Category Archives: ABA

Alone? Frightened? Worried?

Posted on July 24, 2014 by | 32 comments

“No one knows how to help us.”  This was what I once said to my husband.  It was many years ago.  So many, I no longer remember the year.  Along with that realization was this one – “We are in this alone.”  And while, at the time, that thought terrified me, it was the beginning of finding another way.  It was the moment when I realized all these people we were looking to for guidance, didn’t know what was best for our daughter, even when they believed they did.

In the beginning we were told how fortunate we were, our daughter was “mild” we were told and if we followed their advice – an aggressive implementation of ABA, Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy – she would be in a regular classroom by the time she entered kindergarten.  She was still two years old when she was diagnosed and we knew nothing about autism.  We did as we were told.  We were assured she would “skyrocket.”  We fought to increase the hours of therapy, we went to the team meetings, we took notes, we learned how to “play” with her using ABA’s techniques, we monitored her and kept charts.  We filled notebooks with our observations and we waited for her to “skyrocket.”

When she turned three we enrolled her in an ABA based pre-school.  By the end of that school year I no longer believed all that I was being told.  The therapists were no longer assuring us she would “skyrocket.”  Now words like “red flag” were being used to describe her behavior.  She had “behaviors” and these were being pinpointed and noted with alarming frequency.  We were getting reports of non-compliance, an inability to “use her words” as though she was being defiant  and then she began to self-injure. No one understood why.  Everyone was baffled.

And now, so many years later, I look back on those years and it all seems so understandable.  They say hind sight is 20/20, that looking back we can easily understand that which was once incomprehensible.  I understand now.  We didn’t appreciate what was going on.  We didn’t think we understood our child, and for the most part we didn’t and we kept looking to others to explain her to us.  The explanations they gave us, we believed.  We thought, since we didn’t understand and they seemed sure that they did, they must be right.  It took several more years for me to realize they didn’t and they didn’t know how to help us or her either.  When the methods they believed in didn’t do what they believed should and would happen, they blamed us and they blamed her.

Emma continues to remind me that “regret is not needed” and she’s right.  I am working hard on that one.  I cannot describe someone else’s experience, I can only write about mine.  This was mine.  As the mother of a daughter who was once believed “mild” and later “moderate” and finally “moderate to severe” on autism’s vast spectrum, we have learned a great deal.  And while many may not derive any solace in what I’m about to say, I would have.  No one can predict what life holds for your two, three, four, five, six or seven-year old child.  No one can predict another’s future, there are too many variables.

That my daughter has some spoken language is, and was, the single biggest red herring for those who meet her.  It never occurred to us that all that speech therapy, focusing on spoken language, would ultimately be unhelpful.  I knew nothing of AAC  (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices or methods and as spoken language seemed to me to be the ideal, the idea of her using something else honestly never crossed my mind.  Why would I encourage her to use something else to communicate if she could speak?  When, after years of speech therapy focusing on spoken language, she still couldn’t have a conversation with us, our answer was to try more, push harder and it would come.

So many people ask what we would have done, knowing all we know now.  This is a question that is specific to my daughter, but I know there are other children who are similar as I’ve met so many of them.  I would not have waited so long to begin using other forms of communication.  In fact, this would have been the thing I would have concentrated on right away.  There is no evidence that using an AAC device will have a negative effect on spoken language acquisition, in fact there are studies showing the opposite is likely to be true.  Had my daughter been able to communicate at an earlier age, many things would have changed.  The most important one being that we would have understood much earlier all that she knew and understood.  This may strike some as a little thing, but I can assure you, had we realized this early on, had we believed this right away, it would have changed every single decision we then made.  Not to mention the massive reduction in our stress, anxiety and fear.

There is so much we are learning and still have to learn, but we are no longer alone.  We are surrounded by other parents, professionals, educators and, most importantly, people who share our daughter’s neurology, those who are Autistic and who continue to share their experiences with us so that we might better parent our Autistic daughter.  And of course, our daughter, Emma whose patience, love, wisdom and endless compassion is teaching us more than any.

 

One year after the diagnosis

One year after the diagnosis

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Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting

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Demanding Speech

Posted on March 24, 2014 by | 33 comments

Over the weekend I witnessed a young man who did not easily speak and when he did say a word, it was clear how hard he was having to work for that one syllable.  Yet the people around him bombarded him with questions.   Questions he could not answer with spoken language, but that did not stop them from asking.  When he managed to make a sound resembling the answer they wanted, they would pause for a moment before asking him another question.  After about ten minutes of this he retreated into what looked like a sensory friendly room, where he rocked gently back and forth, holding his hands over his ears.  Even so, the questions continued.  

Another boy who was having his lunch was told during a ten minute time period to “look at me” more than a dozen times.  He too could not easily speak and was asked a great many questions.  Things like, “Is that good?” When he said, what sounded like, “Yes,” the other person said, “Look at me.  Stop.  Put down your fork.  Look at me.  Is it very good?”  When he again said, “Yes,” he was allowed to eat his lunch for a few seconds in peace before the next question came.

