by admin | May 30, 2019 | ABA Therapy, Parent
It can be difficult when your child gets an autism diagnosis. It is normal to have a conflict of feelings – relief at the clarity and direction the diagnosis gives you, mourning over the loss of the dreams of typical development you may have had for your child, denial that the diagnostician really understood your child, and of course, confusion over what to do next.
First of all, there are a few things that are so important to keep in mind when initially dealing with the diagnosis and to continue to remember as you raise your child.
Your child’s diagnosis and conditions are not your fault. There is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of at having a child that is not exactly like every other kid his age. In fact, there are no kids that are exactly like every other kid their age!
Don’t let the diagnosis of autism take over who your child is. Your child is not just someone with autism. He is still your child with his unique personality, interests and strengths. Recognize him and celebrate him always!
And of course, remember that autism is not a death sentence. There is so much that you can do to help a child with autism, and research is constantly enhancing and augmenting the interventions available. Reach out to see how you can help your child and dare to dream of her successes even when you may be facing regressions and challenges.
Don’t forget yourself either. Find support through a support group or from friends with children on the spectrum. Share your successes and challenges.
For information on how Attentive Behavior Care can help your child, please contact us today.
by admin | May 23, 2019 | ABA Therapy, Parent
By: Heyde A Ramirez, MA, BCBA, NYS LBA
Perhaps you had concerns for a while or maybe this is all brand new to you. Either way, here you are, now faced with the reality that your child has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. What happens now? What do you do?
For starters, take a moment. This can be a lot to digest. Breathe. Be kind to yourself. Remember, your job as a parent hasn’t changed. You are still going to be an advocate and do what whatever it takes to help your child have the best chance at the best life. Just remember you don’t have to do it alone. Your child has a team filled with doctors, teachers and therapy providers.
Has your doctor approached you about the possible treatment choices out there? Have you heard about applied behavior analysis (ABA)? I am here to tell you that ABA therapy is the right way to go! If your child can benefit from a therapy that can target the core deficits of ASD and increase his quality of life, then choose ABA. Ask for it, demand it, and make sure it’s provided by highly trained and qualified professionals.
What is ABA Therapy and How Will it Help Your Child?
ABA uses thoroughly researched strategies and procedures to change behaviors worth changing. Does your child demonstrate difficulties with communication? If your child cannot make requests for his wants and needs despite being vocal, we can use what we know about motivation and reinforcement among other behavioral principals to help your child communicate with you and the people in his environment.
Perhaps your child isn’t vocal at all and you are at a loss as to how to help your child even begin to communicate. We can use a behavioral approach to assess what, if any, alternative methods of communication may be appropriate. On the flip side, what if your child is most definitely vocal, and he engages in one-sided language or repeating words or phrases (i.e., echolalia)? We can create a treatment plan based on evidence based practices to help with these and other communication concerns.
ABA therapy also targets those social deficits that many individuals with ASD have. Whether it’s difficulties with eye contact, play skills, joint attention, understanding and using nonverbal cues, or any other social deficit, ABA can pinpoint the skills needed to alleviate these deficits. ABA employs a structured and systematic approach to targeting these skills.
ABA therapy can also be used to increase tolerance to changes, being told “No,” being asked to wait, among other important situations. ABA therapy can also be used as a way to increase the use of functional communication. After all, if your child is able to communicate with you and the others in his environment what he wants and needs in a safe appropriate manner, he will have less motivation to communicate with you by screaming, hitting, or otherwise engaging in behaviors that are unsafe, destructive and/or socially isolating.
What About Other Therapies?
As a parent, I am sure you want what’s best for your child. Perhaps you’ve searched Google or asked other parents what they have done. Maybe you’ve had a parent tell you that when they implemented a certain diet change or put their child on a certain vitamin regimen, they saw changes in their child’s behavior. Whether those changes really made a difference or were responsible for those changes cannot be determined without data and research.
The data and research supporting ABA therapy as a treatment for ASD is there, and it continues to build every day. I do caution you against treatments that have not been researched. These “fad” treatments have the potential of not only wasting valuable treatment time, but also can at times cause harm. The Bleach treatment for ASD definitely carried a risk for harm to the client, but when a treatment promises to be a cure-all, we can understand the allure. Equine therapy seems safer, and potentially even fun, but it is not a therapy that is able to target the core deficits of ASD and utilize evidence based practices in order to effect long lasting sustainable change that can be generalized across settings and people.
