All the money I spent on Autism therapy a waste

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My diagnosis was age 21

Regional center only provides services to clients diagnosed under 18

Applied behavior analysis
Speech therapy
Occupational therapy

$$$$$

Psychotherapy


No $$$ to pay out of pocket


Maybe if I had some professional services, I would be more global area functioning and survival of the fittest

I think the best therapy for my son is having a father who's also autistic.

My son never did any ASD specific therapy, or anything through the medical community. He did get some services through the school, however.

My son loved speech therapy, which included "lunch bunch," and felt that time in elementary school was really valuable. Speech therapy in high school was not something he cared for, however, and he did convince the school to drop him from it.

My son felt occupational therapy was helpful, in particular when the focus turned to keyboarding so he would not need a scribe or other assistance for his writing. He was typing fluently by the end of 6th grade, and that was a life saver for him. In general schools won't teach proper typing at that age. My son learned proper typing and is glad for it.

He also had an anger management group with boys his age for half a year that he liked. The description never sounded that well suited to his issues to me, but somehow he took away a lot from it and cites it as something important he did.

My son was never shy about telling us what was wasting his time and what wasn't

My son will also tell you that the right teachers made a big difference. And us, of course. He says he has been grateful to have the patient and understanding parents he had.

I think therapists spending time working on eye contact are wasting everyone's time. That is so silly.

I do agree with home being the safe place, allowing your child to be as quirky as they want to be in order to release stress, as long as it can be done safely. It is hard enough generally having to conform when outside in the world.

Every individual is different, and what helps or does not is going to depend on the person ... and the therapist.

I learn best as a single tracker. It is better for me to work on one thing at a time.

From age 12 we have taken our daughter of most of her medication and using behavioural techniques. Last frontier is antidepressants which the plan is to transition down.

I think the approach is reliant on how old your child is + how easily you can reason with them.

My daughter was able to be reasoned with by aged 10 and so show now knows she needs to calm down away from the source of the trigger (basically go to a chill-out room).

There’s not much for me to do except ride it out and make sure nothing gets destroyed and he doesn’t hurt himself or others. I’ve received more than my fair share of bruises.

I try hard not to let it get to that point by adjusting my expectations for the day if he’s struggling but that’s not always possible.

I need to push him to eat because being hungry is a trigger. I have a sensory bin that is very calming. Before things get out of hand, I try to remove him from the situation, but once he’s in full meltdown mode, not much helps.

What works for one kid doesn’t always work for another, too.

^^

All children ARE different whether they have autism or not, just like adults on here struggle with different things and have different coping skills to help them overcome these challenges.

Some people are sensory seeking. Others are sensory avoidant. Many are both and it’s dependent on the specific sense we’re talking about.

It’s not possible for a child to spend his or her entire day in the sand.