[FEAT BC Admin]

In this topic area, discussion is on all issues relating to setting up and running a home-based intervention program. Please feel free to bring up any problems or suggestions. Parents can help each other greatly by sharing information and giving suggestions.

In addition to parents helping parents, A.B.A. professionals on in the Discussion Group can also help provide insight and guidance.

Topic

[Pam Mihic]

Susan,

I also have an older child with high-functioning autism. We started Lovaas ABA when our son was 14 and have met with great success. (We also had issues of bullying in a Langley school….) Please contact me at pmihic@shaw.ca for more info.

Pam Mihic

[Andrea Neuls]

Hello everyone,

I recently talked to a woman who may have a son with mild autism. Although I've met him I certainly can not and will not diagnose anyone. He does has irregullar play and finds it hard in social situations.

This mother of 2 has had some suspicions for some time but her husband up to this point has not been very supportive. She recently had her son "assessed" by a trusted GP but she was told to wait until kindergarten for a definitive diagnosis! (there may be some hyper-activity maybe…)

My experience with many loving parents (and lovable children) has been that the "wait a little longer" speech has been very damaging. This all too familiar speech has been a source of blame and guilt for many parents. To make a long story short it sent some pretty angry alarm bells off for me.
My advice was to think about seeing a doctor that might have more knowledge and experience with autism.

SO my question to you folks is… Who could she see that is knowledgable and well informed when it comes to potential high functioning autism? She lives in Surrey but distance is not a factor.

Please email me any names and numbers of clinicans that are not on leave. (I was told that Dr. Delevie is on leave.)

my email is RSMNeuls@hotmail.com
and I will be checking this chat board as well.

Thanks so much,

andrea neuls <

[Louise Watson]

To Susan it is never to late to try ABA. I am new at all of this myself as our son was diagnosed in july of this year. We are intouch with a group from vancouver called EAP. 1-604-473-5011. Sabrina from feat this website, is a great person to talk to. 1-604-924-5437. I hope this helps , good luck to you, Louise

[Susan Garber]

I have a 16 year old high functioning or Aspergers daughter. She is attending the Langley Fine Arts School and is very talented in music. So far I have muddled through trying to help her. I have spent countless hours and years trying to get funding or help in school. To get teachers to understand her. Even though there is a diagnosis of autism I can't seem to get the teachers to put her IEP into practice or they don't seem to get it. I give them hand outs and suggestions that always seem to go unheard. By the time an IEP is in place and I actually get to meet with her many high school teachers to begin to discuss problems it is November and the term is almost over, time to meet a whole new set of teachers. She has suffered bulling and ridicule that eventually caused her to become depressed. She is now being treated by a phyciatrist. In grade nine I finally took her out of the public school system to try to protect her and put her in a smaller school. She was in a private school for two years. Although she was safer the bullying continued becuse she has some behaviours that are different and can't possibly keep up with all the social rules of teenagers. Because of her music abilities I am so happy I have finally got her into the fine arts school where she is finally getting genuine peer respect for her abilities in music. Of course in the first few weeks a couple of girls have targeted her as someone they can bully and upset. Fortunateley their are a lot of kids that really like her so unlike th private school she has established some friends.

The only other support we have gotten is a child care worker. I am always trying to battle with my social worker because the only time she contacts me is to take away this one support we have.

What I am wondering about is after all these years of searching and trying to find out how to give my daughter the best chance no one has told me about ABA? My social worker has never mentioned it.Nor has my doctor, school, sunnyhill hospital,gateway,autism society. How could something like this be kept from us?

After having said that I would like to know about ABA treatment.Is it too late for my daughter at age 16? If not how would I begin to start a treatment program for her?

Sincerely Susan

[Deleted User]

When we received a diagnosis over 10 years ago, and had yet to hear of something called "ABA", in desperation to find some way to connect with our son, we went to TOYS 'R' US, and darn near bought out the store to find something/anything that would "interest" our child. Thomas the Trains were popular, but all he did was line them up, same thing with blocks, etc. The one thing he seemed to really twig on was the Disney Sing-a-long videos — we were thrilled, and proceeded to amass quite a collection of videos. It didn't take long though before I became concerned that my son seemed to want to "climb" into the screen to be with all of those wonderful characters; to him, they were as real as I was;this, to me, was more than alarming. I tried very hard to think of how I could show him that they were not real, and so I went back to TOYS 'R' US, and I bought the plastic-bendable "figurines" of all of the characters that I saw on those videos. I also began a costume-collection of "hats" — police hats, fireman hats, farmer hats, cowboy hats,etc., of doctor's play-sets. play-carpenter's tools, etc. (you get the idea). When these videos were on, I brought out the appropriate character, and the appropriate "costume", and if my son wouldn't wear it, I would, and I would make the character pretend-copy the action on the screen. It took a while, but not too too long before my son indeed realized that there was a difference between that on the screen, and the world in which we lived, and he stopped trying to "climb" into the set. One of the positives of the sing-a-longs was that the words of the songs are "printed/shown" as captions throughout each song — by the time my son entered kindergarten, he could print and even hand-write the words and phrases from all of those songs/granted the comprehension component was not yet there, but at least we had already began the whole rote process of learning such, and truly, it was all quite by accident! The reason I share this little anecdote is to encourage the whole idea of properly directed use of video modelling — so many of our non-verbal kids indeed do respond well to visual stimuli!!

