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RE: Kids w/ Classic Autism, PDD-NOS & Speech Delays

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cyberdad
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23 Apr 2020, 5:43 am

Jon81 wrote:
I also have a lot of first hand stories on Lövåås since our therapist/Advisor was a very close friend of his since the early 80's and spent a lot of time working under him during this period. The man was eccentric and pragmatic. When telling his students how NOT to do ABA he would show videos of his own therapy sessions. So he was not proud of that work.


Lövåås was likely influenced by educational behavioural research that was based on operant conditioning methods to reduce disruptive behavior in classrooms.

Schools deployed operant conditioning based on the use of similar strategies used in the armed forces for hundreds of years to condition soldiers.

I think Lövåås was convinced that you can take advantage of neuroplasticity in infants to create permanent brain connections. The only problem with operant conditioning is that each child responds differently to cues and even after repetitive conditioning (the main strategy) there is no guarantee the child will not extinguish the learned behavior over time. This is probably why he was so tough on his students following exactly what he published because he was insecure about deviations from his original published method.

In any case for many parents it's all there is so I guess we work with what we have available but not carry high expectations.



debianator
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08 Nov 2020, 6:11 pm

My kid had a neurological psychological evaluation but it couldn’t rule out bipolar disorder because he was on meds at the time and it didn’t do any or enough education evaluation to determine learning disability (which I know he has) so I still feel as though our knowing is only 60% in regards to his diagnosis.



cyberdad
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08 Nov 2020, 7:39 pm

debianator wrote:
My kid had a neurological psychological evaluation but it couldn’t rule out bipolar disorder because he was on meds at the time and it didn’t do any or enough education evaluation to determine learning disability (which I know he has) so I still feel as though our knowing is only 60% in regards to his diagnosis.


Yeah it's complicated with learning disability as it masks other things. It sounds like autism may not be the primary concern for your child.



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09 Nov 2020, 5:36 am

cyberdad wrote:
debianator wrote:
My kid had a neurological psychological evaluation but it couldn’t rule out bipolar disorder because he was on meds at the time and it didn’t do any or enough education evaluation to determine learning disability (which I know he has) so I still feel as though our knowing is only 60% in regards to his diagnosis.


Yeah it's complicated with learning disability as it masks other things. It sounds like autism may not be the primary concern for your child.


That’s exactly right, thanks for saying that. I have trusted what help I’ve gotten for him because public school did so little that anything seems wonderful but you are correct thanks for the validation. Now I need to kick it into high gear and get this train running to the right station. :D



OliveFox
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19 Nov 2020, 4:49 am

Have anyone been to speech therapies? Are there any positive effects?



cyberdad
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19 Nov 2020, 3:42 pm

debianator wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
debianator wrote:
My kid had a neurological psychological evaluation but it couldn’t rule out bipolar disorder because he was on meds at the time and it didn’t do any or enough education evaluation to determine learning disability (which I know he has) so I still feel as though our knowing is only 60% in regards to his diagnosis.


Yeah it's complicated with learning disability as it masks other things. It sounds like autism may not be the primary concern for your child.


That’s exactly right, thanks for saying that. I have trusted what help I’ve gotten for him because public school did so little that anything seems wonderful but you are correct thanks for the validation. Now I need to kick it into high gear and get this train running to the right station. :D


Good luck :D



cyberdad
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19 Nov 2020, 3:44 pm

OliveFox wrote:
Have anyone been to speech therapies? Are there any positive effects?


Speech therapy was valuable for my daughter up to the age of 12. Now she tends to need it much less.

In some ways speech therapy is actually more useful in communication development than ABA in a child's early years. There therapists who specialise in toddlers so the earlier you start speech therapy the more long lasting the benefits.



Jon81
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28 Apr 2021, 3:59 pm

I think it all came sinking in today. I don't have a good feeling about this at all. The future is looking awfully dark right now :cry:

It's going to be him and his brother going straight to a supervised living and we as parents get to see them a few times a month. Classic autism = you're totally f****d.

