[Keith Hoy]

Hello Everyone:

New to this discussion group. Lots of informative stuff here. Before I get into some questions, I’d like to give you a bit about my background. I’m a former Vancouver native currently living and working in Japan. I have two sons both of them born in Japan. My eldest, 41/2 has been diagnosed PDD (NOS). The doctor described his condition as high functioning with a possibility of it developing into Aspergers. As far as treatment is concerned, my son is attending a special class for developmentally delayed children, but this class meets only two times a month. Each class is 1 and 1/2 hours long which translates into 3 hours of treatment per month. That’s it!!! This is the situation for an autistic child like my son in Japan. My son is also currently attending a regular preschool (student to teacher ratio: 30 to 1) without an aide, but he clearly cannot relate socially to his fellow classmates. We would like to have an aide but this has been rejected by the local authorities. They figure my son could ‘fit inE

On top of all of this, ABA is not available here in Japan in terms of qualified consultants etcE I could count only a handful of good consultants here (about 5 in a population of about 130 million) but unfortunately they are simply not accepting any new clients. Therefore for the past 6 months my wife and I have started a home based ABA program. So far the results have been mixed. My son is a fast learner but he still “stimsEway too much. We’re trying to combat this with DRA/DRI. My son is meeting the increased language demands of ABA but this does not transfer into the normal setting –PARTICULARLY AS IT RELATES TO SPONTANEOUS AND LOGICAL CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS PEERS. Sadly this seems to be really lacking. I don’t know what I can do in this area. My wife and I are setting up play dates and I hope this will help. Another thing I should tell you about is that all the ABA training given to our son has been carried out by my wife and I. The training is done in Japanese. That means we have to translate all the English materials (mainly purchased on-line from the US). Japanese is not my first language so I have to learn it first before I could actually teach it to my son. This hasn’t proven to be too onerous a task, but it is a hurdle. The biggest issue facing us is the mountain of stress of carrying out an effective intervention program here in Japan. I have taken a one year leave of absence (without pay) to tackle this problem. My employers do not understand my situation. At any rate, ABA is not recognized in the Japanese medical community in terms of treating autism.

Right now things are tough. We have to convince others in our community to help out my son (teach etcE I will be visiting the lower mainland this summer with my family (July 27-August 15). My questions to you Featers out there is:

1. Are there any summer programs, lectures etc that we could attend during our time in Vancouver. In other words is there any thing that could benefit my son?
2. I also have a 1 and 1/2 year old. I have used the CHAT list numerous times on him as it relates to early diagnoses of Autism and PDD. As far as I can conclude, my son has passed all the criteria. He seems to be a very normal developing child. He is hitting all his developmental stages and seems very ‘people-connectedE Having said all that I’m still stressed. I heard that he might still be at risk for CDD (Child Disintegrative Disorder). At what age can we say that he has cleared all the hurdles. In the mean time what can I do to keep him connected. What do people do in BC do in terms of at-risk children. I heard cases of children developing normally then all of sudden losing it.

Well that is the end of my rather long post. I hope that you found my story interesting. There are good days and bad days and I often wonder when I’ll ever see the light. This is the biggest hurdle I have ever faced in my life but my wife and I will fight through this. This is the only way.

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