ABA

[Guest guest]

Barb,

Of course your son's IQ can't be tested. How can you test the IQ of someone

who has a communications problem. For my son, I always knew there was an

Albert Einstein in there waiting to get out. When I had trouble continuing,

I would play a tape in my head that they thought Albert Einstein had Autism.

(Stories of his early life are very interesting. You can tell he was a

member of our club.) I kept telling myself that my child would be brilliant

like Albert. When that tape got old, I sometimes thought of my son as a

stroke victim that I had to teach everything to, stuff that other kids just

learned. These are just a few of the mind games I used on myself to keep

going when it was so difficult to get up every day and keep doing this.

In reality I didn't believe he would never be " normal. " Most of the things

I did were so I would have no guilt and could later tell myself I had done

everything possible for this child.

In the beginning, it was how to tell which medical interventions were

working. How can you tell if medicine is working when your child has limited

verbal ability? He spent too many years not speaking, not learning what he

should, and learning weird behaviors that helped him survive this hell. It

took many years to reteach him. When he was first diagnosed, all the

doctors (except Dr. G) told me he would never be okay, have a sense of

humor, or be able to have empathy for other people's feelings. They couldn'

t have been more wrong.

You asked if we ever took him off of the meds. We are just starting now to

wean him off the antivirals. So far so good. Before we started the

medical interventions, I was afraid to give him meds. And now I'm afraid to

stop them. Dr. G once explained it to me this way, when we were arguing

about the use of Prozac. I said, I don't give my child drugs to control his

behavior. Then Dr. G asked me if my child had diabetes would I give him

insulin? He also said if they don't help, you can always stop them. In

the beginning when I was so frightened of the meds, I finally told myself if

he was going to get better, I had to take some risks.

You asked me where I started with the behavior modification. First was

compliance, that issue is not easily resolved with our kids. I would pick

only one behavior to change and ignore the rest. If you try to work on too

many things at once, they just feel like failures. He had so many things to

learn. There is a list of reading materials in the stuff I sent. One of the

books listed is by Maurice and it talks about Behavior

Modification techniques. I would start there. You can also hire

consultants who will fly to your area to train you on how to do this. You

pay the airfare, their expenses and about almost $2,000 for a weekend. They

manage your ABA program, tell you what to teach next and give you drills to

do. When we did this, the health insurance company would not pay anything.

After was better and I had the time, I hired a lawyer and the health

insurance reimbursed us for the consultant fee of $2000, but not travel

expenses. Call me if you need any other questions answered.

Marcia

(952) 925-9803