[FEAT BC Admin]

Please use this section to advertise for things that are needed or are available for sale (or free). For example, ads for specific A.B.A. therapy materials, therapists, & baby-sitters are welcome. Your message will be distributed to members of the Discussion Group.

Topic

[Diane T]

Hi Anita,

If you post your email address, you will get more answers.

As with any program, ask to see published, peer reviewed studies documenting the efficacy of the protocol.

If this is a program being supplied by a particular agency, ask to speak to other families who have worked with the agency in the past. (If you were a landlord, you would ask for references from previous landlords – and your child's progress is more precious than real estate.) If there aren't families who have left the agency and are willing to recommend it, then question why.

Cheers,
Diane

[Anita delorose]

Hello Parents, caregivers and Guardians,
I am a mother of a young autistic child. I recently found out about a program called "Reference and Regulate" ( R & R )by David Loyst. I was wandering if anyone can pass me some information about the program.
Thank you

[Tracey Poelstra]

I agree. Dave. I have just come on here, from a long while back. I don't like the term interventionst. ABA Therapist works just great with me. And also. yes every child is unique and needs to be taught as Person Centered.
and what's special to who he/ she is. and the gifts, and strenghts that they can offer to us as we teach them, and help them grow up to be a special individual.

[David Chan]

I see ads on here, and it always follow on similar lines, working with a kid…. will train. all the usual tasks that we ask from our therapist.

I got to thinking, some of the people that have interacted with Mr. P most successfully have been people that have had no previous contact with people on the autism spectrum. His third grade teacher all those years ago, his current rowing coach. I try to draw some similarities, the conclusion that I could come to was that because they had no previous encounters with kids on the spectrum, it was all a clean slate. There were not a whole of expectations, more a sense of wonder.

It's quite refreshing really. They see the side of our kids that we don't even see sometimes. These folks have that sense of wonder. Wow, look what he's doing… so cool. No limits, at least physical ones in our case. Just the sense of hey what can do next. What can we teach him ? or more to the point, what can't we teach him.

I'd take that sense of wonder and adventure over "experience" any day of the week. If I could put it in a bottle and give it to each new person that starts working with our kid, it would be just amazing.

Something to think about, and interview for when u guys are look for the next therapist…By the way, we are all doing ABA Applied behavior Analysis Therapy. At least I hope you are, if your are reading this board. I know it's not fashionable to use the the term therapist anymore, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna get Cancer intervention when I need Chemo-therapy

you get where I'm going. I know it's just words, and what's in a name, but words have power, and many people have worked tirelessly to make the treatment of autism, a medical, neurological condition, to be included in MEDICARE, our most treasured institution of accessible healthcare. Let's not let these people down, by call the folks that work with our children Behaviour Inteventioinist.

It's just my two cents.

All the best people, fight the good fight

Dave,

Mr. P's Dad

[Shelly Milau]

We are looking for a Behaviour Interventionist to join our team in South Surrey. Our son is 5 years old and just started Kindergarten.

We are looking for someone to do 2 afternoon shifts per week, 3:30pm to 6:30pm with the possibility of every second Saturday morning 9am to 1:00pm.

We have team meetings every second week and they are usually scheduled at 3:30pm to 5:30pm, the day depends on the team members availability.

The person we are looking for is compassionate, warm, playful and creative. It is also very important that you can work well on a team. This position requires some lead role duties. Our Consultants are Tyla Frewing and Dr. Sara White.

Please send cover letter and resume to konashelly@hotmail.com

[Alison]

Hi,

We are three recent graduates from Capilano University's Applied Behaviour Analysis – Autism program and have been behaviour interventionists in the lower mainland for over two years. During this time we have experienced the difficulties attaining work in the field of ABA and have heard from families about the stress and complexity associated with finding suitable and qualified interventionists. Based on this feedback we have put forth an idea for a website that would facilitate the process of connecting parents and BIs throughout BC, as well as providing information about employment as a BI. The reactions we have received from the community have been positive, but in order to apply for grants/sponsorship we need documentation of community support. We have created a short survey for BIs and for parents & guardians to fill out, in order for us to determine the number of potential users of our website within the province of BC.

Here are the links. We have 1 survey for parents/guardians and 1 for behaviour interventionists. If you could please take the few minutes to fill in the survey, it would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you so much!

Parent/Guardian Survey: (copy and paste the URL into your web browser if you are unable to click on the hyperlink below)

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=mzxz7vkeaymifak110439

BI Survey: (copy and paste the URL into your web browser if you are unable to click on the hyperlink below)

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=grmrfiptlcjksju110421

[Grace Khanansho]

Oops…I forgot to mention in my earlier post we live in North Vancouver.

