Has therapy actually helped anyone’s child with asd?

[Anonymous]

I’m feeling a little bit hopeless at the moment. We have a new therapist who is working with dc on reflexive thinking. It’s just that we have done so many therapies and while dc is doing ok ish I don’t know that I’ve ever thought - wow that really helped. Would love others povs

[Anonymous]

Some skills are just very hard for ASD children and adults to learn. The lack of skilled teachers doesn't help.

[Anonymous]

Group therapy has helped for my kid more than individual. For individual therapy, he gets too defensive and doesn’t absorb anything. From group therapy, he learned the techniques and can tell a third party exactly what to do. Slowly, I have seen him apply some of the techniques on his own but definitely no immediate “wow” moments.

[Anonymous]

Nothing helped without the right meds.

With meds, PEERs and family therapy have helped. Individual talk therapy/CBT was useless.

[Anonymous]

A very long, slow process but I think it's been helpful. If nothing else, we have a common vocabulary.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's helped my daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Group therapy has helped for my kid more than individual. For individual therapy, he gets too defensive and doesn’t absorb anything. From group therapy, he learned the techniques and can tell a third party exactly what to do. Slowly, I have seen him apply some of the techniques on his own but definitely no immediate “wow” moments.

Was this online or in person?

[Anonymous]

Medications helped. Nothing else.

[Anonymous]

No. Parenting therapy worked wonders. Therapies that work on actual skills (like OT) were beneficial. 1:1 coaching in sports and tutoring were great. Money for travel. Talk therapy was pretty pointless. I don’t think much of “social skills” therapy but at least a therapy group would be beneficial for interaction with other kids.

Basically - any therapy or tutoring/coaching that actually teaches a life skill, a fun activity, or provides opportunity to socialize is beneficial. 1:1 talk therapy is not.

Caveats: we never did speech therapy except in school. I can see private speech therapy being beneficial in some cases - but see above, that qualifies for “actually teaching stuff.” And the school social worker hours were beneficial as well. Not because of anything she could teach him but to have a trusted adult to decompress with if anything happened at school.

I truly do not believe any psychotherapy worked unless the person chooses it at can put in the work. That generally will only be for an older child. I guess I can see some forms of anxiety/phobia/ocd therapy working with a child old enough to understand the techniques and be motivated to do them?

[Anonymous]

I truly, truly think we need better *parenting* therapy to support our kids on the spectrum. To know how to handle rigidity and meltdowns and be coached and supported on that. To be coached to pick activities that might be beneficial for our kids and how to get them to agree to go. To identify the essential life skills to work on at home and make incremental plans to achieve those goals. To handle homework struggles. To stay optimistic!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Group therapy has helped for my kid more than individual. For individual therapy, he gets too defensive and doesn’t absorb anything. From group therapy, he learned the techniques and can tell a third party exactly what to do. Slowly, I have seen him apply some of the techniques on his own but definitely no immediate “wow” moments.

Was this online or in person?

In person. We tried online during the pandemic, but he was too young and it wasn’t working at all.

[Anonymous]

My DC went to a weekly social skills group from 4th grade to 11th. The person running it also did a parent group once a month or so. It really helped him. At first it was the only place where he met with people who were happy to see him. Then as they aged they talked about the issues they faced and how to deal with them. When he went to college he came back and said he was glad he had had that group because he knew what to do and he saw other kids like him floundering. The monthly parent group helped immensely too it was nice to have someone to talk through issue and work out solutions. Plus having someone be able to say ‘concentrate on x and don’t worry about y that will come eventually’ was very helpful.

DC is now living in their own apartment and working at a job he has had for 4+ years and had had promotions. He still needs to work on developing a little more on the social front, but he is in good shape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC went to a weekly social skills group from 4th grade to 11th. The person running it also did a parent group once a month or so. It really helped him. At first it was the only place where he met with people who were happy to see him. Then as they aged they talked about the issues they faced and how to deal with them. When he went to college he came back and said he was glad he had had that group because he knew what to do and he saw other kids like him floundering. The monthly parent group helped immensely too it was nice to have someone to talk through issue and work out solutions. Plus having someone be able to say ‘concentrate on x and don’t worry about y that will come eventually’ was very helpful.

DC is now living in their own apartment and working at a job he has had for 4+ years and had had promotions. He still needs to work on developing a little more on the social front, but he is in good shape.

sending you props pp. I know how hard it is to launch kids like ours. Mine is 10 and i worry every day about his ability to navigate the things you describe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC went to a weekly social skills group from 4th grade to 11th. The person running it also did a parent group once a month or so. It really helped him. At first it was the only place where he met with people who were happy to see him. Then as they aged they talked about the issues they faced and how to deal with them. When he went to college he came back and said he was glad he had had that group because he knew what to do and he saw other kids like him floundering. The monthly parent group helped immensely too it was nice to have someone to talk through issue and work out solutions. Plus having someone be able to say ‘concentrate on x and don’t worry about y that will come eventually’ was very helpful.

DC is now living in their own apartment and working at a job he has had for 4+ years and had had promotions. He still needs to work on developing a little more on the social front, but he is in good shape.

Would you mind saying which social skills curriculum they used and which practice it was through?
I am looking at PEERs and Social thinking, but it's hard to decide with my child still in early elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Parenting therapy worked wonders. Therapies that work on actual skills (like OT) were beneficial. 1:1 coaching in sports and tutoring were great. Money for travel. Talk therapy was pretty pointless. I don’t think much of “social skills” therapy but at least a therapy group would be beneficial for interaction with other kids.

Basically - any therapy or tutoring/coaching that actually teaches a life skill, a fun activity, or provides opportunity to socialize is beneficial. 1:1 talk therapy is not.

Caveats: we never did speech therapy except in school. I can see private speech therapy being beneficial in some cases - but see above, that qualifies for “actually teaching stuff.” And the school social worker hours were beneficial as well. Not because of anything she could teach him but to have a trusted adult to decompress with if anything happened at school.

I truly do not believe any psychotherapy worked unless the person chooses it at can put in the work. That generally will only be for an older child. I guess I can see some forms of anxiety/phobia/ocd therapy working with a child old enough to understand the techniques and be motivated to do them?

"Talk therapy" can and often does work on specific skills!