Reply to Autism and Overdiagnosis: Rampant, in psychologist's opinion

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]This might be good for autism, but not MERLD. It's also not good for speech in general as it teaches scripted speech instead of naturalistic speech. ABA is all about compliance.

It's about learning a behavior that can be generalized. Did you read the part where I said that speech therapy is also important? Speech therapy creates the building blocks for receptive and expressive language. Behaviorism teaches the child when to use speech and rewards the child for using speech, even if it's difficult for the child to do so and he/she would prefer to avoid it.

That will work for MERLD. I think a lot of people with MERLD don't want to try ABA bjust because they are so very heavily invested in their kid NOT having an ASD, and it's a therapy that they associate with ASDs in their head. There's a huge stigma against ASDS among MERLD parents. There may be kids misdiagnosed as having an ASD when they really have MERLD, but there are plenty of kids who have an ASD whose parents insist on labeling as MERLD because they are so very, very terrified of the ASD diagnosis.
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Wow.  You're carrying a lot of baggage and projecting a lot.  IME dealing with a HFA child is often a lot easier than one with a severe case of MERLD.  I'm sure it's also a lot easier to raise a kid on the mild side of MERLD than it is a kid on the severe end of ASD.  I've got both and I can tell you the therapies for the severe MERLD kid are more expensive/intensive than my HFA kid and it's far more difficult to get appropriate services/support in school.  And, because it seems you harbor suspicions that MERLD parents are avoiding the ASD diagnosis, my MERLD kid was evaluated by NIH, KKI and Stixrud.  All ruled out ASD even though the school is pushing it.  He has some of the same symptoms but he doesn't meet the ASD criteria.  We're not avoiding a diagnosis, we just want an appropriate one.

When any of my kids have behavioral challenges (I've got NT kids as well), we often use the 'behavioralst' approach to get the behaviors we want (it's also effective in the workplace, too).  You are correct this approach works in getting kids to speak.  However, refusal to speak isn't a hallmark MERLD.  MERLD isn't a behavioral issue, it's a neurological issue.  ABA doesn't address the neurological deficits that cause MERLD.  Breaking speech down into individual components may help kids with MERLD learn phrases but as the PP noted, it leads to scripting and rote sentences.  Those have their purposes ('please' and 'thank you' start out as scripting/rote phrases) but doesn't lead to true acquisition of speech and language.  Scripted/rote speech isn't appropriate outside of very structured environments.  It fails during spontaneous speech/situations.
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