Tag Archives: ABA

FC and RPM

Posted on April 24, 2014 by | 41 comments

Both facilitated communication (FC) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) while different in practice, are based in a presumption of competence and both are often a bridge to the ideal goal of independent communication.  There are those who may not be able to achieve full independence because of physical challenges. It bears repeating, however that the eventual goal for all who are physically able to, is independence.  And yet both methods are criticized.  In fact, no matter what the initial method used to learn to type by non-speaking, Autistic people who have gone on to type independently, people like Carly Fleischmann, Tito Mukhopadhyay, Sue Rubin, Jamie Burke, Ido Kedar and so many others, there are those who continue to question the authorship of their words.  Even though no one touches them as they type.  Even though there is no physical contact of any kind as they write.  Even though they all talk about the issues they must contend with on a daily basis, things that are specific to them and the challenges they face with a mind and body that are often not in sync.

In the case of FC there are a number of people, now independent, who began typing to communicate, but for physical reasons need the help of another person to provide resistance or to help with physical challenges.  As with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) where a child is given hand over hand prompts that are hoped to be eventually faded, so it is with FC.  However FC is continually attacked for using, often less, physical prompts than ABA practitioners use.  Some people like Barb Rentenbach, Peyton Goddard, Jennifer Seybert and Tracy Thresher are now typing with a finger placed on their shoulder or the middle of their back.  If one goes back to how they began to type, this shows enormous progress.  All of them are intent on becoming fully independent and work extremely hard in trying to reach this goal.  Yet, it is interesting to note that few people object or question ABA’s use of hand over hand prompts.   What is good for one, seems to not be good for all. Why is that?

Carly Fleischmann who types independently wrote, “I don’t have a hand up my butt like a puppet…”  Despite her words, if you google “Carly Fleischmann” the second search term that comes up after “Carly Fleischmann blog” is “Carly Fleischmann fake”.  Oddly, when entering “Stephen Hawking” into google, the search terms are “Stephen Hawking quotes” and “Stephen Hawking black holes”.  Why is it that Carly Fleischmann, who types independently, is viewed with suspicion, while Stephen Hawking is not?

RPM, the method created by Soma Mukhopadhyay, does not use physical prompts at all.  No one touches the person writing, but instead a stencil board is held in front of the person writing.  The stencil letter board, it is hoped, will be eventually faded and replaced with a laminated letter board with the goal, in my daughter’s case, being able to move to a qwerty keyboard, which is how Emma now communicates with me as well as with the person she has weekly RPM sessions with.  Still, there are those who insist that no matter how steady the letter board is held, the person holding it is manipulating it ever so slightly and enough to influence the person writing.  Or, as is the case with Carly and others who type independently, it doesn’t matter, the fact that they are not able to speak seems to be all people need to discount their words, no matter how they communicate.  All of this would be laughable if it were not for the tragic fact that people’s voices are being discredited and silenced.

My friend Kerima Cevik, of the blog The Autism Wars, recently wrote “My Standing Position of Facilitated Communication” and posted it on Facebook.  It immediately went viral and brings up a number of excellent points consistently ignored by those who seek to discredit FC.  Please read it.  I find it incredible that people, almost all of them psychologists, just as Bruno Bettelheim claimed to be (and not neuroscientists) continue to come up with all kinds of theories regarding any number of things involving autism and Autistic people, things like Theory of Mind and Cognitive Empathy.  All of these are “theories” and not scientifically proven as fact, yet they are treated as fact, while things like RPM and FC are ridiculed for not being scientifically proven and dismissed, while other methods like ABA are applauded, funded and given a golden seal of approval.   One more question to consider, why is it that people who are aphasic are not immediately given ABA?  No one recommends ABA as a therapy for someone who has had a stroke and as a result cannot speak.

I urge all of you to consider, regardless of what other people decide they believe, if a child cannot communicate through spoken language what are their options?  Whatever the approach is, whether it uses pictures, hand gestures, eye movement, pointing, or some other form of communication I have a series of questions I ask.