ABA therapy is a commitment, and hard work, for your child and the family and the team as a whole. The work put in has a great pay off; the benefits most definitely outweigh the costs. Choose ABA for your child when discussing the treatment that will be put in place. Ensure that the therapy is provided by trained professionals who have your child’s interests in mind and will provide treatment in an ethical evidence based manner.
For more information about Attentive Behavior Care and how we can help your child, please contact us today.
by admin | May 16, 2019 | ABA Therapy, Parent
By: Catherine Tsiris, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LBA
You’re Not Alone
Every parent of a child with autism knows about challenging behavior. Whether it is perseveration on a preferred topic, inflexible adherence to routines, difficulty with transitions, challenges with new people, places, or activities, to tantrums, aggression and self-harm, raising a child with ASD often comes with managing a variety of challenging behaviors. It’s so common in fact, that a Google search of “autism problem behavior” returns 45 million hits.
Parents often report that while their child works well with their ABA provider, following directions, waiting for their reinforcer, tolerating non-preferred tasks, etc., once the therapist leaves their child acts out. Why do some children respond well during treatment sessions, but act out when the therapist is not there? There could be several factors at play. Let’s look at a few of these.
Attention
During treatment sessions, your child has the undivided attention of the therapist, in addition to social reinforcement such as praise, smiles, high 5s, etc., and possibly other preferred rewards. Often, our kids act out for attention, regardless of whether the attention comes in the form of smiles and praise or corrections and scolding. While parents cannot provide undivided attention at all times, there are some strategies that can help.
Reward Positive Behavior
Catch your child being good. Rather than focusing on the negative behavior, and consequently providing attention to it, look for opportunities to celebrate and praise your child for good behavior. Whether she’s following directions, sitting quietly watching TV, doing homework, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, a plate in the sink, or anything else that you would like to see them do more often, take a moment and say “Good job putting your plate in the sink.” “Thanks for placing your clothes in the hamper.” “I love the way you are watching TV so quietly.” The opportunities are many and the more you praise specific behavior, smile, give thumbs up, hugs, etc., the more likely your child will be to engage in this type of “good behavior” in the future.
Avoid Rewarding Negative Behavior
At the same time, as much as possible and safety permitting, avoid attending to problem behavior. Practice the art of maintaining a neutral facial expression and tone of voice; parents often report that this is the hardest skill for them to master. If you need to attend to your child during problem behavior, do so without reacting. Focus on the child not the behavior. For example, avoid saying “Stop banging on the table.” Instead, redirect them quietly to another activity.
Avoid using negative words such as “no,” “stop,” “don’t,” “can’t,” etc. Instead of telling your child what they can’t do, tell them what they can do! For example, let’s say Jimmy is drawing on the wall, you can say “You can draw on paper or on the white board” presenting these options to the child.
Remember that whatever you are directing your attention to, is what you are going to get more of.
Choose Your Battles
During therapy sessions, your child may be working and behaving toward earning preferred activities or items. The ABA therapist will be using schedules, token boards, timers, breaks, functional communication training, and other techniques, to help your child succeed in learning new skills and earning those preferred reinforcers for their hard work. In contrast, it’s not always possible for parents to provide frequent rewards for following directions and good behavior to their child. There are however, a few tactics that can help.
If you do say “no,” you will need to follow through.
If we tell Jane to stop jumping on the couch, and she does not comply, we will need to go help her get off the couch (thereby inadvertently providing attention to the behavior). At the same time, Jane can escalate this into a tantrum. If we do not follow through and get her off the couch, we are essentially teaching Jane that when mommy or daddy tell her to do something, she doesn’t have to do it.
What if Timmy asks for his tablet during dinner and we say no, and he subsequently starts screaming (or engages in any other inappropriate behavior)? Do we give him the tablet when he escalates, thereby teaching him that he can get what he wants when he “turns it up?”
This “battle of wills” can easily turn into a constant stream of no’s, stop’s and don’ts, as the child engages in one maladaptive behavior after another to get attention, access to an item or activity, or to avoid doing a non-preferred task. Most significant is that the child, at best, learns that these negative words don’t mean anything, or worse, that their behavior is garnering attention from the parent, albeit negative. These words lose their value in the absence of follow up. Children quickly learn to tune it out or “turn it up.”
