 |
|
|
|
|
amother
Quince
|
 Wed, Jun 07 2023, 12:53 pm
| honey36 wrote: | Actually I took one of these online training sessions a few years ago, I think it was through relias. I think there was about 20 modules in total and the first 3-5 were just about identifying antecedents to children's behaviours. It was also brought up a lot in the other modules as well.
There was also a big emphasis on establishing rapport and a positive relationship and making sure child doesn't get overwhelmed during therapy. If you see the tasks are too hard or child is beginning to stress out, you immediately stop and do a different activity the child likes instead. I remember lots of videos of therapist tickling kids, swinging them, rolling around on giant balls, lots of fun and laughs etc.
I think the only thing that makes the current version of ABA unique from other therapies (like floortime or whatever) is the control trials (not sure that was the exact name, took the course a while ago) basically the part when they quickly run through a bunch of tasks with the child, after every 5 correct they give reinforcement or whatever. |
You had a glimpse then.
This is exactly what I am talking about.
While helpful for you to have a general idea of a method, this is not the whole picture.
And even if someone is trained, what good is training without knowing having profound knowledge of autism?
The behaviors are so varied and so are the reactions which is why psychiatrists and psychologists study years and years and even then you have professionals that are better or worse.
Bottom line is a lay person cannot properly apply ABA even if they wanted to, they don't know enough.
I would say though that an attentive parent knows very well what makes their child trigger but they can't really do therapy on their own child because they are too emotionally involved.
A parent can though receive support and guidance from a psychologist and use it on every day life but not as a substitute to therapies, especially depending on the level of autism.
| |
|
| Back to top |
 0
 1
|
amother
Plum
|
Wed, Jun 07 2023, 7:15 pm
So - I am one of those autistic parents of autistic children.
I don't like high and low functioning because it divides autistic people into only two categories. The old Asperger's label was a problem because the only thing that differentiated AS from HFA was early language development. As people with AS and HFA age, their paths converge. The labels were useless as predictors of development. At the very extremes "high" and "low" may be meaningful. But many people have a mixed profile. When you describe someone as "high functioning" you can miss their struggles and when you label someone as "low functioning" you can miss their strengths. You see people according to the label instead of themselves.
I have very mixed feelings on ABA and tend to hate online discourse. Some of the most vocal ABA haters are NOT people who have undergone it. They are adults who are now told "ABA is abuse and we must oppose it." In one well known case, it's a parent who I think feels guilt over the fact that they put their kids through ABA. There's now also a total anti-therapy trend, which I disagree with. Autistic people do report that well done therapy is helpful for them and decreases distress.
One of the problems we have, on all sides, is that ABA has now grown to encompass a huge suite of techniques and approaches applied with varying levels of quality. Everything is called ABA because that is what insurance will pay for. This can go one of two ways: saying only classical ABA is "real" ABA (sometimes with the circular logic that if your kid didn't hate it it can't have been real ABA) or rejecting all behaviorism. If we would be consistent with our terms it would be slightly easier. I am not a fan of rigid approaches and I do think they can be abusive especially when negative reinforcements are used (the Judge Roteberg Center should be shut down). I also think it is not kind to children to make them do therapy for 30-40 hours a week as some intensive ABA programs do, especially if so much of it is 1:1 and repetitive. I am also not a fan of behaviorally based feeding programs, and BCBAs are trying to move in on some territory that's really best handled by SLPs.
However I reject the anti-behaviorism approach as overly broad. We all respond to incentives and reinforcers. At some point this becomes a parenting opinion--not an autism opinion. I don't think it's entirely tenable to say no behaviorism at all. I've also seen arguments about how NET and errorless teaching and other more updated techniques are really just the same ABA abuse in disguise, and I am really not convinced. I don't like the conversion therapy argument--the fact that a tool can be used for bad purposes doesn't make the tool evil. I do agree that regulation of ABA is not strong enough in all states. NYS requires RBTs, but some places allow people with a minimum of training to provide therapy as long as they're officially supervised by a BCBA (who isn't actually there when the therapy is done). It's also very important to remember that a 2 year old is not a 12 year old. Sometimes, children with lower verbal or intellectual skills are overly infantilized and treated like babies. You have to use more behaviorism with a toddler because they do not have logic. Older children need to be treated appropriately. Sometimes, ABA is less "dog training" than it is treating an older child like a baby.
I think everything depends on the goals for the child and the skills of the therapist. If you want to make your child "act normal" the therapy will be ineffective at best and abusive at worst. We need to focus in particular on setting appropriate goals, understanding what is actually functional for the child, and not causing them distress.
| |
|
| Back to top |
0
9
|
LovesHashem
|
Thu, Jun 08 2023, 1:45 am
| amother Plum wrote: | So - I am one of those autistic parents of autistic children.