Does this approach presume competence?

Would I use this system for a non-autistic person who cannot speak?

Does it infantilize?

Is this way of communicating limiting or is it a bridge to more complex communication?

Emma types on a qwerty keyboard

Emma types on a qwerty keyboard

 

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Posted in Autism, facilitated communication, Rapid Prompting Method

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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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Separation Anxiety

Posted on March 21, 2014 by | 57 comments

In our ongoing “spring cleaning” (which never seems to end) I came upon a large spiral notebook filled with notes from the dozen or so ABA therapists who came to our home beginning in November, 2004 through August, 2005.  Emma was just two years old when all of this began.  It’s a fascinating document of that time period and it depresses me to no end.  Over and over the notations remark upon Emma’s “clingy-ness to Mom”, her “whimpering” and “despondency” when I would leave the room and her internal discomfort.

It is impossible for me to read the notes and not see an obvious pattern.  For a therapy that prides itself in collecting data, it is curious that this larger and, what seemed to me anyway, obvious pattern was largely ignored or, perhaps it is what naturally happens when we pathologize a neurology.  Emma’s desire to seek comfort and assurance from me, her mom, was seen as a negative, something to be trained away, something that was getting in the way of more important things.  It is ironic that this was being said about a young child who was diagnosed with autism, which has, according to all those experts, as one of its most defining characteristics, “social impairment” and an inability to form close bonds.

A two-year old not wanting to go off with a stranger is considered a “good” thing by most people.  That this same child would prefer being with their mother, even after getting to know someone else, would still, in most instances, be thought of as an excellent example of bonding and having a close relationship with one of the most important people in that person’s life – their mother.  After all, if you cannot trust your mother to protect you, to be there for you when you are two, how will you learn to trust anyone later in life?

Richard and I talk about “what we would have done” all the time.  Not as in – what would we have done if we could do it all over again – as much as, what would we do now if we had a two-year old today who was just like Emma.  And the first thing, the absolute first thing would have been PRESUME COMPETENCE.  That is the key, the foundation by which everything else would have been gauged.  This does not mean expecting a two-year old to understand, know and behave as a twenty year old.  It means we would have presumed she understood and felt what a two-year old is capable of understanding and feeling not less.

When Emma began her ABA based preschool in the fall of 2005, I was told to drop her off and immediately leave.  Yet when my non autistic son went to preschool they had a three-week “transition period’ in place where parents routinely stayed with their child, slowly reducing the time they stayed until eventually the child separated from their parent when they felt comfortable to do so.  Each child was different.  Some children ran off within the first few days, others needed more time, some needed several weeks, but no one said, “Leave now, even though your child is hysterically crying and clinging to your leg, it will be good for them.”  I remember asking about this at Emma’s preschool and being told they didn’t allow parents to stay with their child as this only prolonged the child’s suffering.  How is it that one method is good for one child, but not another?

Knowing how sensitive my daughter is and was, knowing how intensely painful this must have been for her, I can only sit here, filled with sadness that we just didn’t know better.  It was as though, when we got her diagnosis, all common sense left us.

So I am asking all my Autistic friends – What would have helped you when you were a small child?  Would it have been helpful to have your parent stay with you until you were comfortable and felt safe enough to go off on your own?  Would you have liked knowing your parent was there, even if you didn’t need to be right next to them?  What do you advise parents new to all of this?

OT session ~ 2005

OT session ~ 2005

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Posted in Autism, diagnosis, Parenting

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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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Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting

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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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When Words Don’t Reflect What is in the Mind

Posted on October 18, 2013 by | 33 comments

Imagine being asked a simple question, say a question about whether you’ve ever been to New Zealand.  Now you know perfectly well that you’ve never traveled to New Zealand, though you have a pretty good idea of where it’s located, however it’s not a place you’ve spent much time thinking about and it wasn’t even on your top-ten-must-travel-to-before-I die list.  But when you opened your mouth instead of saying, “No, I’ve never been to New Zealand, why do you ask?” all you could manage to say was, “Yes!” and not just a sullen sort of yes, but a happy, eager and enthusiastic “YES!”