Therefore, it is recommended to choose your battles. If playing on his tablet during dinner is disrupting Timmy from eating his meal, or dinner is sacred family time, then by all means, no means no. However, if the parents themselves tend to check their phones during meals then perhaps this is not a battle worth putting your foot down for. In order to provide consistency to our children, we should consider which behaviors we will not accept, and are willing to follow through with, in order for the “No” to be meaningful to our child.
Antecedent Interventions
Antecedent-based interventions, commonly referred to as antecedent manipulations, are various evidence-based strategies that modify the environment in some way before the target behavior occurs. They tend to decrease the likelihood that problem behavior will occur and promote the opportunity for replacement or desired behavior to take place.
Effective antecedent interventions include utilizing functional communication training to help your child communicate effectively their needs and wants for items and activities, attention, help, or when they need a break, as opposed to engaging in maladaptive behavior; providing your child with choices regarding what they will do and when they will do it; using pre-teaching which entails providing reminders to your child that an event is coming up to ease with transitions from preferred to less preferred activities as well as changes in routines; using reward charts and token boards to encourage good behavior; implementing a behavioral contract with your child; using picture or written schedules, and utilizing visual count-down timers.
These several tips are not meant to be exhaustive. There are many evidence-based strategies that can be utilized to decrease problem behavior. Work with your BCBA® to determine your child’s triggers and the consequences maintaining his or her problem behaviors and consistently implement the behavioral interventions they recommend to decrease maladaptive behaviors and increase replacement behaviors.
For more information or to discuss how Attentive Behavior Care can help your child, contact us today.
by admin | May 14, 2019 | ABA Therapy, Parent
By: Nahoma Presberg, MS BCBA
When I was asked to write to parents about having a child with autism and how it can be a blessing, I was excited. This initially sounded like an easy task. Of course it can be a blessing. Children are always a blessing. Why would a child with autism be any different? But then I thought about it some more. How could I write about an experience that I’ve never had. I’m not a parent of a child with autism. I’m not even a parent. How could I communicate this message that I wholeheartedly believe in without stepping on anyone’s toes or making broad sweeping statements about something that I really know nothing about?
The long and the short of it is, I can’t. What I can do though, is talk about my own experiences. I can talk about working with individuals with autism and their families. I can discuss the life lessons that I have learned from people who think differently from myself. I can talk about how diversity has brought richness to my life, and how neurodiversity is a critical piece of the diversity puzzle.
I want to share with you something that my mom reminded me of years ago when we were in the kitchen preparing dinner. We were talking about jobs, college majors, and what I should do after high school. She told me that I have often talked about wanting to work with the people that most view as “difficult.” I have always been interested by the ways our systems are designed to work for particular kinds of people and those who don’t fit that mold are often labelled as being “lesser” for needing different kinds of support. She was right. This was something I had naturally gravitated to long before I knew what it meant. What I’m trying to get at is that when someone is struggling to fit in, it’s because the system made it that way and not because who they are is “wrong.”
Getting a Diagnosis
Getting a diagnosis can be really scary. Hearing that your child has autims can feel devastating. Individuals who need different support than society is used to providing automatically go through life with new and different challenges, and it can be exhausting to be constantly fighting the system to get you and your child what you both need. Due to this, working with this community has taught me a tremendous amount, both about myself as well as the human experience.
My first piece of advice is to take a step back and pause before reacting. It can be easy to have a strong initial reaction to big news and to let our brains spiral to all of the worst case scenarios. But pause. Look at your child. Remember that he or she is the same amazing, lovable kid that he or she has always been. The only difference is now you have an extra tool to help you understand them and to understand how they might experience the world.
Also, remember that autism means something very different for each person. Saying that your child has an “autism diagnosis” actually means remarkably little. It doesn’t tell you anything about what their skills are or what they can bring to the table. It just means that they fit within a class of people that meet the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism doesn’t mean that there are suddenly all sorts of things that they can’t do. It just means that there may be ways that you will need to adjust your current way of looking at the world in order to help meet their needs in specific ways.
