New autism diagnosis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, as an autistic person I'm pretty offended by a lot of what I'm reading here.

Being autistic isn't a tragedy.

Parents, PLEASE focus on finding the right environment for your child-- don't focus on "fixing" the autism. ABA is abuse.

-autistic parent of an autistic child

ABA done right is far from abuse.

Yeah we read a lot about ABA and we’re very choosy about our practice. Our BCBA and RBT are fierce advocates for our daughter in her classroom. They end up educating her preK teachers (who are lovely but don’t know a lot about level 1 autism in preschoolers) about not forcing eye contact with DD since that makes her uncomfortable, of making sure not to make her “perform” and be like other kids (or better), and that they do not want her to be a robotic automaton. They shadow her in her classroom, help her with tricky transitions by providing various tools such as visuals, first then statements, self regulation techniques. And they help provide light prompting to her as she interacts with peers. One good piece of advice our BCBA gave us is that whenever we worry about her behavior and she’s in a group of peers, take a look around and see what the other kids are doing and if they are acting similarly then she’s acting like a typical 3 YO. This was helpful because 3YO can be a tough age generally! They’ve also do weekly parent training with us which is mostly a listening session to hear what’s going on at home and to brainstorm ways we can support DD.

OP, we also do speech (private 1x per week, IEP 1x per week) and get a sped teacher to come to her classroom 1x per week. ABA is 2x per week. All done at her private preschool. And 90% is push in and helping with social pragmatics where she struggles most. She’s made great strides! I was very sad for many months but then it cleared and now I am more worried how others may treat my DD for being different. But she’s totally awesome and has a bright (if unknowable—like all kids truly) future.

Please share your providers’ names

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, as an autistic person I'm pretty offended by a lot of what I'm reading here.

Being autistic isn't a tragedy.

Parents, PLEASE focus on finding the right environment for your child-- don't focus on "fixing" the autism. ABA is abuse.

-autistic parent of an autistic child

ABA done right is far from abuse.

AGREED!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, as an autistic person I'm pretty offended by a lot of what I'm reading here.

Being autistic isn't a tragedy.

Parents, PLEASE focus on finding the right environment for your child-- don't focus on "fixing" the autism. ABA is abuse.

-autistic parent of an autistic child

ABA done right is far from abuse.

Yeah we read a lot about ABA and we’re very choosy about our practice. Our BCBA and RBT are fierce advocates for our daughter in her classroom. They end up educating her preK teachers (who are lovely but don’t know a lot about level 1 autism in preschoolers) about not forcing eye contact with DD since that makes her uncomfortable, of making sure not to make her “perform” and be like other kids (or better), and that they do not want her to be a robotic automaton. They shadow her in her classroom, help her with tricky transitions by providing various tools such as visuals, first then statements, self regulation techniques. And they help provide light prompting to her as she interacts with peers. One good piece of advice our BCBA gave us is that whenever we worry about her behavior and she’s in a group of peers, take a look around and see what the other kids are doing and if they are acting similarly then she’s acting like a typical 3 YO. This was helpful because 3YO can be a tough age generally! They’ve also do weekly parent training with us which is mostly a listening session to hear what’s going on at home and to brainstorm ways we can support DD.

OP, we also do speech (private 1x per week, IEP 1x per week) and get a sped teacher to come to her classroom 1x per week. ABA is 2x per week. All done at her private preschool. And 90% is push in and helping with social pragmatics where she struggles most. She’s made great strides! I was very sad for many months but then it cleared and now I am more worried how others may treat my DD for being different. But she’s totally awesome and has a bright (if unknowable—like all kids truly) future.

Please share your providers’ names

Couldn't agree more and whoever wrote the above sounds like our life exactly - except we do not have an RBT. Our kiddo is also a preschooler and in a private setting right now - I wish we could connect offline because we have not pursued the IEP/ISP but our DS has (SPT 2x/week, BCBA 3x/week, OPT we need to incorporate), for the other PP asking for providers - ours is from Capital ABA LLC, I would look into their website, the owners is really great at navigating the whole process with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, as an autistic person I'm pretty offended by a lot of what I'm reading here.

Being autistic isn't a tragedy.

Parents, PLEASE focus on finding the right environment for your child-- don't focus on "fixing" the autism. ABA is abuse.

-autistic parent of an autistic child

ABA done right is far from abuse.

Yeah we read a lot about ABA and we’re very choosy about our practice. Our BCBA and RBT are fierce advocates for our daughter in her classroom. They end up educating her preK teachers (who are lovely but don’t know a lot about level 1 autism in preschoolers) about not forcing eye contact with DD since that makes her uncomfortable, of making sure not to make her “perform” and be like other kids (or better), and that they do not want her to be a robotic automaton. They shadow her in her classroom, help her with tricky transitions by providing various tools such as visuals, first then statements, self regulation techniques. And they help provide light prompting to her as she interacts with peers. One good piece of advice our BCBA gave us is that whenever we worry about her behavior and she’s in a group of peers, take a look around and see what the other kids are doing and if they are acting similarly then she’s acting like a typical 3 YO. This was helpful because 3YO can be a tough age generally! They’ve also do weekly parent training with us which is mostly a listening session to hear what’s going on at home and to brainstorm ways we can support DD.

OP, we also do speech (private 1x per week, IEP 1x per week) and get a sped teacher to come to her classroom 1x per week. ABA is 2x per week. All done at her private preschool. And 90% is push in and helping with social pragmatics where she struggles most. She’s made great strides! I was very sad for many months but then it cleared and now I am more worried how others may treat my DD for being different. But she’s totally awesome and has a bright (if unknowable—like all kids truly) future.

Again couldn't agree more - it took us about a year to pick the right practice, many of which are out of network sadly, but I asked a million and one questions and I'm constantly discussing these forum topics actually and the lack of information on more "new aged" ABA with our BCBA. Many are still freaked out by the original methodology of automation, memorization and repetition so things are "masked" - that's far from it at least for our preschooler. Regarding parent training training you mentioned, could you share where from: Dr. Shapiro has a bunch we have been looking at...