So now the person begins talking to you about New Zealand and maybe they’ve just returned or they were born and raised there and they go on and on and then say, “What was your favorite place in New Zealand?”  Well, since you’ve actually never stepped foot in New Zealand this question is impossible to answer and so maybe you say “vanilla cake” because the one thing you know about New Zealand is that people are referred to as Kiwis and your only reference to kiwis is when you tried an actual kiwi once and didn’t care for it, but your favorite thing to eat is vanilla cake and besides vanilla cake makes you happy and this conversation is making you anxious because you said “YES!” when you actually meant “no” but things have moved on so quickly that you are feeling tremendous anxiety and wish you could just go somewhere away from this voice that is speaking so quickly about a place you’ve never been to nor have any interest in.

They look at you with that look, it’s a mixture of irritation and surprise, like they cannot decide whether you are purposefully making fun of them, or are tuning them out because you’re rude and have no manners or because you are actually hungry and are wanting to eat some cake.  So they give you the benefit of the doubt and say, “Yeah, well we can’t eat vanilla cake right now and anyway we were discussing New Zealand, so I’d like you to focus so that we can continue.”  Feeling frustrated and maybe even ashamed that they think you’re rude, you try to make a friendly overture by saying, “I like vanilla cake.”  But instead of smiling they look even more angry and so your anxiety kicks into high gear and you bite your hand to center yourself and because you are overwhelmed with frustration.

Suddenly all thought of New Zealand and anything else gets tossed out the window, because here you are biting yourself to center yourself and also cope with how frustrated you are, but all it does is make the other person furious.  You are so completely misunderstood and without the means to explain, you are caught in a web of other people’s assumptions.  “Stop it!  We do not bite!” the person scolds and maybe they grab your hand and hold it done at your side.  Their grip is firm, so firm, it actually hurts, and they look so angry that it’s scary too.  They are restraining you and glaring at you and all because your mouth wouldn’t obey your mind and said, “Yes” when you meant “no”.

I have no idea if this is what it’s like for my daughter or others who have what I call unreliable spoken language, but these are the kinds of scenarios I imagine and wonder about.  Is this what it’s like?  One day she will tell me, but in the meantime, there are others who are now writing about similar things, when their mind knows but their body is unable to do as their mind wants.  This is what Ido writes in his book, Ido in Autismland:

“… my mom asked me to hand her a bag.  I kept handing her a piece of paper the bag was near.”

“It happens less often now but it was common when I was small in my ABA drills.  I wanted to touch a card but my hand had another plan so I had to redo drills until my hand got it.  Not my head.  It knew everything.  My hand had to learn the drill. It’s something for the neurologists to study.  This is why so many parents think their kids don’t understand them.”

Naoki Higashida in his book, The Reason I Jump, writes:

“…as soon as I try to speak to someone my words just vanish.  Sure, sometimes I manage a few words, but even these can come out the complete opposite to what I want to say.”

What would that be like?  How would it feel to be completely misunderstood, your every action misinterpreted by someone else who believes you meant something that you did not?

Tracy Thresher types during a Q&A at the ICI Conference ~ July, 2013

Tracy Writes

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Posted in Autism, Autism Books, communication

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Non-Speaking With a Lot To Say

Posted on October 17, 2013 by | 44 comments

I am reading Ido in Autismland: Climbing out of Autism’s Prison by Ido Kedar.  This is another one of those MUST READ books.  Ido is a non-speaking Autistic teenager who learned to write his thoughts by pointing to a stencil board using Soma Mukhopadhyay‘s RPM method.  Ido now types on an iPad.  When I first received a copy of this book, I admit, I was put off by the subtitle.  You see, I was one of those people who once believed my daughter was trapped inside a prison that I called “autism” and for a long time I absolutely believed this.  This thinking led me to believe that if I could cure her, if I could remove her “autism” she would be released from its prison.  It was also this thinking that caused me to say how much I loved my daughter, but hated her autism.  Once I discovered blogs written by Autistic people I began to reassess these various beliefs and finally began to understand how my thinking was actually harming her.    I’ve written about some of this ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.