[Deleted User]

Hi Michelle,

This was a GREAT post you made about using video modelling.
Alpine Learning Center also uses this technique and substantial data has been taken on the efficacy of use of video to teach independant play skills.

In fact these types of techniques can be used for building skills. For example a gestures program (non verbal communication).

I have seen many children use this format which you explained very well to aquire appropriate and independant skills. Taking the therapist out of the picture so to speak, prompting SILENTLY from behind the child, so the targets are met. APPROPRIATE and IDEPENDANT.

Isn't FEAT of min. Dr. Eric Larson's group? Lovaas replication site? He is awesome.

I think video modelling is an excellent idea and have seen it work, but as Michelle points out you should always consult your consultant before implementing a new program.

great post Michelle :-)
cheers.
norrah

[Deleted User]

I wanted to share a story about a child who has recovered from autism.

At the age of 3 this child was diagnosed with moderate autism. The child, while bright and quick to learn was extremely rigid and had many obsessive type behaviours. The child was extremely sensitive to noise and would scream when around other children. The child would hide or try to get away from the other children in preschool. The child did not interact with adults at all and had very little functioning language despite an ability to repeat long dialogues from TV.

The child was completely devoid of emotions other than anger, had no sense of danger, ran on tiptoes, climbed everything and had exhibited some stereotypical body movements. the child did not like to be touched unless they initiated the hug or cuddle.

the child had also memorized and could hum with perfect pitch several pieces of classical music but couldn't sing head and shoulders. The child would have panic tantrums that were extremely rigid following certain antecedents that made no logical sense.

Today the child is very chatty with peers, and adults. The child makes friends easily, and easily approaches every child at the playground. the child is at or above age level in all cognitive areas. the child attends school, needing no more attention from the teacher than any other child. And it could be argued that this child has a better attention span and exhibits on average better behaviour than many of their peers.

To the untrained eye there is absolutely nothing different about this child and even the trained have a hard time finding differences. Occasionally the child still shows some rigidity about certain topics and actions but their team continues to work on these.

Therapy is not yet over for this child, loss of diagnosis isn't the end of the tunnel but by definition of diagnosis, this child has recovered. And with continued work those few chararacteristics that still linger will continue to fade.

I share this to remind the nay sayers that it is possible. Children can recover from autism. Not all will. It is important that parents remember that improvement in quality of life is worth it alone, but recovery can and does happen.

[Deleted User]

I wanted to share a method of teaching play that is proving to be very successful for us. But I would like to first add a disclaimer

I AM NOT A CONSULTANT NOR DO I THINK I AM. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE FOLLOWING I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TALK TO YOUR CONSULTANT ABOUT THIS METHOD AND DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT THEIR GUIDANCE.

In May I attended a conference in Toronto where FEAT of Minnesota and a group of consultants presented a method of teaching called video modelling used to teach independent play skills. The basic concept was the team took a toy that had multiple types of play to it (they used a playmobil farm) they then filmed 6-7 short scenes of play. A therapist played with the toy in appropriate manner for the child's age. Each scene was slighly different using different language, different items, different actions but all with the same toy.

The idea was at first the child would watch the scene (one per session) and then reenact it with toy, therapist prompting as necessary. The video would be faded down, for example child might watch video early in session and then play wiht toy later, eventually video is faded completely. Your consultant should give you directions on this process as they see fit.

THe play is filmed from the perspective that the camera only shoots the therapists hands playing with the toy, so that is the same perspective the child would see when they play.

We have started this with my son with great success. He loved the video concept and instantly started reenacting the scenes. We kept our initial clips very short, very simple with the intention of increasing the difficulty as he gains the play skills.

We have only worked on this for a week so I am not going to rave on and on about success levels but I was thrilled to see my son play in ways he never would have through imitation and even more thrilled when after watching a scene one time adn reenacting in therapy one time he proceeded to ac it out independently on his own initiative.

please beware that you must have input from your consultant on this. I can not stress this enough. My children have a tendency to memorize videos very quickly and breaking this is very difficult. Be very wary of watchign soemthing too many times or not having enough variation. And your child may exhibit other problem behaviours as a result of such a teaching method.

okay enough said.

Michelle
mother to Breanna and Griffen

[Corry Brooks]

Hello my name is Corry I'm a mom of a 5 yrs old boy with Autsim.I'm wondering if anyone could help me out, with giving me some ideas? On Toilet Training? I've been trying train my son for the last 4 months or more. Most of the time he won't even stay on the toilet long enough to go to the washroom.
My e-mail is brookes100@hotmail.com.
Thank you!![Corry Tanner's mom]

[Corry Brooks]

Hello my name is Corry I'm a mom of a 5 yrs old boy with Autsim.I'm wondering if anyone could help me out, with giving me some ideas? On Toilet Training? I've been trying train my son for the last 4 months or more. Most of the time he won't even stay on the toilet long enough to go to the washroom.My e-mail is brookes100@hotmail.com.Thank you!![Corry Tanner's mom]

[Author]

Replies