Treatment for Asperger's?

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Hi,

I am curious if anyone has had experience using biofeedback to help with Asperger's.

Specifically looking at The Drake Institute of Behavioral Medicine in Southern California and what they offer.

Thank you.

AS is not a disease and there is no treatment.

AS children may benefit from Occupational or Speech Therapy.

They need accomodations at school to prevent bullying and ostracism.

AS people are too smart for behavioral therapy. We make piss poor lever peckers because the pellet is not worth the price we pay to conform.

We thrive on love and acceptance.

PWNED!! !! !

I wholeheartedly concur!

I haven't really seen any evidence of success in using biofeedback to help the sensory issues. Honestly, I think our brains distort the message we get to some stimuli and creates the overload effect. Biofeedback, the way I've always seen it used (needle phobia for example) is to retrain a pattern in your brain so that it doesn't overreact. That's usually caused by an event that made you become phobic or oversensitive to whatever, then you set the pattern in your mind that this is the correct reaction. In our case, the brain is organically misrepresenting the signal, so I'm not sure how you could repattern that. Did it say how it was supposed to work?

http://www.drakeinstitute.com/treatment.html

This is their Web site.

If there is no treatment how does an adult aspie "get better".
Meaning what in the world am I supposed to do now?
Did you all get officially diagnosed?
I am a total n00b on this thing. Less than a month.

Please assist.

Thank you.

Op-Ed

Behavioral techniques, while frowned on by many as "dehumanizing," have the potential to be very effective, especially in people under 10 years old. AS cannot (yet) be cured, but it can be treated, and people do improve. Continue to investigate your options carefully.

Hi Wassupman, I'm also new to Wrong Planet and only recently diagnosed with Aspergers.

I've been told biofeedback is something to try in the future... haven't got any information to add to what you already know, though. I'm hoping it might help settle down my hyperactivity and distractability a bit, but am not expecting it to go "zap - cure!"

For me, the diagnosis itself was a relief, whether "they" can do anything for it or not. Finally, a reason for getting strange obsessions, having shoddy co-ordination, a reason I can't read people and hate all the social 'game playing' stuff, can't make friends or conversation. Most importantly - a reason I'm 26 and had one three-month relationship in my life! I'm not totally defective after all, it's a recognised, diagnosed issue, and now I know what it is, I feel in a better situation to deal with it.

I've heard this story used to describe having an Autistic child, and I think it can apply to us with Aspergers as well:

You're planning a holiday to Spain. For six months you've taken Spanish language and culture lessons, you've bought guide books and carefully planned an itinery for your Spanish trip of a lifetime. You board the plane. Your excitement builds as the flight gets closer and closer. Finally, it's time to disembark... the air hostess says "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Italy!"
"But wait! I'm going to Spain!"
"Well, you're in Italy. Have a good time."
Is Italy better or worse than Spain? Neither, but it's different. And living with Apsergers will probably be different to what we were set up to expect as 'normal'.

Take care, and good luck!

Some things we simply dont 'get', and often a rational explaination is all we need. Like the point and concept of small talk.


Other things cannot be explained rationally. I've never met anyone that can explain the difference of viewing a sunset with another person, verses doing it alone. Same with things like watching a movie, or a hundred other little things that NTs enjoy more with company.

Last edited by Fuzzy on 05 Apr 2007, 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It sounds like snake oil to me:

LOS ANGELES, CA. – She was a mother without hope. Diagnosed with autism, her six year old son, EJ, bit other children, threw tantrums and chairs. “He had no future,” says Beatrice Tan, whose family stopped going to church--too risky to put EJ in the nursery.

Now, after several months of specialized neurofeedback therapy at Drake Institute of Behavioral Medicine (www.drakeinstitute.com) in Los Angeles, EJ no longer bites: he hugs. He has friends, and “we have hope,” says Beatrice, now back in church with EJ and husband, Ronnie.

“We see autistic children coming out of their social comas, it’s huge,” says Dr. David F. Velkoff, Drake’s medical director. “We’re excited whenever we can help jump start a child’s life.”

Have you been diagnosed with AS? As an adult, you can learn to adapt.

I have been diagnosed for 10 years and I have 2 children on the spectrum. Being aspie is "normal" here!