I don't even see how special education will be possible. Oldest son is not interested in sharing his interests, not interested learning anything from me, not interested being part of the family even - and he's 5 years old. How many parents would be able to shrug that off? AND on top of that we've got:
Masturbation behaviour as stim
Sleeping disorder
Eating disorder (however, he puts just about ANYTHING in his mouth apart from food)
Non-verbal
Not interested ONE BIT in letters or numbers (so much for teaching them to read)
...and who knows what's around the corner.

You know, normal parents will call it a day just from one of the above. Why is it that everything need to be a challenge? And why are all these kids diverging from "normal" in almost the exact way? If we were meant to look after these kids and teach them - how come we're completely lost for it? Am I not even the same specie as my own boys? It's all very frustrating at the moment. I need him to make some kind of advancement from where he's at but I can't get him there.


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cyberdad
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29 Apr 2021, 1:02 am

Jon81 wrote:
You know, normal parents will call it a day just from one of the above. Why is it that everything need to be a challenge? And why are all these kids diverging from "normal" in almost the exact way? If we were meant to look after these kids and teach them - how come we're completely lost for it? Am I not even the same specie as my own boys? It's all very frustrating at the moment. I need him to make some kind of advancement from where he's at but I can't get him there.

Hey Jono,
You know even for parents of "normal" kids there isn't a user-manual for child rearing. A lot of them struggle too.

For us the important thing is to we gotta work with our kids (not against them)

I think you'll find support among members here that accommodating your kids differences is important. It's no different to if they were left-handed or colour blind or some other minor difference.

Working with them also means being patient. if you are losing confidence in your own capacity then take a step back and ask what you can do differently? Give your kids time, I don't buy into the therapist mantra that if you don't curtail bad habits early (when the kids are young) then they will never be able to be helped.

I also stopped comparing myself to other parents or comparing my child to other kids. Even other disabled kids can be bullies (some have worse problems than my daughter).

Stick with them and always be confident in their abilities. Don't have high expectations, praise them for small improvements.



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29 Apr 2021, 2:05 pm

Jon81 wrote:
I think it all came sinking in today. I don't have a good feeling about this at all. The future is looking awfully dark right now :cry:

It's going to be him and his brother going straight to a supervised living and we as parents get to see them a few times a month. Classic autism = you're totally f****d.

I don't even see how special education will be possible. Oldest son is not interested in sharing his interests, not interested learning anything from me, not interested being part of the family even - and he's 5 years old. How many parents would be able to shrug that off? AND on top of that we've got:
Masturbation behaviour as stim
Sleeping disorder
Eating disorder (however, he puts just about ANYTHING in his mouth apart from food)
Non-verbal
Not interested ONE BIT in letters or numbers (so much for teaching them to read)
...and who knows what's around the corner.

You know, normal parents will call it a day just from one of the above. Why is it that everything need to be a challenge? And why are all these kids diverging from "normal" in almost the exact way? If we were meant to look after these kids and teach them - how come we're completely lost for it? Am I not even the same specie as my own boys? It's all very frustrating at the moment. I need him to make some kind of advancement from where he's at but I can't get him there.

Our boy with classic non-verbal Autism is now 14 i remember going through all the thoughts and emotions that seem to be coming through in your post.

I think for most of us parents it gets better as our kids age and mature, and we learn to live with them and their disabilities. Obviously I love my son but I also like him a lot now too. He's a fun kid in his own way and less messy and noisy than his nuerotypical teenage sister if you can believe it, but its true.

What govt support do you get for things like respite? What age can children like yours go into residential care in your country?



Jon81
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21 May 2021, 3:45 am

Thanks for you support guys. Nice to see you nostrum. I don't know when they can go to residential care, probably by age 18. It's not something I want to think about now and I'm not planning on letting that happen.

I think the Covid19 affected me emotionally. The same kind of fever as I had during my depression when my first son was diagnosed.


