Anonymous wrote:I agree that most parents are willing to pour money into the therapies with the hope they will "fix" or "cure" their child.

What most parents do not seem to be willing to do - work with their child outside the therapy hours on the same type of activities that occur in therapy or they are not willing to change their parenting style to match their child. Most do not want to change from time outs and reward charts, etc to other long term approaches that are not as easy but have better results.

Holy shit! You're kidding, right? I must know over a hundred SN parents, and you've described exactly NONE of them. Are you a troll??

Anonymous wrote:I grew up with a sibling who was dx'd with "developmental disabilities" but who I am sure, were he a kid today, would be dx'd as autistic. He seems so clearly on the spectrum it is amazing that 20 yrs ago that possibility wasn't on anybody's mind (my parents never heard the word and all sorts of odd diagnoses were sugggested by specialists). Anyway, he had intensive therapy as a child and has done pretty well as an adult, attending community college, living semi-independently, and working in retail. That said, I am not convinced that the tons and tons of EI and therapy my parents did accomplished all that much and it has influenced my own low-intervention approach to raising my own ASD child. I've tried to focus on developing his strengths and balance the amount of therapy with time to develop interests and be his own self, because in the end it seems clear to me that "well-rounded" is not an achievable goal for us and developing his strengths seems more likely to pay off.

^^^^^^This^^^ I have felt the same way regarding my dd. She is 11 and has had ABA, RDI, OT, speech, etc.but not intensively. The ONLY therapies that have shown any effectiveness in my opinion, are those which take into account her strengths, not those aimed at eradicating ASD. And any therapist or therapy that does presume competence and treat my child with dignity won't work. I know this from experience. We reach NT children first through our relationships and then through our teachings. My DC deserves the same.

Anonymous wrote:I agree that most parents are willing to pour money into the therapies with the hope they will "fix" or "cure" their child.

What most parents do not seem to be willing to do - work with their child outside the therapy hours on the same type of activities that occur in therapy or they are not willing to change their parenting style to match their child. Most do not want to change from time outs and reward charts, etc to other long term approaches that are not as easy but have better results.

Um, have you been at my house or at the houses of multiple friends I have with autistic kids? Our entire LIFE is parenting a child with autism. And reproducing therapy activities at home. And making sure our other child doesn't completely suffer because of this. Maybe you know people who do what you said above, but the parents of autistic kids I know are heroes, in my book, and work their behinds off to back up any therapy the kids receive.

Anonymous wrote:

But therapy can be a necessity whether a child is ASD or not. It's better than doing nothing as the OP suggests and let it work itself out.

You and many others keep saying this, and yet science has proved this wrong for a percentage of kids. (I'm neither OP nor the PP you're addressing). It's just as good to do nothing, sometimes, according to statistically significant reams of hard data compiled by scientists with many letters after their names.

I don't know why that point keeps getting buried. ? I mean, is it painful to admit this as a parent? Are the people in denial on DCUM actually therapists who are posting anonymously?

Why can't we, as SN parents, admit that sometimes years of therapy does indeed help a condition in the long run, and sometimes years of therapy makes no difference whatsoever?

What percentage?

http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/135560993.html


THIS is why our kids need therapy. They need to be able to answer questions like "what happened?"

I grew up with a sibling who was dx'd with "developmental disabilities" but who I am sure, were he a kid today, would be dx'd as autistic. He seems so clearly on the spectrum it is amazing that 20 yrs ago that possibility wasn't on anybody's mind (my parents never heard the word and all sorts of odd diagnoses were sugggested by specialists). Anyway, he had intensive therapy as a child and has done pretty well as an adult, attending community college, living semi-independently, and working in retail. That said, I am not convinced that the tons and tons of EI and therapy my parents did accomplished all that much and it has influenced my own low-intervention approach to raising my own ASD child. I've tried to focus on developing his strengths and balance the amount of therapy with time to develop interests and be his own self, because in the end it seems clear to me that "well-rounded" is not an achievable goal for us and developing his strengths seems more likely to pay off.

Anonymous wrote:

I'm really curious why you are so obsessed with this idea that there are legions of children out there with expressive language delays being diagnosed with autism. I just don't se it. ASDs involve far more than language delays and I've never seen a child diagnosed when that was the sole issue. I have never, ever heard of a child who was misdiagnosed with an ASD and did ABA by mistake. ABA is not an easy thing to access or implement and generally the kids who are more severely affected are the ones who get it. Has there ever been a child who only had a speech delay but received ABA? Maybe, who knows? but if so it is a real rarity. Why are you so obsessed with this? What exactly is going on with your child that you have to harp on the idea that others are being misdiagnosed?

Our DX went the other way.

My child was DX's with mixed expressive receptive language disorder first, then high functioning autism. He hit all of his speech milestones on time, and could talk, he just didn't talk much. He didn't use speech for much, at all. Once he was DX'd with speech and started therapy, his speech improved greatly. It was then that his autism symptoms really came out. Once he talked more, we got a full dose of his obsessive interests. Once he talked more, we got a full understanding of how little he was grasping socially. He seemed more normal, not less before the speech therapy.

That said. He is much more functional now. He seems weirder, but he is more functional. I'm very glad we did the therapy. We didn't start until he was 6. The language thing wasn't improving on its own, for him.

If you have an ADOS and an ADI-R done, it should screen for language impairment vs. ASDs. It's pretty sensitive to that difference. It's the gold standard for DXing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of us don't want to risk it.

I have nephews whose parents refused to deal with issues such as:

- obsessions with objects
- not playing with other children
- inability to have a conversation, lacking give and take
- not engaged in class, etc.

They dealt with it by redshirting. No other interventions. They are both extremely bright but have relatively poor social skills and are doing ok: The 7 yr old is in kindergarten and the 5 yr old is in prek.

Some parents don't want the label even if it can make their child's life easier.

From your description, your nephews sound like pretty normal young kids to me.

Yikes...this sounds normal to you?

Anonymous wrote:Some of us don't want to risk it.

I have nephews whose parents refused to deal with issues such as:

- obsessions with objects
- not playing with other children
- inability to have a conversation, lacking give and take
- not engaged in class, etc.

They dealt with it by redshirting. No other interventions. They are both extremely bright but have relatively poor social skills and are doing ok: The 7 yr old is in kindergarten and the 5 yr old is in prek.

Some parents don't want the label even if it can make their child's life easier.

From your description, your nephews sound like pretty normal young kids to me.

Anonymous wrote:I agree that most parents are willing to pour money into the therapies with the hope they will "fix" or "cure" their child.

What most parents do not seem to be willing to do - work with their child outside the therapy hours on the same type of activities that occur in therapy or they are not willing to change their parenting style to match their child. Most do not want to change from time outs and reward charts, etc to other long term approaches that are not as easy but have better results.

7:33 here. Where are you getting your information? Maybe it's the crowd you're hanging with. Everyone I know with a child with a developmental disorder is looking for therapy to help, not "fix" or "cure" their child. I've been very impressed with the parents I've met with perhaps a couple of exceptions. That's not "most" parents by a long shot.

I agree that most parents are willing to pour money into the therapies with the hope they will "fix" or "cure" their child.

What most parents do not seem to be willing to do - work with their child outside the therapy hours on the same type of activities that occur in therapy or they are not willing to change their parenting style to match their child. Most do not want to change from time outs and reward charts, etc to other long term approaches that are not as easy but have better results.