But in reading Ido’s book and because I wrote directly to him and his mom about my initial reaction to the subtitle, I have come to understand that his reference to “prison” refers to being imprisoned in a body that does not obey what his mind wants, a mouth that does not say the words he wants to communicate and a society that perceives him as someone he is not.  But more importantly this is Ido’s story and is about the way he perceives autism as it relates to himself and what he has been through as a result. To not read this terrific book because of semantics or because Ido’s perception of autism as “illness” is one I found unhelpful and even harmful to my family and daughter, would mean I would have missed reading a great book written by a really insightful and wise young man who had to fight against prejudices and preconceived ideas about who and what he was capable of.  This is Ido’s story and what a wonderful story it is!

In the introduction, Tracy Kedar, Ido’s mother, writes,

“The ideas in this book challenge many assumptions long held by professionals working with autistic people.  In our own experience, Ido broke free in spite of, not because of, the mainstream thinking today.  If we had continued to rely on  the specialists and educators who dominated Ido’s early years, if he had not been able to find a way to show me that he could read and write, and if I had not finally trusted my own eyes and impressions, Ido would still be stuck as he was, locked internally, underestimated and hopeless.  It is time for our understanding of autism to undergo yet another paradigm shift, and Ido, along with other non-verbal autistic communicators, is a pivotal guide.”

*The use of bold is mine, used for emphasis and is not in the book.

Just as a quick aside, Soma’s RPM method begins with written choices, progresses to a stencil board with the student pointing to the desired letters with a pencil, then to a laminated alphabet board and eventually to an iPad and computer.  Soma or the person doing RPM does not come into physical contact with the student and once the student has moved to a laminated board, she even encourages the student to hold the board themselves.  The final step is to move from the laminated board to independently typing on an iPad or computer.

This quote was written by Ido in 2008 regarding his body and mind and how the two do not obey each other.

“Time after time people assume that I don’t understand simple words when they see me move wrong.  Understanding is not the problem.  It’s that my body finds its own route when my mind can’t find it.”

Again in 2008, Ido writes about his life before he learned to communicate using RPM.

“They misinterpreted my behavior often.  For example, I remember that during my ABA supervisions, I sometimes ran to the window over the parking lot in an attempt to show them that I wanted to go to my car.  They didn’t understand how a non-verbal person might be communicating.  Once, when I got really mad I urinated in my seat, but the supervisor just thought I couldn’t hold my bladder.

“But even worse was that they didn’t support me when I began to communicate.  Maybe they assumed I was too dumb, or they simply couldn’t see what I had learned because I learned it in a different way than their methods.  The response to everything was to give me drills.  If I had a dollar for every time I had to touch my nose, I’d be rich. I remember one day they realized that I hated being told to touch my nose, so they brilliantly switched the command to “touch your head.”  I felt like a prisoner of these theories and methods…”

“On Being Silent and Liberated from Silence”

“Can you imagine silence your entire life?  This silence includes writing, gestures, and non-verbal communication, so it is a total silence.  This is what a non-verbal autistic person deals with, forever.  Your hopes dim, yet you persevere in going to ABA or Floortime (play focused treatment for autism) or speech therapy, all to no avail.  The therapists can’t help and you despair, and only you know that your mind is intact.  This is a kind of hell, I am certain.

“The experts focused on stim management, or drills of rote activities, or silly play like finding things in Play Doh, over and over, on and on.  But they never taught me communication.  I shouted to them in my heart, “I need to communicate!”  They never listened to my plea.  It was silent.