Become an Advocate for Your Child
Put on your boxing gloves, and get ready to fight. Remember that it’s not your child’s fault that he or she needs support that the world doesn’t know how to give him or her. Advocate for your child. Tune in to what they need, and fight to get them just that. Find a community that can give you emotional support. Seek out parents who are going through similar experiences. They can serve as a critical support team if the system fails you or when you have a really rough day. They can also help you navigate the advocacy work by sharing experiences and learning together.
Don’t forget to give yourself a break. Advocacy can be all consuming, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. Give yourself time and space to just take care of yourself. And do that often. You deserve it.
For more information or to discuss how Attentive Behavior Care can help your child, contact us today.
by admin | May 2, 2019 | ABA Therapy, Company News
By: J. M. Coimbra, MS, BCBA, LBA
The Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT) is a not-for-profit organization aimed to improve the lives of people with autism by providing a reliable source of easily-digestible, empirical and science-based information on the current best-practices for the most effective and ethical treatment, education, and care for individuals with autism.
What Does ASAT Do?
ASAT offers guidance to all audiences, from parents of newly-diagnosed children, educators, behavior analysts, paraprofessionals, members of the media, and even to medical professionals, who may deliver those initial diagnoses. Since its start in 1998, ASAT has produced and distributed a quarterly newsletter that reaches over 10,000 consumers in 95 countries and in 6 languages, published monthly blogs, participated in several professional events (e.g., Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) Convention or New York State Applied Behavior Analysis (NYSABA) Conference) and parent conferences, broadcast dozens of interviews, and built relations with several organizations in the form of sponsorships.
Additionally, over the last decade, ASAT has served as an advocate for the use of scientific methods, opposed to fad-treatments, “miracle cures,” and other pseudoscientific therapies. ASAT combated inaccurate newscasts by letters and posts and recently doubled the size of their database to promote science-based autism treatment to students. The need to promote evidence-based, scientific practices may never have been more critical than as in the present.
Pseudoscientific and inaccurate information about autism easily and quickly spreads and contributes to negative outcomes (e.g., an increase in the number of children who do not receive vaccinations, Burgess, Burgess, & Leask, 2006; Hill, Elam-Evans, Yankey, Singleton, & Kang, 2018). Strategic partnerships establish a united front to advocate science-based treatment and illustrate the positive effects of those treatments (e.g. skill acquisition and behavior reduction through methods rooted in the science of applied behavior analysis, ABA).
Attentive Behavior Care & ASAT
Attentive Behavior Care (ABC) is an agency, whose goals align with ASAT. Each individualized treatment program is designed by a competent behavior analyst, who endeavors to improve the lives of children diagnosed with autism, while upholding all of ABC’s core values: delivering effective treatment rooted in evidence-based practices of ABA, shaping new, meaningful skills of social significance, making specific, clear interventions implemented with high fidelity, increasing opportunities for meaningful and rewarding activities and relationships, maintaining ethical conduct congruent with the best-practices outlined in the behavioral treatment and considering requirements determined by other professionals (e.g. other medical needs), and maintaining training and continued education for updated best-practices.
With integrity, ASAT has been a pioneer for other organizations serving to help those affected by autism and their networks of family members, caregivers, educators, etc. The work done by ASAT has had an immeasurable impact on the community. Given our aligned values and goals and with reverence, Attentive Behavior Care (ABC) supports ASAT as benefactor sponsor.
Together, ASAT and ABC tackle several shared objectives: improve lives, increase awareness of accurate, scientific, evidence-based methods of treating autism, present as beacons for information and support to families, professionals, and paraprofessionals alike by blogging, attending professional events, and hosting events for parents, foster collaborative relations among organizations in our united front against misinformation and harm, service diverse communities, and expand the scope of ABA and treatment of autism to meet the ongoing and dynamic needs of individuals from first-day diagnosed to first-day at a job.
References:
- ASAT Website: www.asatonline.org.
- Burgess, D. C., Burgess, M. A., & Leask, J. (2006). The MMR vaccination and autism controversy in United Kingdom 1998–2005: Inevitable community outrage or a failure of risk communication? Vaccine, 24, 3912–3928.
- Hill, H. A., Elam-Evans, L. D,. Yankey, D., Singleton, J. A., & Kang, Y. (2018). Vaccination coverage among children aged 19-35 months – United States, 2017. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 60(40), 1123-1128. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6740a4External.
For more information about Attentive Behavior Care and how we can help your child, please contact us today.