People often ask me why I object to ABA therapy.  It is not only ABA therapy that I object to.  It is ANY therapy that treats another human being as these very well-intentioned people were treating these young people, all of whom were teenagers.  I object to the way so many, who are in the field of autism are trained and how that training  affects how they speak to and interact with people who are autistic.   I do not, for a moment, doubt that they believed that what they were doing was good and ultimately helpful to the kids they were working with.  Yet each one of them was unconsciously or not, treating those kids as though they could not and did not understand what was being said to and about them.  The kids were not being treated as one would treat their same age non autistic peers.

On the Presume Competence – What Does That Mean Exactly – post I wrote, “What I have come to understand, is that a presumption of competence is much more than a set of beliefs, it is a way of interacting with another human being who is seen as a true equal and as having the same basic human rights as I have.”

What I saw was fairly typical of what I see often – well-meaning people who are working with autistic people, but who do NOT presume them competent, not really.  Had I said something to any of these people, I’m sure they would have expressed surprise with my observations of what they were doing and how they were interacting.  I would even guess that they would have told me that they were presuming them competent.  These were not mean people, they were not sadistic people, these were people who believed in the training they’ve been given and believed this was the best way to interact with these teenagers.

At one point the young man who was trying to eat his lunch, looked over at me and my son.  My son, smiled at him and I did a little wave and said, “hi.” He nodded his head ever so slightly at us and then the person who was paid to sit with him, asked him another question.  I do not doubt for a second that all the kids there were competent.  In fact I am convinced of it.  I know it to the core of my being as I have been around so many people who cannot speak, or who can speak, but not easily or naturally and who are all competent.  But this was not how they were being treated.  This idea, which is popular with a number of therapies, not just ABA, that we withhold desirable things until the person speaks as demanded, is not something I agree with because it is based in a presumption that wanting something is equated with ability and this is incorrect, even if it obtains the desired result – a verbal utterance.

Until Emma began to write, using her letter board, I had a great many thoughts about her that have proven incorrect.  Until she began to express herself through those words she painstakingly spells out, I was not treating her as the exceedingly  competent human being that she is, even though I often thought I was.  Even now, on any given day, I do not do this as well as I’d like to.  All those years of ingrained thinking are extremely difficult to change.  But change I must…

A Renassaince Princess

A Renassaince Princess

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“No ABA”

Posted on February 7, 2014 by | 55 comments

A few days ago I wrote about a conversation Emma had where she said she’d like to open a center she would call, “Emma’s Hope Care.”  You can read that piece ‘here‘.  In addition to writing that the center’s philosophy would be “no Autistic child left behind”, she wrote, “no behavior management.”  In response, a commenter asked Emma “What would you do to help children cope with their feelings in our society?”

I showed Emma the comment and asked her to elaborate a bit more on her words – “no behavior management” before asking if she would answer the commenter’s question.

This conversation took several sessions to complete.

A:  Hey Em.  I was wondering if we could talk about Emma’s Hope Care.  Would that be okay?

E:  Yes.

A:  What did you mean when you wrote “no behavior management”?

E:  No ABA.

A:  That was a long time ago, when you were just two years old.  We stopped when you were four.  Do you remember the ABA you had?

E:  Yes.

A:  Will you tell me your experience of it?

E:  I was treated with mostly kindness, but the therapists could not see beyond their training.  I learn quickly, but am not able to reply with words that sound right to another.

Worry becomes everyone’s focus.

Real learning happens when no one notices.

The goals waste away.

Tender feelings do not hurt, but are not helpful because they cannot soothe wounds of being constantly underestimated.

During a separate session Emma answered the question, “What would you do to help children cope with their feelings in our society?” from the Conversing With Emma post.

First cope with your own feelings.  Second listen to the child.  Provide them with patience, accepting their feelings as valid and respecting that this will change as they grow older.

Emma during the ABA years...

Emma during the ABA years…

55 Comments

Posted in ABA, Autism, Education

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Controversy and Commenting

Posted on November 6, 2013 by | 67 comments

Yesterday I quoted Ido Kedar, whose book, Ido in Autismland is his account of what it’s like for him as a non-speaking, Autistic, teenager.  The quotes I used were specifically about his experience with ABA, the acronym for Applied Behavior Analysis.  (Ido also has a blog of the same name.)   A couple of people accused me of “falsehoods” and spreading “inaccurate information”.  One person wrote, “I have never read so falsehoods in one post in my life.  You clearly have zero understanding of ABA or the methods used in its approach.”  Except that the bulk of the post he was objecting to was made up of quotations from Ido’s book about his experiences as an autistic person.

I asked for clarification and was told, “Falsehoods being projected do not need to come as a quote from you directly. This is your blog and you are the one responsible for providing accurate information. If you are going to show a quote from a student, then maybe you should also factor in that the particular therapist the student had was not a very skilled one or a qualified one at that.”  Except to make such a claim that “this particular therapist was not skilled or qualified” would be inaccurate and something I cannot possibly know as I’ve never met the therapist being referred to.  Evidently telling a lie is acceptable if it’s done so in favor of another’s opinion, however quoting someone’s firsthand experience is reason to be accused of creating falsehoods.