“I could read from an early age.  I could write too, only my fingers were too clumsy to show it.  In school I sat through ABC tapes over and over and added 1+2=3 over and over.  It was a nightmare…”

Ido writes how when he was seven years old his mother supported his hand in an effort to have him help write invitations to his birthday party and how she could feel he was attempting to move his hand and in this way realized he could write.  But things did not immediately change.  No one believed him or his mother.

“My ABA team tried to convince my mom that she was wrong.  This hurt me so much because I thought they’d be happy for me and teach me how to communicate better.”

My daughter has asked that I read Ido’s book to her, so I am.  It has opened up a whole discussion about communication, what it means to not be given the tools to do so, what is autism, what it means to be autistic, being in a body that often does not do as one would like and what others believe as a result of actions you often have little if any control over.

Ido

44 Comments

Posted in Autism, Autism Books, communication

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Another Way to Silence – Shame

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 26 comments

Shame has a long and twisted history.   Over the centuries it has been used to coerce, to convert, to make people compliant, to keep people in line.  I’m not sure there is a “healthy” aspect to feeling shame, though I may be in the minority here as this article states, “Embarrassment and shame are important in the regulation of social behavior. Both emotions tend to occur when rules have been violated.”  But what if those “rules” are not actually in place for the good of ALL?  What if those societal “rules” serve the majority, but actually are a disservice to a minority?

The argument that without shame we would all resort to violent, unethical and amoral behavior is one I don’t agree with.  Plenty of people behave badly who are filled with shame, often as a direct result of the burden of shame they live with, but usually those who feel tremendous shame hurt themselves more often.  I question how often shame, actually motivates us to respond in positive and constructive ways.  In most cases, it seems to me, shame is less a controller of bad behavior and more an instigator of self-betrayal and self harm.

Shame is what people feel who have been on the receiving end of violence, violations, betrayal and abuse.  Numerous studies have linked shame with depression, suicidal ideation, post-traumatic stress, rape and incest.  The very people who could actually use a little shame appear to be without, while those they victimize carry the vast portion of it.  In these cases, shame is the emotional equivalent to metal restraints, intended to keep people in check, compliant and silent, particularly when used on children or a group of people who are already in the minority.

Many of the methods used, with supposedly great success, on Autistic children, has created a population of adults who feel tremendous shame, lack self-esteem, feel inferior, have anxiety, live with ongoing debilitating stress, all of which exacerbates the very “behaviors” these therapies attempted to remove.   The unending destructive cycle shame creates, does nothing positive for anyone, least of all our children.

I believe shame keeps us from flourishing.  It causes us to doubt, to become hyper aware, self-critical of our desires, our urges, our instincts.  Shame makes us feel incapable, unable, frozen and of little value.  From my perspective, shame is far more damaging than it is “healthy”.  Shame is exactly what I do not want my children feeling.  Ever.  In fact, shame is a warning sign that something has been taught improperly.  If either of my children exhibit shame about something, it is a signal that more needs to be discussed.

I do not want my children behaving in a certain way because they feel shame if they don’t.  I want my children behaving in a kind and loving manner towards themselves and others because they have learned it feels good to do so, because they have come to see that self-seeking, hurting others, gossip, betrayal and acts motivated by resentment and vindictiveness lead to more harm and like-minded behavior. All behavior is infectious.  All behaviors, good or bad can provoke others to do the same.  I am not naïve enough to believe it’s a given, but I do know that I like myself far more when I am kind and being of service than when I’m not.

I hope my children are learning the antithesis of shame and silent compliance, which is a strong sense of self-worth.  I want them to know now, while they are still so young, the beauty and joy of a healthy sense of self, that wonderful feeling of liking who they are as human beings, that feeling we are born with, but that over time can be taken from us.  I want my children to be in touch with those wonderful feelings of curiosity, awe and joy, so that when they make mistakes they aren’t destroyed by them, overwhelmed with shame and become silent.  I want to bolster them up, reassure them, encourage them, support them, so one day, they will be able to give hope and encouragement to someone else who may desperately need it.

