Teaching Tools for Autism

When my son was first diagnosed and we began our journey learning to help him over come the challenges of autism, one of the earliest messages we heard (and heard often) was that we didn't have to buy the exact commercial products in order to help him. We could make our own weighted vest or lap pad. We could create our own pictos instead of buying expensive sets from the companies that specialized in alternative communication.

More than a decade later, we still try to create whatever we need at home rather than to pay the hefty price tag for supplies from a company that targets special needs populations. It saves us paying grossly inflated prices, and often it means we can have an item within a day or even a few hours, rather than waiting for an order to be processed and the item shipped from a great distance.

We are gearing up to teach the Bug how to fold laundry, and so we are going to make ourselves a DIY shirt folding board out of cardboard and duct tape. While we may decide we'd like to have a more durable, plastic board in future, for now we want to just give this tool a trial.

I also like that by making our own shirt board we can customize the size to best suit his needs. We can also have several different boards - either in different sizes, or just multiple board so we can demonstrate or the other kids can fold along with the Bug - for the same cost. The cardboard is free, and there's more than enough tape on the roll to do a couple of boards.

In a similar vein, I've been taking advantage of teachable moments to create little lessons for the Bug. We have turned a number of his keen interests - like the rides at the carnival or an upcoming birthday party - into folders on Proloquo2Go. I've used these opportunities to do all manner of teaching - from showing him the ins and outs of the program or how to create his own buttons, to modelling conversational phrases he might find useful. Most recently I caught him singing a Bruno Mars song and turned that into a living skills lesson.

So how about you? Do you have any DIY teaching tools for your autistic child or student?

Crayon graphic courtesy of PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay - public domain

V is for Vest

Many people with autism also experience sensory integration problems. You may notice that your son wears long sleeved shirts and pants, even in the warmest weather. Or perhaps your daughter can't tolerate seams in socks, or tags in any of her clothes. Some kids run around constantly, jump, climb, hang upside down, or purposely bump into things. Others will squeeze their eyes shut tightly if the room is too bright, or cover their ears to block out certain sounds.

Sensory integration disorder (also called sensory processing disorder) can co-exist with autism spectrum disorders, and has also been seen in people with ADHD. It can be diagnosed by an occupational therapist (OT) who will know lots of strategies for dealing with it. One of the strategies we used with our son for many years was a deep pressure vest, as seen in the photo at right. I have written an article that gives more information on our experience with the pressure vest, and how it differs from a weighted vest. I hope you'll check it out.

It looks like all the hard work is finally paying off, and our son will soon be saying goodbye to his pressure vest forever. Right now we are conducting a trial at school, so his OT can evaluate whether he can manage without it. We had already stopped using it at home some time ago. And his use of the vest at school was reduced a fair bit too. Assuming the trial goes well, he won't use it at all anymore.

This is one of those moments we reach as parents of special needs kids, that we thought for a long time we would never see. It helps to see the progress, especially when in other areas we still struggle. We are always growing together, and looking back on the years we relied heavily on the vest to help our son deal with sensory input I feel great today. A step at a time, we're moving forward!

I'm blogging my way from Z to A in May!
You can find my "W" post at Parenting in the 21st Century.

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Universal Screening: No More Down Syndrome Children?

A non-invasive screening for Down syndrome could replace 98% of amniocentesis, claim the authors of a recent study. But advocates for families of people with Down syndrome have expressed concern that universal access to a safe, first trimester test would mean a larger number of women being pressured by doctors to terminate pregnancies if the fetus tested positive for the condition, otherwise known as trisomy 21.

Dr. Brian Skotko specializes in Down syndrome, and was interviewed for a recent Time magazine article. He welcomes the new test, but is also concerned about the potential downside. "81% of medical students reported they get no medical education about people with intellectual disabilities," says the article. Shotko wonders how doctors will counsel an expectant mother after a positive test result for trisomy 21. His own research has found that incidence of the condition dropped significantly with improved screening options, when projections based on maternal age show there should have been many more babies born with Down syndrome in recent years.

Could universal access to a safer screening mean the eventual elimination of all Down syndrome children? “As a clinician," he says, "I raise it as an open question. It's a question of which forms of life are valuable.”

As the mother of a child with autism I have been confronted with a similar question: if current DNA research led to gene therapy that could "cure" autism, would I want my son to receive the treatment? It is tough not to want the very best for our kids, and reducing the challenges they face in life is certainly an attractive proposition. But would he still be the same boy afterwards? I wonder if he would, or whether it would change him forever. Autism is part of what makes my child who he is: it is part of his world view and it has shaped his personality since he took his first breath in this world. Could I bear for him to lose something that integral to his very being? Could he?

Understanding Autism Treatment

Autism is a lifelong disability that affects not only the person diagnosed, but their entire family. When a child has autism even the simplest activities such as feeding, bathing, cuddling, sleeping and play are a challenge for parent and child. Autism is a pervasive developmental delay - that is, children with autism chronically lag behind their peers by at least six months and often more. Many begin school non-verbal, not yet toilet trained, not able to dress themselves, certainly not ready to tackle reading, writing and arithmetic. Because social interactions are impaired, it is common for them to have difficulty socializing with their classmates or understanding the rules of the classroom or playground. They may not be capable of keeping quiet in the library or during a test. Tantrums are also quite common.

Treating autism

The only medically approved treatment for autism to date is a behaviour-based therapy such as Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA - sometimes called Intensive Behavioural Intervention, or IBI.) This is often delivered in an educational setting, or in a preschool setting that places emphasis on play and social interaction. An example of the latter would be the Early Start Denver Model. Parents of kids in behavioural programs may begin to see progress in the first few sessions. I know I did with my son. But that progress was just tiny baby steps, little things like him learning to imitate a gesture the therapist demonstrated. It can be years before all the little improvements begin to add up in such a way that the casual observer will recognize a significant change.

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Early Diagnosis & Treatment for Autism

Autism diagnosis and intervention is not happening fast enough, says Dr. Wendy Roberts, autism researcher at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. She was discussing a groundbreaking American study in which children as young as 18 months received intensive intervention following the Early Start Denver Model pioneered in Sacramento, a method that combines aspects of both social and behavioural therapies. Almost 30 percent of these children improved vastly over the course of two years, compared with only 5 percent of children in a control group referred for traditional intervention in the community.

Roberts emphasized the importance of early detection in helping children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD.) Many children in North America are not diagnosed until the age of 24 to 48 months, and after diagnosis there is often another long wait before families receive intervention or other necessary services. Like many autism researchers, Roberts advocates routine autism screening for all toddlers, and beginning intensive intervention as soon as there is a suspicion of developmental delay - even before diagnosis is confirmed.

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