[Avery Raskin]

A few things about consultants and taxes:

1) No bona fide consultant should be excluded from any service providers' list. If the consultant you want to use is a qualified experienced Lovaas-ABA consultant and is being kept off the list, that is something we need to make public.

2) GST is a place where the social worker may actually be telling you the truth — the provincial government is exempt from GST so if they are billed by a consultant they don't have to pay any, whereas if you are billed directly by a consultant, and that consultant has registered for GST, they will charge you for it. This leads us to (3):

3) Lovaas-ABA treatment programs are GST exempt under the rules of GST. Unfortunately, qualified ABA professionals don't always get the correct tax advice. Once registered and remitting tax to the government, it's very hard to get them to take you off the rolls and let you stop charging. It pains me that some of the best ABA consultants fell into this trap. What they need to do is to get some competent legal advice and take the pains to get out of that mess, so they can stop charging for it. If you look it up on the CCRA web site, you will find the relevent sections — as a psychological service, and medically-necessary treatment, Lovaas-ABA is exempt.

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Hi Jean:

Everyone has their own style and comfort level interviewing prospective therapists, and I think that's just the way it has to be. Every child is unique and so are their parents :-)

That said, here are a few thoughts….

1. Should I conduct the interviews in my home or a public place like the neighbourhood Starbucks? Have any candidates you've considered expressed concerns about meeting in a private residence? Have you had privacy or security issues with strangers visiting your home?

I wouldn't try it in a Starbucks — too noisy and distracting — you want somewhere quiet where you can focus and your candidates can be relatively at ease. I personally don't have a lot of privacy or security issues, but that's something only you can decide. Of course if you hire the person, they're going to be in your home regularly, right? I like to use the living room or dining room with the kids off playing and not distracting…at least for the main part.

2. Should I have my child meet the candidates? (to determine if there is good chemistry and genuine ability to work with children)

If the candidate has experience as a therapist, then by all means introduce them to your child. You can learn more from what they do in that first meeting than from the answers to a dozen questions. If the candidate is green, however, it's not really fair to judge anything by that first meeting. They're already in the nerve-wracking position of the interview process trying to impress you; then you jump your child into the mix and it looks like they're being tossed into the deep end and told to swim. If they aren't trained yet, all you can tell is whether they are game to try to interact with your child at first blush. Like I say, I wouldn't read too much into it.

Having said all that, I believe in gut reactions, backed up by checking references. If the person feels "right" in the interview and their references all heap praise on them, my comfort level goes up. If the person feels "wrong" in the interview, it's hard for me to get past that feeling, unless I hear praise from the people I respect most.

Just my two cents…good luck…

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

First of all, as far as I am aware, there is no scientific validation for chelation as a treatment for autism. What scientific data exists for chelation exists as its treatment for heavy metal toxicity. There is some speculation that it is heavy metal poisoning which in some cases either causes or precipitates autism, but that is still speculation at this point. What data exists for chelation as autism therapy comes from those who are selling chelation treatment and are in the form of anecdotal reports, which are not scientific. So our cheerful admin is quite correct in his statement.

Second of all, there is AMPLE evidence of the proven RISKS of chelation therapy. In cases of heavy metal poisoning, chelation is carried out under carefully controlled circumstances to try to minimize these risks, but they still exist. For this very real reason, we all need to be extremely careful about embarking on a trial of this nature. Do you want to use your children as guinea pigs? Filling your child with chemicals which will leach vital trace elements from their system is in no way akin to trying vitamin therapy or glutin and casein free diets (none of which have any scientific validation either, but at least they are relatively benign).

Third of all, the point has been rightly made that regardless of any of this, the FEAT chat board is not the place to be discussing alternate, unproven treatment modalities. FEAT's mandate is data-driven, science-based autism treatment, and nothing else. For the time being, Lovaas-ABA is the only treatment which fits that mandate. If and when the time comes that some other treatment is independently studied, published, peer-reviewed and proven effective, I'm sure FEAT of BC will be happy to welcome discussion and support for said therapy modality. Until such time, it's just beyond the scope of this group.

As Vice-President of the Autism Society of B.C. and chair of the Communications Committee, I invite anyone who wants to discuss and exchange information on alternate therapies to feel free to do so on the ASBC chat board. All that is required for posting privileges is to be a member of the Society, and membership is a simple matter of enrolling and paying the modest membership fees. Please see the web site at http://www.autismbc.ca for more information.

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Hi all:

NBC-TV in the states is airing a bunch of programs on autism
this week and they're apparently free DVD copies at
http://nbcstore.shopnbc.com/

Cheers,

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Hi all:

Jean has already posted the whole nine yards about the
conference. I just want to encourage anyone who sees a speech
pathologist with their child to pass along the word about this
workshop to them — your speech path will definitely want to
see Joanne Gerenser (and they get continuing education credit
for it too :-)…

And if you're looking for the registration form, you can
download it here:

http://www.autismbc.ca/pdfs/ASATconf150.pdf

See you on March 12.

[Avery Raskin]

(Tamara — I'm moving this post to school topics as I think it's
better over here)

I cannot see the logic behind even attempting to fade an aide in
any school setting while the child is in a proper Lovaas program
and the aide is a properly trained Lovaas therapist. It would be a
self-defeating move of no help to the child. Sure the object is to
have the child be less dependent upon the aide, but that's when
the aide has even more to do in observation and facilitation from
a discreet distance. In my opinion, the only time one can even
consider fading an aide completely is when the child has
recovered, on the advice of your bonafide consultant.

Cheers,

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Tony: Your son is 2 1/2 and I assume in a proper Lovaas program. You stand a good chance of seeing him out the other side if you optimize his program, which means 40 hours a week by the book. Sending him to preschool alone is a waste of what could be valuable program time if he had a properly trained therapist there with him. Do it.

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Hi gang:

Anyone who missed the Province yesterday can look at:

http://homepage.mac.com/araskin/

Click on the Downloads chest at the bottom of the page to go to
the files page. I have posted both Krieger's cartoon and Michael
Smyth's column. The photos from Andrew in Ottawa and recent
CKNW broadcasts are also still up.

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

My daughter has had dental work in Children's Hospital because
she needs to be sedated and our experience is that it was fine.
However, you should understand she still had her work done by
her own dentist, who went to Children's that day to to the work.
As long as you have the dentist who knows your child doing the
work, and he/she is comfortable with Children's as a venue, it
should be fine.

Cheers!

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Today's episode of Autism On CKNW is now available for
listening…Dr. Ursula Lee and Dr. Glen Davies on with Michael
Campbell earlier this afternoon. The CKNW clips from the last
few days and the pictures of Andrew in Ottawa are also
accessible on the same page…Enjoy!

http://homepage.mac.com/araskin/

Cheers,

Avery

[Author]

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