Another commenter wrote, ” The posts regarding ABA on this blog are grossly inaccurate. Unfortunately, the author of this post (and subsequent commentary) are so misinformed on the topic that they are not able to recognize exactly how inaccurate the information is. For those of us who understand the field, this can certainly be frustrating.”  Except that so many being referred to and who were commenting are Autistic.  In fact a couple of those who commented yesterday are teachers and work directly with Autistic children, one is a professor and teaches disability studies to special education educators at the university level.  These are a few of the people this commenter believes to be “misinformed” and even went so far as to scold, “I urge you to become better informed on the topic.”  It would have been comical had it not been so upsetting to read the condescending tone and level of rage this one post and comments inspired.

I’d like to clarify a few things…  Let’s take ABA out of this, I do not care what the “therapy” is being called, if it is not respectful of the person it is meant to help, if it uses dehumanizing techniques such as electric shock, restraints, isolation rooms, repetitive testing requiring the person to master an action before being allowed to move on, it is not a therapy I will ever support.  If a therapy is meant to teach compliance, teach someone whose neurology and sensory issues do not make sitting still simple or easy, who cannot listen, attend and make eye contact all at the same time, I question it’s objectives.  If a therapy is looking to “fix” another’s neurology, make that person “indistinguishable from their same age neurologically different peers” I will continue to speak out against it and will encourage others to do the same. If the therapy in question does not presume competence at its core and does not take into account the person’s specific neurology and sensory issues, it is flawed.  If these ideas are threatening to some, so be it.

So let’s stop talking about ABA specifically, because it seems to me the conversation continues to get derailed about what ABA is or isn’t, how some practice it or do not, how it has or has not evolved, instead, let’s discuss these other concepts.  And if you believe something that goes against what I’ve just said, fine, quote me in the comments section, tell me why you disagree, back up your ideas with examples, preferably with words from Autistic people and I will happily listen.  Accusing me of “falsehoods”, “inaccuracy”, being condescending, lashing out and making personal attacks are not comments I will allow through moderation.

Colin sent me this graphic, something I think we can all relate to…

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More On ABA

Posted on November 5, 2013 by | 160 comments

I finally did something I’ve never done before.  I’ve closed down any further comments on a post I wrote about the ethics of ABA.  I continue to get up to thirty views on that post daily, now over a year later.  Most of the comments are coming from ABA therapists who write in defense of ABA, which is fine, except most of them are saying the same thing and my response is also to repeat what I’ve said before, but I’m also getting comments from people who are furious that I dare suggest ABA is anything but wonderful, so instead of endlessly repeating myself, I have shut comments down, just on that post.

If you are an ABA therapist, it is your obligation to, at the very least, read what those who are autistic and were given ABA as children are saying about it.  If nothing else, please read Ido Kedar’s book Ido in Autismland where he describes what it was like to be a non-speaking autistic child, with a body that does not do as he would like, and who was given hours of ABA therapy every day for years.

Ido writes:

“It frustrates me to look back at how my ABA teachers drilled me endlessly in basic skills only to say it wasn’t mastered because I had inaccurate pointing.  I knew everything so easily.  I was bored to tears but my apraxic hands would go to the wrong card so they thought I didn’t know “book” or “tree”.  I did it over and over.  It was the worst.  The assumption that people don’t understand if they reply incorrectly is a huge misconception.  ABA is built on this erroneous premise.”

Again from Ido in Autismland:

“My ABA teachers would talk baby talk and tickle me to reward me.  I cared that they see me as smart, so I tried, but I think it was pointless.  I often felt that they couldn’t see my potential, just the drills.  I feel it’s time autistic people finally say what it’s like to be drilled in flashcards over and over when your hands don’t move to your thoughts, or to have your teacher say in front of you that you can’t count because your stupid hands refuse the right number you’ve counted in your head.  I remember standing miserable and embarrassed, holding the wrong number of straws and hearing my teacher say, “It’s clear he has no number sense,” as if I couldn’t understand or had no emotions either.  When I think of these frustrating experiences I am grateful I am not in that situation anymore.  But many of my friends still are.  That’s why I cry for them.”

Regarding eye contact, Ido writes:

“I can listen better if I don’t look at the person.  I can look, but it’s not pleasant.  In ABA I had to look in people’s eyes with a timer.  It was so torturous I did it, but with terrible anxiety.”

Anyone reading this, I hope will be asking themselves what the objective is to insist someone “look at my eyes”.  Would we prefer someone looks at us and pretends to listen to what we’re saying or that they listen?  If someone is not able to do both, is there any point in insisting they do so anyway?

Again in Ido in Autismland:

“In ABA supervision I had to do drills in front of a supervisor with all my teachers.  Then they’d talk about me in front of me to decide how to improve my performance.  It’s miserable to be an object of study especially because they never realized I understood what they were saying.  The consequence of testing me in front of people is that I grew embarrassed and ashamed inside.  By analyzing me in front of me, usually wrong, I grew resentful.  It was so frustrating I don’t like remembering it to tell it now. It’s over for me, thank God, but not for other kids so I have to share this to help them too.”

