

Dear Project Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support that is making an impact for Autism therapy in Senegal. Below is a field update from the Dakar Team.

Dear followers,
Best wishes to all and happy holidays to all from ABA Senegal!

During the holiday vacation, our students had two weeks off from school (per the French system that is active here in Senegal). During this time, we increase home activities for most of our students. For students receiving only school support, we do some extra-special activities at home with their school shadow. Sometimes it's not possible with everyone's travel plans and family structures, but we always do our best to keep in contact and practice our skill goals during each 2-week break.

And now for some news: After the very lovely holiday season of 2019, ABA Senegal received a concerning email from the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). The BACB is the only current certification body for ABA, our model of therapy and hundreds of ABA therapy supervisors all over the globe have been certified by their standards and via their examinations, which are available in 13 languages and offered in dozens of countries worldwide. The BACB announced on Dec 31 st 2019 that it will cease certifying individuals outside of the United States and Canada in the near future. It will also run exams in only the English language. This news will have a huge impact on ABA Senegal and its employees, whose project core included offering a training pathway to Senegalese individuals up to the supervisor level. We are now in contact with other ABA entities across Africa to re-organize our collective plans and trajectories. This may mean that Africa will need to develop its own certification board (or boards). Quality control will be a major factor.

For now, ABA Senegal will continue running as a service for local families and as an employer to local staff. The value of these activities should not be minimized in the shadow of this news. We hope to continue our plans as a training center and overcome this new barrier in partnership with other ABA providers throughout Africa. Despite this bump in the road, we still remain optimistic about the difference we can make for the autism community in Senegal.

Sincerely,

The ABA Senegal team

Your support has made a difference for students with autism in the Dakar region of Senegal. We encourage you to start a monthly recurring donation here to continue helping students with Autism in the Dakar region of Senegal. Even a few dollars a month will go a long way. Please also share this with your contacts and invite them to consider supporting this ongoing project.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at GlobalGiving@developafrica.org.

Warm Regards,

The Dakar Team & Develop Africa Team

Links:

Start a Monthly Donation to Support Autistic Children in Senegal

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Nov 27, 2019
Field Update - School Inclusion in Dakar

By Amy Baty-Herbert | Project Coordinator

Dear Project Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support that is making an impact for Autism therapy in Senegal. Below is a field update from the Dakar Team.

Dear followers,

This month we want to give special recognition to a wonderful boy (we’ll call him Amadou) who has been with us since September. When we started school inclusion for Amadou, he was the first boy the teacher had ever seen “like this.” Though the school is experienced with school shadows, the school had not yet been ready to accept children of Amadou’s profile: Pre-verbal with LOTS of energy! Normally children like him are sent to “specialized schools” which are often overcrowded, underfunded, and undertrained. His teachers were so overwhelmed that they began speaking of not letting him back in school. We really didn’t want this to happen!

In the beginning, he was only able to sit for about 5 seconds in total. He preferred wandering around the room and “getting into things” (exploring his new environment), jumping and screaming (letting out internal energy), and climbing over the children, including pulling the girls’ hair (pre-social initiations). We knew this could all be shaped and replaced over time.

Here’s what we did: At home, we began to make the table a FUN space! Though there were a couple of toys he could play with on the floor, the really special ones (the ones that Adair brought) he had to play with while seated at the table. We kept them in a clear box so he couldn’t access them without an adult’s help (a strategy to encourage communication). We did tabletop time like this for 2 weeks before school started, pairing the word “sit” with these fun activities. Then, for most of September, we did the same procedure at school. We didn’t let him touch anything in the classroom except his toys and the table (gentle blocking and redirecting). If he approached us or the table, he was showered with positivity and offered a quiet toy to hold on to and hugs. If he left, he had to leave his toys on the table, and he did not get very much attention at all. We always left the classroom every 15 minutes and would also leave if he started getting particularly squirmy (but not yet upset). By the end of September, he was seated nicely with a small toy for 10-30 minutes on a regular basis. He would respond to the instruction “sit down please.” He was doing the same at home.

Once this was mastered, we began being a lot stricter about the sitting (he no longer had the right to walk around), while simultaneously giving him ways to say “all done” if he wanted to leave the classroom. We gave him some relaxing and useful things to work on outside! Though he wasn’t allowed to play (play is for recess time only), he was able to start potty training with us, started using sign language and working on his autonomy (getting his own snack and water bottle), and also doing some more classic therapy work like picture recognition (in exchange for a couple of cookies). Then we would go back inside and see what the class what up to. His shadow was trained to stay outside if it wasn’t something useful for him. If it was active, social, artsy, or involved music, then we were good to go back inside!

Today, Amadou loves school and the teachers are satisfied with his goals, progress, and support. He has 1-2 goals for each activity during the day. He’s high-fiving other kids and even passing balls and toys around. He has begun imitating some words and, combined with the sign language he has learned as well as his frequent movement breaks, his negative behaviors have gone down to almost zero. We are extremely proud of Amadou, and we are optimistic that he has a great year ahead of him!

We wish we could post some photographs of this wonderful boy, but we need to respect confidentially guidelines. Instead, we’ll post some alternative photos.

Sincerely,

-Your ABA Senegal team

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at GlobalGiving@developafrica.org.

Warm Regards,

The Dakar Team & Develop Africa Team

Links:

Set up a Recurring Donation for Autistic Children in Senegal

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Oct 17, 2019
Update from ABA Senegal Team

By Amy Baty-Herbert | Project Coordinator

First day of summer

Dear Project Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support that is making an impact for Autism therapy in Senegal. Below is from the Dakar Team about their activities over the summer and now in the 2019/2020 school year.

Hello to all,

As we wrapped up the end of the last academic year and prepared for the new one, ABA Senegal welcomed its own transitions. We have opened our doors to four new home-therapy students and are working closely with a longstanding, local special-needs center in Ouakam. Times are busy! Onboarding new clients always take extra effort and care. One longstanding project is finding excellent people to work with our students, as they will be their primary educational contact every single day. We run intensive training with them for several weeks before they begin doing sessions on their own. This is why we ask for long-term commitments from staff - Children need stability and predictability in their lives.

Now we welcome the 2019/2020 school year! For us, a new year means a new therapy room, this time in Mamelles, Dakar. As school support continues in past spaces, new environments are being created. We now have several students who are continuing their education with 1-1 shadow support at school. We have even been given the gracious gift of a separate therapy space in one of the Dakar area schools. The beginning of the school year is a particularly busy time for us, as students are adjusting to new environments, and curriculum and support needs are being determined.

This may be the last one-room space for ABA Senegal. Next stop: Our very own center! Adair has been working diligently on her BCBA credential and needed association paperwork is being competed with the city of Dakar.

For a full timeline of our project plans, take a look at our page: https://www.abasenegal.org/services

-The ABA Senegal Team

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at GlobalGiving@developafrica.org.

Warm Regards,

The Dakar Team & Develop Africa Team

Ready for new school year

First sessions in Ouakam

Baking cookies at school

Links:

Set up a Recurring Donation for Autistic Children in Senegal

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