I don't like high and low functioning because it divides autistic people into only two categories. The old Asperger's label was a problem because the only thing that differentiated AS from HFA was early language development. As people with AS and HFA age, their paths converge. The labels were useless as predictors of development. At the very extremes "high" and "low" may be meaningful. But many people have a mixed profile. When you describe someone as "high functioning" you can miss their struggles and when you label someone as "low functioning" you can miss their strengths. You see people according to the label instead of themselves.
I have very mixed feelings on ABA and tend to hate online discourse. Some of the most vocal ABA haters are NOT people who have undergone it. They are adults who are now told "ABA is abuse and we must oppose it." In one well known case, it's a parent who I think feels guilt over the fact that they put their kids through ABA. There's now also a total anti-therapy trend, which I disagree with. Autistic people do report that well done therapy is helpful for them and decreases distress.
One of the problems we have, on all sides, is that ABA has now grown to encompass a huge suite of techniques and approaches applied with varying levels of quality. Everything is called ABA because that is what insurance will pay for. This can go one of two ways: saying only classical ABA is "real" ABA (sometimes with the circular logic that if your kid didn't hate it it can't have been real ABA) or rejecting all behaviorism. If we would be consistent with our terms it would be slightly easier. I am not a fan of rigid approaches and I do think they can be abusive especially when negative reinforcements are used (the Judge Roteberg Center should be shut down). I also think it is not kind to children to make them do therapy for 30-40 hours a week as some intensive ABA programs do, especially if so much of it is 1:1 and repetitive. I am also not a fan of behaviorally based feeding programs, and BCBAs are trying to move in on some territory that's really best handled by SLPs.
However I reject the anti-behaviorism approach as overly broad. We all respond to incentives and reinforcers. At some point this becomes a parenting opinion--not an autism opinion. I don't think it's entirely tenable to say no behaviorism at all. I've also seen arguments about how NET and errorless teaching and other more updated techniques are really just the same ABA abuse in disguise, and I am really not convinced. I don't like the conversion therapy argument--the fact that a tool can be used for bad purposes doesn't make the tool evil. I do agree that regulation of ABA is not strong enough in all states. NYS requires RBTs, but some places allow people with a minimum of training to provide therapy as long as they're officially supervised by a BCBA (who isn't actually there when the therapy is done). It's also very important to remember that a 2 year old is not a 12 year old. Sometimes, children with lower verbal or intellectual skills are overly infantilized and treated like babies. You have to use more behaviorism with a toddler because they do not have logic. Older children need to be treated appropriately. Sometimes, ABA is less "dog training" than it is treating an older child like a baby.
I think everything depends on the goals for the child and the skills of the therapist. If you want to make your child "act normal" the therapy will be ineffective at best and abusive at worst. We need to focus in particular on setting appropriate goals, understanding what is actually functional for the child, and not causing them distress. |
What a beautiful and well written post.
And you are so right about people having the go to "turn kids into normal". A parent or therapist can also have that attitude when applying other therapies other than ABA.
You've so eloquently explained why I think Aspergers was not a helpful diagnosis and some of the issues with functioning labels.
| |
|
| Back to top |
0
2
|
Chickensoupprof
|
Thu, Jun 08 2023, 3:47 am
| amother OP wrote: | This always bothers me.
I have a cousin. He's 13 years old, extremely low functioning autism. Nonverbal. Not understandable. Not toilet trained. Hits his siblings. Bangs his head. Shmears fecal matter all over his bed.
His parents have spent hours, days, weeks researching everything. Diet change. Therapies. Vitamins. Drs. Floortime. Sensory Diet..
They do ABA because it's the only thing that has some result at all.
What really bothers me is when HFA Adults try to tell his parents to stop the ABA because they didn't appreciate it. Or they tell his mother what she needs to do and what she's doing wrong (everything) because they have the same condition as him so they understand.
Why is it assumed that a HFA adult can relate at all, to speak at all to the understanding of a severely low-functioning autistic child.
It bothers me. Because his mother is (imo) a superhero and she's getting criticized constantly for not embracing his autism, not letting him just live in his own world. |
So I'm only going to answer your OP
In the Netherlands, your cousin won't have had the diagnosis ASD but he would get the diagnosis of extremely low IQ. This may have also some overlap with autism so they may have add ASD to his label in order to get some extras but his main thing would have be something like 'ploni is functioning on the level of a toddler'. But children with a low ''level'' can get here lots of care.
If we take a toddler or a baby, how do these little children thrive? Being in a protective, safe stable, and predictable environment.
I don't have first-hand experience with people who are low functioning but I do have experience with people who are having severe Alzheimer's. I once cleaned a bed which was smeared in feces. This poor lady didn't understand anymore what feces was, maybe felt a rash and went with her hand in to her incontinence material (diapers and nappy's are for babies) and smeared it. So what shall we do wtih this lady? Make her understand this by teaching it to her ? Or creating a safe environment or come up with an idea that she won't smear her feces anymore?