Rather than continue to quote Ido’s book, I urge you to read it.  This is one person’s experience, but it is also an experience that a great many have said they understand and had as well.  For those who believe in ABA’s benefits, I just ask that you consider Ido’s words, echoed by so many.  There is no “winning” this argument.  All of us have, I believe, similar goals, and that is to do what proves most helpful for our children.

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Tackling That Troublesome Issue of ABA and Ethics

Posted on October 10, 2012 by | 211 comments

One of the best arguments against ABA is Michelle Dawson’s article, The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists: Ethical Challenges to the Autism-ABA industry.  If you google Applied Behavioral Analysis you will see glowing reports of its efficacy for more than 30 pages.  I actually stopped at the 30th page only because I didn’t have time to continue.  The first book I read on the subject of Autism was Catherine Maurice’s Let Me Hear Your Voice which details how ABA saved two of her children’s lives from Autism.  (I use this language as it is the language employed by the author.)  Catherine Maurice also likens Autism to cancer and ABA as the necessary chemotherapy.  The whole acceptance model obviously is not employed when thinking in these terms, how could it be?  And perhaps this is the single greatest problem when discussing ABA.   Ethics is not a word one associates with chemotherapy.  Why would it be?  The person considering chemotherapy is doing so because to not do so is to face the very real possibility of death.  When the language around autism becomes synonymous with cancer, one is saying to be Autistic is to have a death sentence.  And while that may seem like hyperbole to many parents and Autistics, it is not so far from the truth when we were informed of our daughter’s autism.

When Emma, then two years old, was given her diagnosis we were told, if we employed 40 hours of ABA a week she would undoubtedly be mainstreamed by Kindergarten.  This was what we were told.  This is what we hoped for.  This is what we chose to believe.  We were also told that a bio-medical approach when coupled with ABA was ideal and so we did that too.  We fought and received 40 hours of ABA a week, took Emma to a homeopath, who through more than a dozen tinctures, did a homeopathic version of chelation (i.e. removed heavy metals from her system).  I also took Emma to a cranial sacral doctor as well as had her on a gluten-free casein free diet.  Despite all of this, when she did not show the sort of monumental leaps promised, the ABA therapists said it was because we were at fault.  Never once did any of the therapists, supervisor or agency waver in their firm belief that ABA was a solid, “scientifically” backed methodology.  It was spoken of as fact.  We were the only variable.  We then did what they advised, we put Emma in an ABA based preschool, continued our own ABA training so we could continue doing it at home, hired an ABA trained therapist to help us implement ABA in the evenings and weekends and again were reassured that she would be mainstreamed by the time she was in Kindergarten.   We didn’t have any alternatives as far as preschools went, so I ignored my gut, my maternal instincts, warning me that this was NOT a method I would ever allow used on my neurotypical son and yet, was allowing to have implemented for my autistic daughter.

After a year, not only had Emma not progressed as the school had hoped, but she was actually regressing and was, what the principal informed us, a “red flag”.  The teacher, obviously aggravated with Emma’s lack of progress even suggested that this was Emma’s fault, that she was “refusing” to comply and expressed her irritation with us.  Emma, at the time was just FOUR years old.  Looking back on those first few years is surreal.  A four year old was being blamed and words like “manipulative” and “misbehaving” were used.  I’m going to interrupt this story to acknowledge, this is one story.  One family’s experience and is an anecdotal tale.  In no way do I believe for a moment that because ABA did not produce the results so many believed it would that our story is somehow scientific fact.  What I will say though is that ABA is, in my opinion, a flawed, at best, methodology and one that we do not, would not ever consider using with our NT son.  Therefore an important question must be asked – Why is that?

Why do we not use ABA for the neurotypical population?  This is where the ethical question must be considered.  This is where the “science” behind the use of ABA begins to fray.  If we really believe Autistic people (and children) deserve the same respect, are truly considered equal as those in the neurotypical population, ABA presents some real problems.   ABA can only really work if we view autism as a deficit and something that must be removed.  Autism is a complex neurological difference that cannot be removed.  I do not believe for a moment that there will ever be a “cure” for Autism.  It was explained to me by a neurologist that Autism is a web of neural pathways branching off and fusing producing new neural pathways, so random, so complex making it impossible to single out any one pathway allowing for a simple removal to produce a non autistic person.

I don’t believe anyone would argue against helping an Autistic person cope with the challenges they face, but the larger question is how do we do that?  Restraining someone who needs to concentrate by flapping is not the answer.  Insisting children sit quietly so they can “attend” and be “table ready” when flapping or twirling a piece of string actually helps them listen and concentrate does not make any logical sense.  Insisting that the non autistic way of communicating is the ONLY way to communicate is limiting and unhelpful to those who cannot express themselves by speaking.  Viewing Autism as a list of deficits that can be corrected through a series of discrete trials will not make an autistic person any less autistic.  Teaching Autistic people how to ‘pass’ so they can blend in better with non autistics is similar to the belief that a closeted gay person will live a happier and more fulfilled life by being closeted than someone who is “out”.

