SHould we pull son out of group therapy?

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What would you do? My 10 year old goes to a group once a week - it has 3 other aspie boys (age range 10-13) and they sort of "play" and interact. The therapist (who is on the spectrum) makes them play games and tries to instigate conflict among them so they can learn how to cooperate and resolve things together. We have been taking him for over a year and a half and are now at a crossroads.

Several factors are involved. The group really is only 45 minutes with a very brief discussion from the therapist afterwards. He says the same thing EVERY WEEK about our son "Noah left the room because he was overstimulated" BS! I watch him walk out of the room and he looks very calm and relaxed as he saunters to the water fountain and slowly saunters back into the room - I think he's bored. It just seems like the same thing happens every single week, it is just open ended therapy -there is a boy there who has been attending for 4 years. The therapy is also not covered by insurance and we are a one income family. The insurance thing is part of it but if we really thought it was helpful to my son we would pay for it somehow.

The thing is my son is very high functioning, on no medication, has very few problems (other than some of the typical aspie traits) and it seems like we are paying for him to just interact with 3 other kids for about 45 minutes a week. I just don't know that he really needs this group every week? Is it wrong to deny our son this interaction? He does get other interaction with kids outside of group. Sometimes he says he likes going, sometimes he doesn't. We have brought it up before and he says he wants to keep going.

We also don't know how we are going to explain our decision to Noah - "It costs too much money" which may translate for him into "we don't think you're worth it" or "you have made so much progress that we don't think you need it anymore" (my son is WAY too smart to see through this - he will immediately question this one) I just don't want to be disingenuous about it -he's a very smart, sometimes perceptive kid.

We got him into this group in the initial frightening and desperate days when he was first diagnosed at age 9. We thought "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING" and at the time it seemed like a good decision but now that I have read every book on Aspergers imaginable and seen what my son needs I don't know if this is truly necessary.

I just never have seen any research about whether this type of thing can be helpful to kids ont he spectrum.

Thanks for listening!

try contacting the other kids parents' behind the therapist's back and set up a free playtime. $45 is a lot of money for group therapy.

That's a great idea, assuming its legal. It would also stop him from being angry that youa re removing himf rom therapy, assuming the reason he wants to go is the other kids, not the therapist.

there's no reason why it would be illegal to walk up to the other moms outside of the place after group therapy and invite the boys over.

Considering its therapy there are very good reasons why it would be illegal. The greatest being patient confidentiallity. Most group therapies require some type of privacy agreement in relation to the other participants, and its not uncommon for that to include a clause that says no outside contact with any member.

Just like if you are in Big Brothers Big Sister's lunch buddy program its illegal to contact your lunch buddy outside of the program.

I have had a somewhat similar situation recently, and my advice would be to pull him out of the group, and maybe you could do so by replacing it with an equally enjoyable option for him.

My 11 year old has been in a social skills group for about three years. It is very well run, and I loved the therapists, and my son loved the therapists too -- but he mostly loved being there with the kids. I think that aspie-hfa kids instinctively find other kids like them, and enjoy their company.

The trouble with this group was that my son was becoming one of the higher-functioning kids in the group, AND the group of boys had a tendency to keep doing the same things over and over again, not learning from the therapy, and this was rubbing off on my son as well. For instance, they would tell the same non-sensical jokes OVER and OVER again. These are the kinds of jokes that they had been told weren't funny (by the therapists and the parents), and yet as a group they thought they were HILARIOUS, and therefore repeated them all the time. We couldn't get them to stop. If they told the jokes at school, they would have been thought of as weird.

At the same time, this summer my son began an acting camp that he LOVED. As we observed what was going on at acting camp, we could see that often they were teaching (without knowing it) the very same sort of social skills that my son was learning in the other class, but here at acting camp, it was a more natural setting, and there was a lot more motivation to act in a certain manner (i.e., the audience laughs, you get kudos from the acting coach, etc.).

When it was time to sign up for the acting class during the school year, we purposely signed up for the same time as the social skills class, and then asked our son to choose because we just couldn't do both. He was somewhat sad to leave the social skills class, but he was so into the acting class that it was an easy decision. He hasn't ONCE mentioned missing the social skills class.

This might be the type of thing that you could do to get out of your son's current therapy session.

Kris

Kris and Alex's ideas are perfect. I was going to make the same suggestion as Alex. Or find a different set of kids.
It's called Integrated Play Groups and you really should include "typical" peers. If you are already on good terms with the other parents, ask them what they think. They might be offended at the offer, they might jump at it. Who knows?!
Sounds like they are ready for the next step in socializing. Frankly, I think the "therapist" is milking y'all.

Thanks to all- the suggestion about talking to the other parents is a good one and I have considered it and actually tried to build up some rapport with the parents in the waiting room. We've never signed any type of confidentality agreement or anything with this group - we just show up. The kids are pretty scattered and mostly live 20-30 miles away from us and it seems like the parents don't feel like talking much while we are waiting for group to be over - even though we sit and stare at old magazines for an hour every Tuesday. For a little while we did get into some pretty good discussions about our kids and their successes/problems but it never happens now. Most of the parents just seem...tired. One works 3rd shift...

I love the acting camp idea too- wish we had acting camp somewhere around here - I think my son would probably like it.

Thanks again