How To Know if Autism Services Are Working

I suppose there are many ways to know if Autism Services are working correctly for a child or adult with Autism. One of my favorite ways presented itself the other day. As some of you may know my oldest daughter lives in her own apartment. She has supports 24/7 because of some of the typical Autism Behaviors and some more difficult behavioral issues. Most of the time things are ok. Unfortunately when she gets mad she gets mad quick and sometimes it's bad. DD called me excited because she had seen her oldest brother's half brother. Apparently she was at the show with her staff and having trouble getting down the stairs. The half brother helped her get down. She knew who he was and called to tell me. In turn a couple days later I told DS that DD had seen his half brother and he was helping her. DS tell me his half brother called him and told him about it too. The staff person was right there but DD was annoyed at the stairs. From this little incident I was able to surmise several things. For one thing my daughter and her staff were where they were supposed to be. Second they were together and acting like they were supposed to. Third the staff know they might bump into people that know her and me almost anywhere. Although on some level I wonder why the staff wasn't helping her down the stairs... I suppose I should be glad she figured out how to get help on her own though. She's using thous Social Skills that we have been working on for what seems like forever. Services for adults and children with disabilities do work. It is similar to the ways you might try to decode if the services in school is working. It's not always about the papers and what they say. Many times the relationships tell me more than anything. What do you think? How do you know if it's working?