I don’t agree with the basic tenets of ABA because it is a methodology based in looking at those it treats as deficient and inferior.  This is not a model I believe will help Autistics or any of us in the long run.  We, who are not autistic are in a position of power, we are the majority, we are the ones making the rules.  That does not mean the rules we make are correct or even right.  We must be willing to examine what our objective is in using ABA.  Is the objective to make someone blend in better and if so we must ask ourselves why?  Before ABA is considered, ask yourself, is this a treatment you would employ for your neurotypical child?  What message are we sending our Autistic children?  What will this message do to their self-image?  What message will be internalized, a message they will carry with them well into adulthood?  Will this message serve them, make them feel good about themselves, help them lead happy, fulfilled lives.  After all isn’t that what ALL parents want for our children?

*I urge any who are reading this to read what autistic people are saying about ABA.  Ido Kedar, a non speaking Autistic teenager has written a book, Ido in Autismland where he criticizes ABA and describes why.  Any of you who are ABA therapists, it is incumbent upon you to read his book.  He is one of a number of Autistic people who are speaking out about ABA.

Other posts dealing with ABA:

Non-Speaking With A Lot to Say
Trauma & Autism
ABA

Emma as mermaid!

Related articles

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Overwhelmed

Posted on May 15, 2012 by | 20 comments

Overwhelmed.  That’s how I’m feeling at the moment, with no real right to be.  Nothing has happened, Emma continues to make nice strides, yet even as I say that, a little voice is muttering, “Really?  Is she really making strides or are you just grasping at straws to make yourself feel better?”

Sometimes I just want to rant and whine and complain, yet as I write this, I know that’s not really what I want.  Okay, maybe a little. But it’s more the feeling of wanting to turn the volume down in my head.  If they had a worry lobotomy I think I’d sign up.  Or maybe that’s what a lobotomy is.  I just don’t want all that other nasty stuff that comes with a full lobotomy, just take the worries away, thank you very much.  What I really want is to not feel this way.

When Emma was diagnosed and still two-years old I remember after a long training session in which Richard and I were supposed to continue with her ABA program after the seventh or eighth therapist left our home for the evening, I thought – I don’t want to be my daughter’s therapist.  I want to be her mother.  Being her mother doesn’t seem to rate high on the importance scale of most of these methodologies.  A few years later when Richard and I went down to Bethesda and trained with the late Stanley Greenspan in his DIR/floortime, I felt the same way.  After Stanley advised us that we should each be doing seven or eight 20 minute floortime sessions with her a day, I thought – I don’t want to run interference, constantly launching questions at her to encourage language like rounds fired from a .44 magnum.  (Yeah, I just googled that, because I’m completely insane AND a stickler for accuracy in the similes I use.)

The point is – if I’m being perfectly honest – I’m feeling a little lazy at the moment.  But laziness with an autistic child is really not something I can afford to be.  I mean her life is hanging in the balance while I’m whinging about how I don’t want to take the time to map out her next study session.  (Don’t you love it when people use words such as “if I’m being perfectly honest,” and “frankly” and “truthfully” or my personal favorite, “if truth be told” ?  To preface a comment with “Truthfully” implies that one is NOT usually truthful, which, for some reason, strikes me as hysterically funny.  Okay.  I’ve had my moment..)

I know that feeling of overwhelm is like fear, or worry or any number of other emotions that do nothing positive, in fact serve only to keep me deeply embedded in the stagnating cycle of fear and worry, like air that’s being recycled through a dirty filter.  (Stop with the similes!  This should be said in a high pitched Monty Pythonish voice.  But I can’t help myself!)  I know the only way to break out of this is to do the thing I keep putting off doing.

Just do it.

I know.  I know.

I think I’ll go make a list.

It will be a very long list.

I hate long lists.

Ugh.

To read my latest piece, Emma’s New Shoes, in the Huffington Post, click ‘here‘

And if you haven’t already done so, do vote for Emma’s Hope Book by clicking this ‘link‘ and clicking on the “like” button opposite Emma’s Hope Book.

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Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting, Stanley Greenspan

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Grappling With The Right Thing To Do

Posted on March 9, 2012 by | 1 comment

When Emma was first diagnosed she was still two years old.  The supervising ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapist from the agency who provided us with Emma’s early intervention program was a huge imposing man with a beard.  During one of her more difficult sessions, he took Emma into her bedroom where he told me he needed to have me not intervene as it would only make matters worse.  I was told that she needed to learn she must comply or she would never be able to progress.  I was told that no matter what, I was not to enter her bedroom.

As her screams grew louder and more desperate I huddled in the hallway against the wall to her bedroom, confused, horrified and angry and wept.  It was a form of torture, listening to her screams.  As the minutes wore on I wavered between the instinctive need to protect my daughter and the desire to do what would prove best for her.  The problem was, it was not clear what the right thing to do was.  If I went in and rescued her, according to the therapist, I would jeopardize all the hard work they had up to that point accomplished, reinforcing the idea that screaming would get her out of doing any “work” and if I didn’t intervene I had to sit with the knowledge that I had allowed a complete stranger to traumatize my daughter.  These are the kinds of episodes we parents replay in our minds, with new ones constantly being added to the queue.  Did I do the right thing?  Should I have stopped him?  What sort of long term trauma did I subject my daughter to?  If I didn’t stop him, if I allowed these sorts of sessions to continue was I not an accomplice in harming my daughter?  Was the therapist correct?  Would the rigorous ABA program we fought so hard to implement have worked had I not doubted it so much?

