Which therapies to choose?

[Guest guest]

My son ph was diagnosed as ASD last October. He is now four and

a half years old

We then went to our local NAS branch for a few months before

discovering GF/CF/SF diet and biomed. We have been pursuing those

with good results, but we have been doing absolutely nothing on the

therapy front, which really concerns me.

I am an absolute dummy on this, and I'm looking for general advice

about which therapies, if any, to pursue.

What I am most concerned about is to help Joe to develop better

social skills, and an ability to focus / concentrate / learn, and

also to provide him with socially acceptable hobbies that give him

a sense of achievement, pleasure and self-esteem.

All of this is with the view to making it more likely that he can

lead an independent life as free of anxiety and fear as possible, and

with the maximum possibility that he can sustain a job.

Maybe it will help if I described my son ph a little, who is four

and a half years old. Sorry if this turns into a bit of a novel.

Before starting the diet, Joe was withdrawn. He would laugh and play

with his parents to an extent, but nearly all speech was echolalic

and out of context. Since starting the diet, Joe has come back to

our world much more. His eye contact is normally good, he beams and

smiles and says hello, and he constantly wants to engage his trusted

peers (parents and a couple of friends of family). He also says that

he loves us, and even that he loves his 1 year old sister Amy He

even played with another boy at softplay recently, with them chasing

each other around for half an hour, which was amazing.

Speech is now frequently in context, and he is constructing sentences

expressing what he wants, such as " Daddy to read Nemo book " or " Amy

to go to bed " or " Daddy and mummy and Joe and Amy to go see the big

trains today " . However, when saying things like that, he will mimic

the intonation of someone asking him a question (as if someone was

saying " Do you want to go see the big train today? Yes? " , and he will

often put that " Yes? " onto the end of his sentences).

Speech is still more often than not echolalic and scripting from his

stories. Hand flapping is usually present when he is enjoying

himself. No toe-walking though.

Joe gets stressed very frequently when asked to do something,

misunderstands very easily, and then gets into a cycle of

misunderstandig and stress responses for a few minutes until we all

manage to calm him down.

Conversation is not possible. Only very simple questions and answers.

Joe has never displayed some of the most disurbing physical

behaviours that I read about - so no headbanging, self-harm, harming

others, shrieking for hours, turning beds upside down etc. And he

certainly does not just stay in the corner doing his own thing

permanently. But neither is he a higher-functioning type, able to do

1000-piece jigsaws or the like.

Joe sings a lot, and I'm interested to see if he has perfect pitch,

and I definitely want to start teaching him piano, as he has always

been fascinated by them.

Joe is attending a maintsream school from with specialist autism

places. He has a statement, and the school claims to follow the

SCERTS method.

Given this description, does it help anyone to come up with a range

of therapies that I should be investigating? Are these therapies

available through the educational system, the NHS, or private?

Sorry for the length of the post - I'm really looking for where to

start here.

Many thanks in anticipation,

Simon