Last edited by SeriousGirl on 05 Apr 2007, 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ABA works on behaviors. A person is not their behavior. It does not do anything but make the child more socially acceptable and improves the lives of the parents.

The best kind of improvement comes from talking to the aspie and explaining things so they can cognitively make a choice to adapt their behavior.

Grimbling explained it VERY well!

So WHAT is the problem? MAYBE, if you tell us, we can help! Is it the sensitivity? Do what you can to avoid it, or mitigate it. Biofeedback will NOT help! Is it the eye contact? You shouldn't have to worry! Look someplace else, etc... Biofeedback would be like trying to get a plane to take you to the next block. STUPID! Just WALK! Is it the stims? They are conscious, so try to mitigate them! Is it the attitude, etc...? You can get use to avoiding that. FRANKLY, I WOULDN'T if I had it to do over again. A friend/coworker that I think has AS was talking to me today. MAN was he BLUNT! He reminds me of how I was when I was younger, but he is about the same age that I am. BTW People put up with his arrogant attitude, etc.... because he is GOOD and he is only telling the TRUTH! BTW he isn't merely put up with. People ask for him to come back, and RESPECT him.

Frankly, I can't see ANYTHING biofeedback is good for other than stress management. GRANTED some people with AS have trouble with that, but so do lots of others, etc...

BTW Biofeedback will *****NOT***** bring you out of a coma, etc.... ALL biofeedback does is FEED BACK info to you about BIOlogical functions so you can see how thoughts, feelings, actions, etc... change them so ****YOU**** can make a ****CONSCIOUS EFFORT**** to change them. Obviously, a person in a coma won't be able to do ANYTHING with it!

Steve

I appreciate your honesty.
It sounds like going this biofeedback route would just be a waste of A LOT of money.
Which is something I am trying to avoid.

So far I haven't been able to find any AS groups in the LA area, the closest one is over an hour south of LA and that's in not so bad traffic, since part of my AS issue is going out, that is a bit prohibitive. It would be nice to try to meet some AS people in my local area. ARG!

That may have worked well for you and for me, but not all aspies can cognitively make a choice to adapt their behavior.

The behavioral component of any therapy is just one of 3 or 4 components. Change one or two of the components, and the thrid and/or fourth will change.

I feel it's important to be open to a variety of therapies and not rule out anything. Even if it just makes things easier for the parents, that'll make it easier for them to be better parents.

People with a "consetllation" of gifted and dis- abilities will respond well to the right constellation early-intervention techniques.

I absolutely and emphatically agree with this. Once we rationally and intelligently understand what is going on and why it's important to the other people (I'm so tempted to say "the others" here), we can actually help ourselves adapt. I've done it my entire life to get along. It's never changed who I am or how my brain works.

I can't stand ABA and I think it's hack science when applied to us. It makes the child pretend they are NT and causes them to devalue themselves as they are. What is good about that?

My social interactions and friendships are with eccentric intellectuals. I like it that way and there is nothing wrong with it. They can deal with my brain because they are actually using the one they have for more than something besides filler in their skull. (That isn't directed at all NTs, just those that think socializing gives their life some kind of mystical meaning. What a load of crap.)

It sounds like you guys and gals have adapted well.
However my adaptation has been to NEVER go out.
Literally never, rare for me to go anywhere beyond the courtyard with my dogs.
I work at home exclusively via the Net mainly.

How do you guys make friends?
Not that I don't want friends and a social life, it's just been so daunting for so long I believe I have given up on trying.
I do have old friends I still speak with on the phone occasionally but no actual physical local social life whatsoever.
It freaks me out to even consider going to a party or similar thing, since I have had negative experiences throughout my prior life.

I've found the occasional intellectual at work who has some similar interests with me (and my husband for that matter). They usually have a friend or two. I met some of them when I took my degrees because we all had the same interests. We're all peculiar from an NT perspective. Sometimes we don't talk for months or years and then we get together like nothing happened. Only one of my friends do I suspect is AS. The rest are just NTs who are offbeat.

That's how I've done it. I never go out except for work or to take my pets to the vet, buy pet food or very rarely to socialize with others. It's taxing for me to socialize. I'll only do it if I really, really like the person and they interest me or they have interests in common with me.

I worked at home for a year and I became just like you, so I understand the feeling. Are you perfectly content? I was.