As it was, I did not intervene that day.  However, months later during yet another session when Emma cried and screamed with the therapist, while sequestered in her bedroom, I finally did.  I was told by the therapist that it was my behavior that was causing Emma to not progress with her ABA program.  I was told in no uncertain terms that the therapist (whom I liked) could no longer work with Emma because I wasn’t sufficiently supportive.  Later that day I received a call from the head of the agency telling me they would no longer provide services for Emma because I was too difficult to work with.  The year was 2005 and in New York City there were few other options.  ABA therapy was considered the gold standard, the only scientifically “proven” methodology that worked with children on the spectrum.  We had fought hard to obtain 35 hours a week of it for Emma.

The point is, whatever the methodology you employ with your child, there is no way to know whether it will help.  Uncertainty is part of parenting.  With a child on the spectrum that feeling of uncertainty is heightened and more loaded, the stakes feel so much higher.  Are we doing the right thing?  Will this help her in the long run?  What will do the least amount of “damage” and help her the most?  We neuro-typicals cannot know what it is to be autistic.  We cannot speak for people on the spectrum.  All we can do is hope that the decisions we make are going to help our children so that they can one day speak for themselves.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:   Emma’s Hope Book

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From a Mom in Melbourne

Posted on January 24, 2012 by | 2 comments

The following is a comment from the “Redefining Autism” post written by an Australian mom with two children on the spectrum.

“It is what our education department in Victoria does.  They make it so hard for children to qualify under their own made up criteria for what they will actually fund as being autism.  One of those being a severe language delay.  Problem solved, then they just don’t count all the students with an actual diagnosis of autism only those they will fund at school.  They also don’t count the children in my region ( my own 2 included ) who have severe autism, but attend schools for the intellectually disabled.  If you attend such a school you are funded as intellectually disabled and not autistic and so they do not count you in their figures as autistic, never mind where we live, unlike the rest of the City, there are no autism specific schools beyond the age of 9.  Such schools are zoned, so even if we could travel there we wouldn’t be accepted as the schools are so full.  If you can’t survive in a mainstream school with minimal support you wind up in a special school for the intellectually disabled or homeschooled.

We just had a review of autism education provisions for our region, which I was involved in instigating and the Education Department again only released the figures of those students who recieve funding for autism.  It is wicked, given that this region of Melbourne has the highest incidence of autism, but we will never know just how frighteningly high because they only count some students not all those with a medical diagnosis.  One local politician described it as a tsunami.

I read the article you mentioned a few days ago and it is just more of the same.  There is an epidemic – I can see it.  My husband has work mates who have children with ASD, we have friends we knew before they had kids who now also have children with autism, we have a neighbourhood full of kids with ASD, wherever I go – restaurants, swimming pools, shopping, the library – I see children who are obviously autistic.  They can call it what they want, but it isn’t going away.”

Emma was diagnosed with PDD-NOS  (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified) at the age of two years and nine months.   Given the new criteria proposed, Emma would not have been eligible for the services she was given, which included speech therapy, occupational therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) as well as Verbal Behavior  (VB).  While I take issue with the standard form of early intervention – ABA & VB – as it did not help Emma, we were able to find an early intervention therapist versed in Stanley Greenspan’s DIR (Developmental, Individual-difference, Relationship-based) model, which was at least a bit more helpful.  I have no idea whether Dr. Marion Blank’s program for children would have been covered had we known about it, but it might have been.  Had we begun Emma on Dr. Blank’s program when she was first diagnosed, we would undoubtedly have a child who was now mainstreamed, saving the state and ourselves an enormous amount of money, not to mention heartache, stress and emotional trauma (hers, as well as ours).  I say this with confidence because now, at the age of ten, Emma has made more progress in the past year that we have been working with Dr. Blank than she has in six or even seven years put together.

My distress is two-fold regarding this new proposed criteria and the ongoing discussion regarding autism.  The first is that shifting numbers will not change the fact that the rate of autism has far outpaced our ability as a society to cope with it, and secondly, the standard way of treating autism – ABA and VB being the gold standard, needs to be reanalyzed with better and more stringent studies.  There are a great many children whom ABA/VB have not helped who can be helped with other methodologies.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:   Emma’s Hope Book

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An Inability to Generalize

Posted on May 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I first heard that term used in reference to Emma almost seven years ago now.  It was one of those things people say, in this case her early intervention therapists, where you hear the words, you know what they are saying, but how exactly this is being applied to one’s own child suddenly doesn’t seem clear at all.

Emma, like many children diagnosed with autism, has a difficult time applying something she’s learned in different situations and settings.  For example when she was much younger, I tried to teach her what a t-shirt looked like by holding up an actual t-shirt, one of hers with a pink heart on it, she was able to remember what that particular t-shirt looked like and called it a “t-shirt”.  If I then took out a different t-shirt, one of mine or a different colored t-shirt from her drawer, she was not necessarily able to understand that this too was called a “t-shirt”.  If I showed her a flashcard with a green t-shirt and explained that this was the color green and then pointed to a slightly different shade of green, and perhaps on a chair, she wasn’t able to tell me that the color I was pointing to was green.  Temple Grandin, speaks about this at length, she calls it “thinking in pictures.”  She says she stores images in her mind and then flips through the images to come up with the correct one to fit the word being used.  She then goes on to describe how problematic this retrieval system is for her.  One can easily understand how difficult that must be.