Emma – three years old – 2005 

2005

26 Comments

Posted in Autism, Parenting, Self Injurious Behavior

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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

211 Comments

Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting

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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.

20 Comments

Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting, Stanley Greenspan

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The Path Leading Away From Hell

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | 4 comments

In the last few months, Richard and I have been hit with a surge of information, ideas, alternate ways of thinking that have completely upended our goals for Emma and our thinking regarding autism.  (In the best possible way.) I have written about these shifts in past posts – The Evolution of  a Perception and A Different World, prior to that Waging War where I was still straddling the fence but was getting close to seeing Emma and autism in a new and, I believe, improved way.

A few things have occurred to me in recent weeks, please read this as it is meant, which is as a description of the process, a process I am grateful for.  Some of the words I use are often misunderstood, they have been by me, this is the beginning of that process.  Tomorrow I’ll try to finish this post, but for now this is the beginning…

There were a number of factors that increased my terror at the word “autism” beyond the grim way in which the diagnosis was delivered, the less than hopeful and helpful “advice” given to us.  There were a couple of things I read or was told that have remained etched in my mind.  Such as the pediatrician who advised me to – “Get on with your life.  There’s nothing you can do,” was equally as destructive as reading Catherine Maurice’s book, Let Me Hear Your Voice about how her two children on the spectrum lost their diagnosis with an aggressive ABA program.  That book was the first of many “recovery” books I consumed like a starving person confronted with an all-you-can-eat-buffet.

Whether it was a diet, the vast number of biomedical interventions we tried, behavioral therapies, 40 hours of ABA, 10 twenty minute sessions of DIR/Floortime every day…  you name it, we tried it.  Pursuing these interventions was akin to hitting my head against a brick wall over and over and over again.  In fact, nothing seemed to make much of a difference, and it was that fact that continued to propel us down the “searching for recovery” road for as long as it did.  Because nothing we did seemed to cause any long term continuous progress, in fact at certain points during her ABA program Emma actually regressed, we started looking for more and more radical “alternatives.” Until finally I remember feeling, exhausted, utterly exhausted, physically, emotionally, spiritually, it was as though I’d come to the end of a grueling trek and faced yet another mountain range, there was no breathtaking view from atop some majestic peak, just more of the same and I just couldn’t do it any more.  I was spent.  We had just returned from a third trip to Central America for stem cell treatments, saw very little change and weighed the risks (which were enormous and like a flashing red question mark in neon lights) we said to each other, how much longer can we do this and at what cost?

It was at this point that we found a literacy program that seemed to really help Emma beyond anything we had tried thus far.  At the same time that we embarked on the literacy program, I continued to hold out hope that some sort of biomedical intervention would help her as well. *I am adding this now a year and a half later. –  It is with great regret that we embarked on the literacy program instead of using RPM as this has been what has worked more than anything else.*

This past fall like a burst, one final spark of frantic energy I took Emma to a Naturopath who’d been recommended to me, and put Emma on one more radical “diet” not GAPS, but damn close, pulled the few things that she loved to eat from her diet, saw her lose so much weight it frightened me as she refused to eat anything, and after six weeks of hell, said, enough.  We put everything back into her diet, saw no change at all, and then felt all the guilt that accompanies these failed interventions all over again.  I just couldn’t believe I’d put her through that yet again, (the first time was when she was first diagnosed and two years old.)  All those “suggestions,” the well meaning advice, the referrals to the “miracle” doctors who were recovering kids left, right and center, it was a pandora’s box I just kept going to and opening over and over and over again.  You’d think someone with intelligence (I like to think of myself as that hypothetical someone) would have said, if this guy is such a genius why isn’t he on the cover of Time Magazine, why is it that no one has actually heard of this person, this intervention, this whatever it was?  But I didn’t.  I kept trying different things.  The allure, the seduction of finding the “thing,” the miracle was so great, all rational thinking was suspended again and again.  Add to that – desperation, which actually doesn’t describe what I felt, I was beyond desperation.  I was beyond crazed.  I was on a mission from some other universe.  Nothing was going to stop me from “fighting” for my child. I was determined; I was going to find the thing that would “cure” my daughter.