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cyberdad
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02 Jun 2021, 11:16 pm

Jon81 wrote:
I think the Covid19 affected me emotionally. The same kind of fever as I had during my depression when my first son was diagnosed.


Hey Jono hang in there.

COVID-19 is effecting all of us in different ways. Parents of kids with special needs are impacted the most.



Bkdad82
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28 Aug 2021, 8:25 pm

Jon81 wrote:
I think it all came sinking in today. I don't have a good feeling about this at all. The future is looking awfully dark right now :cry:

It's going to be him and his brother going straight to a supervised living and we as parents get to see them a few times a month. Classic autism = you're totally f****d.

I don't even see how special education will be possible. Oldest son is not interested in sharing his interests, not interested learning anything from me, not interested being part of the family even - and he's 5 years old. How many parents would be able to shrug that off? AND on top of that we've got:
Masturbation behaviour as stim
Sleeping disorder
Eating disorder (however, he puts just about ANYTHING in his mouth apart from food)
Non-verbal
Not interested ONE BIT in letters or numbers (so much for teaching them to read)
...and who knows what's around the corner.

You know, normal parents will call it a day just from one of the above. Why is it that everything need to be a challenge? And why are all these kids diverging from "normal" in almost the exact way? If we were meant to look after these kids and teach them - how come we're completely lost for it? Am I not even the same specie as my own boys? It's all very frustrating at the moment. I need him to make some kind of advancement from where he's at but I can't get him there.

It might seems this way but you are not the only parent like this. It's a group within a group. My son is turning 9 soon, with classic asd. It's been a very difficult 7 years since he was diagnosed. But I have learned to just live. I try to give him some outlet such as walking and seeing things. His world is very narrow and as difficult as it may be I try to show him more by just taking him places. He is a super eloper and will just run away if given the chance so it requires a lot of work. Live your life as best as you can and try to find whatever abilities your sons do have, cliche as it sounds it really is true.



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28 Aug 2021, 8:27 pm

I think the current lockdowns have been terribly difficult for our kids. My daughter is missing school badly.



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04 Oct 2021, 8:22 am

cyberdad wrote:
OliveFox wrote:
Have anyone been to speech therapies? Are there any positive effects?


Speech therapy was valuable for my daughter up to the age of 12. Now she tends to need it much less.

In some ways speech therapy is actually more useful in communication development than ABA in a child's early years. There therapists who specialise in toddlers so the earlier you start speech therapy the more long lasting the benefits.


Behaviourists have no clue how speech development works, so it stands to reason someone who actually has training in that field would fare better.

In my psychology classes in university, the clash between BF Skinner and Noam Chomsky is legendary. Noam Chomsky tore BF Skinner's book Verbal Behaviour to shreds, and yet behaviourists today still think that book is a useful guide to helping children learn to speak.

In my experience, the kids I know who've learned speech or other linguistic communication (such as signing or PECS) through ABA are like parrots - they say what they've been trained to say when prompted to do so. When they actually need to communicate something for themselves, they use nonverbal means.



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04 Oct 2021, 9:09 pm

Yeah I agree that ABA isn't going to address specific sensory or language issues. it's targeted at behavioural modification.

However in psychology any early intervention involving infants/children uses behavioural techniques to promote good behaviours (positive reinforcement) or remove undesirable behaviours (negative reinforcement). Secondly (and this is the tricky part) it also requires consistent and involved parenting,

A major problem with parent pr practitioner led ABA is segmentation. How a child learns at home doesn't necessarily translate to how they might respond in kinder or childcare. I recall taking my daughter to preschool for the first time thinking she would be prepared and she balled her eyes out when left alone. This isn't just autistic kids, a lot of NT preschoolers cry as well.

Parents with lots of resources might use Lovaas method for 40 hrs per week (we certainly didn't) in both classroom and at home but this in my view is traumatic for the child.

Despite my reservations ABA as a general approach (the way we took it) is ok but with plenty of parameters/boundaries. How much is needed probably depends on the child.