Over the weekend I worked with Emma on two words:  “yes” and “not”.  “Yes” was a bit easier for her to incorporate into her writing, but “not” completely threw her.  If I said, “Emma, what are these?” and pointed to a picture of three trucks.  She answered correctly, “These are trucks.”  If I then asked her, “Are these trucks?” pointing to the trucks, she was able to understand that if you answer, “Yes, these are trucks” it didn’t change the structure of the sentence, one just needed to add “yes” to the beginning of the sentence.  But if I then asked, “Emma, are these trucks?” while pointing to three frogs, she had a terrible time answering, “These are not trucks.”  When I asked her, “Emma, give me the one that cannot walk,” from a field of four objects: a bus, a truck, a plane and a kid,” she handed me the kid.

I know Emma understands what “not” means, but in this context she was baffled.  It reminded me of those first few years when we were new to all of this, and almost constantly perplexed by almost everything she said and did.  I remember watching in dismay as she proceeded to memorize several hundred flashcards that her therapists used with her.  The therapist would hold up a card with a picture of a bike, and Emma would shout, “bike!”, the card with a dress, Emma would yell, “dress!” and on it went.  I fully expected her to go on to a regular kindergarten, at the rate she was going.  But very quickly I realized that though she had no trouble with her memory, could memorize some 400 flashcards, she could not use the information beyond the flashcards.  In other words, the information wasn’t being translated across a larger field.  She did not use the words, we now knew she knew in everyday sentences.  If we went out into the park and I saw a kid on a bike and said, “Em, look!  What’s that kid riding on?” she couldn’t tell me it was a bike.  It didn’t look exactly like the flashcard with a bike.  For one thing it was a kid’s bike and for another it had pink plastic tassels on the handlebars and a little bell with a picture of Dora on it.  This bike looked completely different from the bike on the flashcard and so Emma was at a loss as to what this new thing was called.

The good news is, Emma now can identify a bike, any bike, but it took awhile.  This is what we are up against when trying to teach Emma.

For more on Emma’s courageous journey through a childhood of autism and our admiration for her, go to: www.EmmasHopeBook.com

Emma with her green blanket when she was 3.

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Desperation & Coping (Part Two)

Posted on September 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

For the first two years after Emma was diagnosed we did an aggressive intervention of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy – 40 hours a week with additional speech therapy and Occupational therapy.  Advocates of ABA believe it is the only therapeutic intervention for autism that has any scientific validity.  Others have questioned those studies, claiming Lovaas used only the highest functioning children to obtain his results, which were published in 1987.

Regardless, ABA did not help Emma.  In fact, she “flat lined”.  We were called into the principal’s office of the pre-school she was then attending and were told Emma’s lack of progress was a “red flag”.   While other children at her pre-school flourished, going on to be mainstreamed even, Emma stalled out, unable to generalize the things she learned in the classroom setting, unable to make progress.  I have spoken to dozens of parents whose children have been helped using ABA, parents who swear it was the single most important thing they did for their child, and yet, for Emma, ABA did not help.  It is easy to feel angry, blame the therapy, blame the child, blame something rather than acknowledge how baffling and insidious autism is.

It was around this period when we found Stanley Greenspan and began his DIR/Floortime therapy with Emma.  For more on Stanley Greenspan see “A Tribute to Stanley Greenspan”.

While Emma responds much better to the DIR model, she still continues to confound experts in the field.  She has not progressed as quickly as any expected or hoped.

When Emma was first diagnosed we were given a diagnosis of PDD-NOS.  We were told to watch her, that perhaps she would “grow out of it” or if not, then at least we would have begun an aggressive early intervention program which would undoubtedly have her mainstreamed by the time she was in kindergarten.  This was not to be, however.  Emma was not mainstreamed when she reached the age to enter kindergarten.  In fact, her diagnosis changed to “Autism” and though she was considered “mildly” autistic, by the time she was 7, she was categorized as moderately so.  How to explain this?

We cannot.  None of the “specialists” we’ve seen can either.  The only thing that has really changed is all those “specialists” no longer offer their long-term view of where she’ll be in another few years.  Gone, are the comforting talks of how she’ll soon be mainstreamed, no longer do we hear the cheerful prediction that she’s – “on her way”.

Desperation can make for odd decisions, but for those of us who have attempted to manage our feelings of overwhelm as we do our best to live our lives with an autistic child, it is a feeling we are all too familiar with.  Richard and I have tried any number of remedies. Were I not the mother of an autistic child I would respond to many of the very things we’ve tried with an incredulous shake of my head.  When someone tells me their child has had several hundred treatments in a hyperbaric chamber, I do not think – Poor fools, they really are clutching at straws – I take notes.  How could anyone believe ____________________ (fill in the blank) would work?  We don’t believe as much as we hope.   We will do anything we can to help our daughter.

