ReaderQuestion: I am wondering if you could give some advice about what parents should do once there child is diagnosed. Never having a child with special needs in my family, I just have no idea what additional steps parents need to take. Are there support groups? Do parents need to find a specialist? Do parents need to make any changes to their home environment? Where are some places to find information about how to best raise a child with special needs?
Once you a have diagnosis for your special needs child that is when the hard work begins and you must move forward. We were able to find our son treatment through the local University who had an Early Intervention program for children under two with Autism. Now in other cases of special needs the kind of treatment required depends on first the disorder or delay and second the age of the child with the special needs. One thing that most delays or disorders have in common is that early diagnosis, intervention, and treatment can reduce severity of delays, behavioral struggles, and future issues. This is strongly supported by the Journal of Pediatrics, who in their article stated “positive outcomes for early and intensive behavioral and developmental intervention in cognitive performance, language skills, and adaptive behavior when delivered over substantial intervals of time (i.e., 1–2 years)” (McPheeters, et al., 2011) . To simplify, the duration, the speed, and intensity of treatment all contribute to better results for your little one.
Now I would like to go over some of the best treatments for young children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). I do have to cut my response down to one disorder and a few treatments since there is way too much information to fit into one Blog post, so I do apologize for that. With Autism there can be more that one area in development that needs treatment. Motor skills can become delayed, speech, and there may also be a lack of appropriate social skills. To find the areas that your special one needs help with you can meet with the regular pediatrician. They will evaluate whether they have met the age-appropriate milestones. If not they will then point you in the right direction for the required therapy or perhaps you will need to locate them on your own.
Motor Skills- Some areas that children with ASD my need help with are poor muscle tone, balance, posture, and coordination, these are large motor skills. Next would be the small motor skills, these skills are used to coordinate the movement with the hand or wrist. When children struggle with small motor they need help with writing, cutting, coloring, and perhaps even feeding themselves. For these skills to be mastered it will require physical therapy with a professional.
Personal Example: I loved the use of hand on hand practice of fine-motor skills with my son. By guiding him he understood better what I wanted him to do with the paper and pencil.
Language Skills- Early intervention in this area can help your little one to talk, use more words, use words appropriately, process what you are saying, and to express feelings and thoughts. This therapy is done with a speech and language pathologist.
Personal Example: Demonstrating sign language to our son was very helpful when he couldn’t speak. By showing him the sign while saying the word gave him two options of communication, show us or speak to us. Although it took him till he was age 4 to speak I believe it was due to this method that he eventually mastered beginning speech.
Social Skills- ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) is the best tested method of help for social and other skills when it comes to Autism. In a study done in the Pediatric Journal they compared differing treatments for ASD and found ABA to have “revealed greater improvements in cognitive performance, language skills, and adaptive behavior” (McPheeters, et al., 2011) . Also in The Autism Sourcebook the ABA method is supported by more research than any other Autism treatment to date (Siff, 2005) . This therapy uses a handful of different procedures to help children with ASD learn new skills. They break tasks into small pieces and when the child responds appropriately they will be rewarded. If they don’t respond then there is no punishment, but the child will receive no reward. This therapy can be used by therapist when they are directing the play, or when the child wants to direct the play. Through ABA children can learn how to play with others appropriately, how to communicate in to others, and how to form a relationship with others. They use peer-modeling, activity schedules, and aides for support during treatment according to the Autism Sourcebook (Siff, 2005) . Every state has an early intervention program, but in different states there are differing offices that run the program. So if your pediatrician doesn’t have a clue, you can contact the school district they will tell you who to contact.
Parent training is another method for treatment of ASD. When a parent knows how to help their child they feel more control over the situation and the child reacts more positively and more frequently when their parent is the one doing intervention. “Less-intensive interventions that provide parent training also may be useful for younger children with ASDs, particularly for improving social communication, language use, and, potentially, symptom severity and family functioning”, according to Pediatric Journal (McPheeters, et al., 2011) .
Personal Experience: I was able to attend therapy with my son where we had parent training in ABA. I remember trying to get eye contact while saying his name. Over and over I would say “Leo, look at me. Leo, Leo, Leo, look at me.” with no response. Then one day he suddenly looked me in the eyes and I started clapping and handing him the toy he had earned, followed by hugging and kissing. From then on every 3rd of 4th try he would look up. There was of course more resistance and struggles but I knew ABA was the answer we had been looking for after that. I knew this because he had never willingly looked into my eyes before, I loved that moment.
In conclusion I just want to restate that the earlier you get treatment and if you stick to it long enough you will get results. Also I do realize that not every treatment works the same for every child. So you have to find what fits best for you and your special child. There are countless other interventions and treatments out there I simply listed my favorites and the ones with strong research to validate their methods.
Good luck and hang in there, you will see results.
-Crystal-
Works Cited
McPheeters, M. L., Sathe, N. M., Warren, Z. P., Foss-Feig, J. H., Glasser, A. B., & Veenstra-VanderWeele, J. M. (2011). A Systematic Review of Early Intensive Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Pediatrics, 1303-1311.
Siff, E. K. (2005). The Autism Source Book. New York: HarperCollins.
I am impressed by your dedication to your child and always seeking ways to help him! Positive proof of a great mom!!
ReplyDeleteThe information you provided was very helpful. I work at a domestic violence shelter and not too long ago we had a child living their who was autistic. His mom was physically there but not always actually there. She would send him down to our children's learning center frequently. I was wondering what activities could the children's advocates working in the CLC do with children who are autistic to make their transition to the shelter less traumatic?
ReplyDelete-Liz