[Grace Khanansho]

Experienced Behaviour Interventionist needed to join a well established ABA home team. The position involves working with an 8 year old boy 2-3 times per week, 2-3 hour sessions. It would be under the guidance of a BCBA. Interested individuals please send resume to gkhanansho@yahoo.ca.

[Redarb]

>I'm thinking of getting an allergy test for my son .. to see if he is allergic to gluten or any other stuff that regular allergy test wont show it .. any recommendation for naturopathic doctor that is good and has a good experience with autism .

Please do not believe all the quackery surrounding gluten/casein diets. Most children, if not all, are not affected by these diets. The diets are completely scientifically unproven. And believe me there are lots of people out there who would like to prove that they do work… so far none have. We fell into this trap early on with our child's treatment. For a time we even believed that it had some effect. Until we decided that we would test if the lack of gluten/casein actually did have a measurable effect on her. We found that our daughter improved once we introduced milk and bread etc back into her diet.

Some say there are no negative effects, so why not try it? Well there are negative effects… 1. Autistic children are known for being self limiting in food selection, so if an autistic child is eating a food, don't stop giving it to them unless they are allergic (skin test, done by a medical doctor). If you decide to "try" not giving it to them, and then try to reintroduce it later, there is a good possibility they will no longer accept that food. You will have made their food selection issues even more problematic. (We had a very tough time getting our daughter to eat foods we eliminated and she still will not drink milk directly 2. Rice milk is very constipating which will cause bowel enlargement and further issues 3. Excessive time, money, and energy needed to maintain these diets. Making special recipes, etc, when it is all not necessary. These resources would be much better spent concentrating on proven therapy methods. 4. Early in treatment it is very difficult to tell what is causing certain behaviors in autistic children, which can lead you to believe it is a particular food causing the problem when it is something else. (Low quality ABA treatment, drop in treatment hours, sleep issues, headache, illness, the list goes on) 5. Positive gains achieved through ABA treatment might be thought to be caused by removal of certain foods from diet.

One of the biggest proponents of these "naturopathic" therapies is Jenny McCarthy. One thing she conveniently fails to mention (except for a few lines/paragraphs in her books) is that her son received some of the best ABA therapies in the world at UCLA. (Where Lovaas pioneered scientifically proven ABA therapies. Therapies which have almost 50% recovery rates if done correctly.)

Sadly few places in the world have that type of access to proper ABA treatment (BC included). Consultants not getting 50% success rates with 30-40 hrs per week programs (and started before 40 months) are not using correct methods. Ask your consultant what their record is before hiring them! Always "follow the money". The best way to protect your child from ineffective treatment methods is to educate yourself.

We recommend you spend your time reading the following books:

– "A Work In Progress" by Leaf and McEachin
– "Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays" by Lovaas
– "Behavioral Intervention for Young Children with Autism" by Maurice, Green and Luce

[Les Elton]

>I'm thinking of getting an allergy test for my son >.. to see if he is allergic to gluten or any other >stuff that regular allergy test wont show it .. >any recommendation for naturopathic doctor that is >good and has a good experience with autism .

Hum, well you might just want to nuke him off the Moo anyways (Milk) and get him into soya milk. It's way better for his health (dioxins in the fat of the milk, female hormones in the milk injected into the mommy cow to keep her pregnant). Milk now a days is much different from milk 100 yrs ago, but whatever.
Just removing him from the milk will probably help tremendously. We did that with our son and after about 6 weeks he became more alert and did better in talking and therapy. Milk Thistle (it's a herb) seemed to help him with his mood as well, which often sucked Oh, how much we have to endure with our little ones! On the featbc board you will probably get all sorts of variety of ideas, but removing milk and gluten is a very very common practice. The results though can unfortunately be somewhat mixed, in my experience when talking to other parents of autistic children.

I found after paying lots of fees for naturalpath doctors (which are often not claimable) I just did my own research and tried different things. Sometimes the supplements that are sold by the naturalpath can be quite expensive, like… in the hundreds

For example, our son does not drink Milk as we found that was helpful to remove, but he DOES eat a good amount of glutton (bread, crackers, cookies, pasta, etc). In our experience it was the cows milk that was his issue. Other children may find it's something else. Even if you do do the allergy test, which is fine and often cheap to do, but I find it's more the personal experience (do it and see what happens), that is of higher value.

You could look up on youtube what alergy testing looks like. The traditional method is the skin pin ••••• test (I have done it), it's pretty conclusive. A more "out there" test is an electo feedback test. Thats… a little more unusual.

One thing is important, there is NO harming is removing either, as long as he gets lots of other replacement foods. Oh, you might want to give your son a 1/2 tab of calcium as a supplement.

[Author]

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