Desperation?  Probably.

Coping?  Absolutely.

Emma – August, 2010

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A Wish

Posted on July 27, 2010 by | 1 comment

The parent of a severely disabled child asked me a few weeks ago what I wanted for Emma.  She was referring to the long term, the far off future.

“I’m assuming you’re not expecting her to go to Harvard,” she said.

Well no, I thought.  That has never been a goal for either of my children, but I didn’t say that to her.  Instead I said, “I want her to be able to live independently.  I would like her to have friendships, to be able to find something she loves doing and takes pride in.  I would like her to be a kind, thoughtful person who is able to contribute in some way to society and our world,” I stopped for a minute.  “I guess I want her to feel good about who she is in the world.”

She nodded her head.

When Richard and I decided we wanted to try to have children we spent many hours discussing our views on parenting and childrearing.  We were in agreement with almost everything.  Neither one of us cared what college our child went to or even if they went to college.  We both agreed we were more concerned with our children finding a career they loved.   We agreed we wanted them to be kind, to be generous, to consider others and to behave in ways which foster that.  We agreed we did not care what their sexual orientation turned out to be and we did not own them.  We both felt strongly our children, if we were lucky enough to have any, were not an extension of ourselves, but independent beings.  We agreed it was our duty to guide and advocate for them until they were old enough to advocate for themselves.

When I was pregnant with Nic I asked my mother if she had any advice for me.  She said, “Love them with all your heart, tell them how much you love them as often as you can and one day they’ll forgive you.”

It was the single best piece of advice anyone has ever given me.  We as parents will make mistakes, we will use a harsher tone than we meant to or are even aware of, we will say things in anger we didn’t mean, we will model behavior that is not always exemplary, we will do things we wish we hadn’t.  But we can say – I’m sorry.  I made a mistake.  And we can convey our love for our children as often as we are able to.

When Richard and I first received Emma’s diagnosis we were given a barrage of information.  We were told to get Emma between 35-40 hours a week of ABA therapy.  We trained with the ABA coordinator so we could continue using ABA with Emma after the therapists left.  I remember thinking after the hundredth flashcard maybe I should just hold her.  Emma wouldn’t let anyone else hold her, but if I sat in the rocking chair she would crawl into my lap.  I would put my arms around her with her head resting on my chest and we would sit like that together for up to an hour sometimes more.  During that early period it was the one thing I felt I could do with Emma, which no one else was able to do.  It seemed more important than forcing her to do yet another puzzle or one more sequencing game.  I reasoned, for a child who appeared emotionally cut off from other human beings, holding her was a kind of therapy too and perhaps as essential if not more essential than any of her other therapies.

Those hours spent with Emma in my lap were bliss.   Whether the physical affection made a difference or not I cannot know for sure.  My guess is it did and continues to make a difference.  To this day I remember as a little girl sitting between my mother’s legs by our swimming pool and leaning my small body against hers, her arms wrapped around me.  There is something about physical touch, which promotes a state of well being unlike anything else.

It is that state of well being I wish for both my children.

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From Joe (Emma’s Therapist for the Past Five Years)

Posted on April 29, 2010 by | 1 comment

Joe, Emma’s therapist, who came to us five months after we received her diagnosis, was initially trained in ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis).  As Emma regressed using ABA, Joe was the first to agree with us that we should find another methodology which might work better.  When we found Stanley Greenspan (who died April 27th, 2010 – next post will be a tribute to him) Joe was an eager participant in learning how to do Stanley Greenspan’s DIR (developmental, individual-difference, relationship-based) therapy with Emma.  Joe has since become the “Zen Master” of DIR.  He is brilliant at it and watching him work with Emma is a profound experience.  The following is a post by Joe.

“I was watching ABC’s Nightline last night, which aired a story about a pro-surfer who has autism. Watching his intensified focus on the waves certainly reminded me of Emma’s physical grace and all of her athletic talents – skiing in particular. They described the teenaged surfer as someone who’s “mastered the seas but still struggles on land.” On the water he feels relaxed, but on land he must face the pressure and anxiety of social interactions. Like Emma, the surfer has no physical indication of any disorder so his inability to respond appropriately to social interactions (or simply say hello) is often interpreted as rudeness. This is one of the dozens of catch 22’s of autism – wanting her to be seen and treated just like anyone else but also expecting others to be understanding/non-discriminatory once they find out she’s autistic.

The surfer’s story ended by crediting his autism for opening this door for his talents to shine: a door which may have otherwise remained shut.  While Emma’s autism has come with its vast array of difficulties and challenges, it has also opened similar doors for her talents to shine. While I feel many of Emma’s abilities are innate, I believe a stage needed to be set in order for them to be unveiled. So I end this story by crediting Emma’s parents, Ariane and Richard, for all of their endless efforts to open every door and set every stage possible for her. As for her athletic talents, giving her the opportunity to swing herself at 18 months, getting her into gymnastics at 2 years old, and strapping her into skis at 3 years old is just a fraction of all of the sensory input she was constantly provided with at such an early age. While Emma continues to shine in the spotlight, I credit her director and choreographer, Ariane and Richard, for making it happen.”

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