And after all of that, I didn’t.
And after all of that, it turns out, I couldn’t.
And somewhere deep, deep down, I felt I’d failed her.  To stop trying to find a cure that would remove what plagued her, what caused her to not be able to articulate what she was thinking, was to give up on her.  To stop the search was like leaving her to a future of wordless, silent dependence.  Institutionalization, upon Richard and my death, was her future.  Of that I felt certain.  Who would take care of her?  Who would help her?  Who would hold her when she was sad?  Who would be there to sing and dance with her?  Who would even allow her to listen to the music that seems to feed her soul?  Who?
We are fortunate in that Emma’s long time therapist, Joe and his wife, had agreed that for as long as they were alive they would take care of her  should something happen to us, but that did little to quell my fears.  What about when they both died?  I asked myself.  What about then?
To be continued….
To read Emma’s profile in The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, click ‘here.’
To read my most recent Huffington Post, click ‘here.’

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Posted in Alternative Therapies, Autism, Parenting

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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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Posted in ABA, Autism, Parenting

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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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Posted in ABA, Autism, Dr. Marion Blank

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The Diet

Posted on November 14, 2011 by | 6 comments

It’s been a month.  Last Monday I wrote that it had been four weeks and two days, I was wrong.  It just felt like it had been a month.

One month ago, on October 16th we began Emma on a GF/(modified) CF/ soy free and a great many other free diet.  This is our second go around with this diet.  The GFCF diet was the first thing I did when Emma was still two years old, to no noticeable change.  However, that first time she began eating a great deal of soy – soy yogurt being her favorite.  I was working with a DAN doctor at the time who tested her for hundreds of foods but never said anything about all the soy she was eating.  So after three months we took her off the diet and again saw no change.  This time I’m working with a naturepath/physician who also tested her for hundreds of foods.  This time, the list of foods to avoid was much longer than the first: cocoa, corn, potatoes, chicken egg whites, all red skinned fruits and vegetables, bananas, peanuts, onions and garlic.   Emma did not test negatively for wheat, but he advised we take her off it anyway, just to be safe.  Oddly, she also didn’t test negatively for sheep and goat’s milk, so we’ve allowed her to have sheep’s milk cheese, sheep’s milk yogurt and duck eggs.

Still we have witnessed very little change in Emma.  We’ve grown used to this.

I keep thinking I’m going to find something, something that other families have tried with significant results, but so far, other than Emma’s literacy program, we have not.  It’s frustrating to try various things and see little, if any, change.  As I’ve written before, we think we are seeing an increase in physical affection, but it’s hard to say this with certainty.  We have definitely not seen a profound change of any kind causing us to feel without a doubt that this diet has done anything.  Still I will give it more time.

Why some of these interventions work for some children and not others is something that’s been debated for awhile.  Why is it some children are mainstreamed after a few years of intensive 40 hour a week ABA, yet for children like Emma, they were not helped?  How is it that some children go on a GFCF diet and within days are transformed from a screaming, frustrated, incoherent child to one who is speaking in full sentences, playing with toys in an “appropriate” manner and displaying a never before seen curiosity of those around them?

It is easy to blame oneself, but I don’t believe that is the answer.  I know of too many cases where the parent has tried a great many things only to find their child did not respond.  I wonder whether it is the children who do respond, who are the exception.  While this thought depresses me, I have to wonder whether it isn’t more accurate.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to – www.Emma’s Hope Book.com

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