See you in Hell then.

Does religion have something to do with treating autism?  It should not have, but actually it does.

 

Depending on where you live in the world, you may come across a lot of religious intolerance.  In Iraq, Muslim Sunnis don’t seem to care for Muslim Shias, in the Indian subcontinent Hindus for Muslims, in Northern Ireland some Protestants for Catholics, the list goes on.  To an outsider, the differences between the competing teachings may seem marginal, but to an insider it can even be a reason to go to war.  It has often been the case that some of those going to these extremes, do not even really understand the competing teachings of their own religion.

 

What you might ask does this have to do with Autism and the subject of my blog?

 

If you have a child with autism, or you work full-time as a carer or therapist, you will likely have experienced emotional stresses that would destabilize all but the calmest of souls.  If you are new to the subject of autism you will probably skip over this part, if not, it will surely resonate deeply.

 

As will become apparent in forthcoming posts, this syndrome is very relevant when sifting through the research papers.  Acronyms are very popular in the literature of Applied Behavioural Analysis, neuroscience and psychiatry. Being a mixture of engineer/strategy consultant/PR consultant and aspiring entrepreneur I often struggle with spelling, let alone remembering what all the acronyms mean.  In this case, I will make an exception.  I will term it Autistic Stress Syndrome (ASS) and define it as when a sufferer loses all, or part of, their rational objectivity and becomes obsessive, close minded and  perhaps judgemental themselves.  A professional suffering from the syndrome will be lovingly termed “a smart ass”.  There are of course very many well intentioned smart asses and indeed some of the most useful people you can know will be smart asses.

 

This blog is all about science.  To be a good scientist you have to rational and objective.  To be a great scientist you also need to challenge accepted wisdom, realize that you do not (yet) know everything and sometimes you might just have got it wrong.

 

In the field of managing/teaching children with autism there are several schools of thought, some of which overlap.  Here is a short list:-

 

1.    Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) / Lovaas / Verbal Behaviour (VB)

2.    Floor time / Greenspan

3.    Hannen

4.    Occupational Therapy (OT)

5.    Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)

6.    Speech  & language Therapy (SLT)

7.    Structure, Positive, Empathy, Low arousal, Links (SPELL)

8.    TEACCH

 

It is striking is that in many cases a professional specialized in one of these areas will not even want to discuss there being any merit whatsoever in the others.  As with religion, if you advocate a mix and match approach, rather than accept a one size fits all approach you will be consigned to purgatory or even hell.

 

When it comes to the field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) the religious fervour grows even stronger and science goes completely out of the window.

 

 From my own biased experience of behavioural intereventions, here is what matters:-

 

·         Earliest possible start of intervention

·         Consistency 24/7 among care givers / therapists

·        Superhuman effort to provide near constant, stimulating, one-to-one contact during waking   hours for as a many years as it takes

 

I looked into all methods and found that the choice of ABA/ VB was a no brainer.  VB is just an approach within ABA that prioritizes speech.  PECS is a communication system for non-verbal kids, that is based on the principals of ABA.   Before the child is verbal, Hannen and Floor time are very useful approaches to encourage interaction. SPELL and TEACCH have lots of good methods highlighting the need to have structure, employ visual cues etc.  If the speech therapist (SLT) can teach you and your non-verbal child PECS that would be great.  Motor skills and play skills are a key part of an ABA/VB programme; they are also part of Occupational Therapy.  The OT therapist is probably using ABA without even knowing it.