Of course, is dementia something different than having someone who has a very low IQ. The thing is, can your cousin understand things? But in the NL we would have given your cousin a protective helmet and see what makes him hitting his sibling... Mind u a 2-year-old also can ''hit'' but it is less powerful and hard than a 13-year-old hitting. If he has the same level of functioning as a 2 year old and he hits because there is lots of noise, he is tired and can't verbalize it, or he has pain somewhere... So we in the NL take your cousin to a facility this can be a kind of ''play group'' with 3 other people like him who get professional care, or go to in a home where professionals take care but we won't try necessarily o change him or to teach him.
The problem according to lot of people with ASD with ABA is that it's giving the messasge that you are wrong to be yourself, it's looks like puppy training, furthermore, there is at least in the NL no supervision of ABA therapists and there are therapists who lock a child up as the punishment. You can regulate behavior but ABA is not the only way to regulate behavior and sometimes even with small changes you can regulate behavior. Also lots of people with asd get PTSD after ABA https://www.researchgate.net/p.....lysis
| |
|
| Back to top |
0
2
|
Chickensoupprof
|
Thu, Jun 08 2023, 3:52 am
About LFA and HFA, is sometimes problematic.
Is a 18-year-old who has anorexia caused by ASD (lots of women with ASD have an eating disorder) and depression more functioning then a 14 year old who doesn't speak much and is building trains?
| |
|
| Back to top |
0
0
|
amother
Sapphire
|
Sun, Jun 11 2023, 10:29 pm
| Chickensoupprof wrote: | | or go to in a home where professionals take care but we won't try necessarily o change him or to teach him. |
I have a son who is now 16 who used to be pre-verbal but is now verbal. Toilet trained extremely late, but did toilet train. Did smear feces, but was able to overcome that as well. We still struggle in a huge way with aggression but very slowly we see some progress there as well. I cannot IMAGINE taking a child like mine or ANY child with lagging skills and simply placing him somewhere where the idea is not to change him or teach him. ALL CHILDREN DESERVE TO BE TAUGHT, no matter how behind they are in social skills, regulation skills, life skills, etc.
ABA is a teaching method. It's not for everyone. For some kids, it's extremely helpful.
By the way, my son has a genius level IQ. Many children with autism do. One can be VERY behind in some areas but very ahead in others. So don't assume that the 13 year old cousin in question would be diagnosed as "low IQ". My child had the highest IQ his elementary school had seen. Right before he got kicked out of the school for being suspended multiple times for severe aggression.
| |
|
| Back to top |
3
1
|
amother
Blonde
|
Tue, Jun 13 2023, 3:53 am
| amother OP wrote: | | You know what else is DEFINITELY abuse? A 13 year old autistic child scratching, hitting and biting his 10 year old sister. |
Have they tried medication? Even if child responded badly to one or two medications a competent psychiatrist or neuropharmacologist will eventually get it right. Yes it can take time and a lot of aggravation while trying to find the correct combination of medications but it is worth going through the few months of gehenom for when they find the right combination of medications and dosages it is life changing. I had a child do the exact behaviors you describe. I personally am against ABA and never utilized it as an intervention. I successfully navigated these issues by facilitating the child’s underlying need . Smearing and head banging are sensory seeking behaviors. I found creative ways to ensure my child could not take off diaper (by putting on tight clothing they could not remove while at same time tight Lycra clothing provides them deep pressure, I know parents who literally fastened diaper with duct tape to prevent child from removing (there are ways of preventing them removing their diaper) while at same time giving constant appropriate sensory activity to child (allowing them to shmeer scented shaving cream in bathtub or outsole, slime, fake snow, orbeeze, scented bath foams….) same applies for head banging, just like we ensure child can’t remove diaper we ensure there are no truly dangerous flooring if child bangs head on it (that would mean covering hard tile flooring and the like temporarily). Head banging is a child seeking deep pressure and there are multitude of ways to provide for child. A good OT that specializes in sensory integration can help mom with good sensory diet that will replace child’s maladaptive ways of seeking needed sensory input. That along with medication, an attuned parent that can identify child’s underlying need and provide it in an appropriate manner will ensure far greater successful outcomes then ABA.
| |
|
| Back to top |
0
3
|
| Related Topics |
Replies |
Last Post |
|
|
Have you healed an older child/teen from ASD/ADHD?
|
3 |
Thu, Sep 28 2023, 7:46 pm  |
|
|
What’s a good savings plan for my children?
|
2 |
Thu, Sep 21 2023, 7:26 am |
|
|
Moms of kids with good but a bit different ASD spectrum kid
|
27 |
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 8:58 pm |
|
|
How are your challenging children now as older teens/adult?
|
7 |
Wed, Sep 20 2023, 8:07 am |
|
|
If you have a child with ASD do people in your life know
|
12 |
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 8:15 am |
|
|
Imamother is a community of frum Jewish women, where you can come to relax,
socialize, debate, receive support, ask questions and much more.
© 2023 Imamother.com - All rights reserved
|  |
