About early intervention for autism

[Guest guest]

I agree that early intervention for autism is very important; however, what is

missed is the need for parent training, as well. I have noticed in Texas that

the parent part is often not done. It was a big help for me to have parent

training when my son was small. I think the way of doing the training has

changed since then because ideas on how to treat autism have changed greatly.

There was more emphasis on aversives and even withholding of food until the

child performed certain tasks. This is what was done over 25 years ago. But we

were also taught valuable things like how to take data like teachers do on

frequency of behaviors and duration of behaviors so we could determine how much

of a problem we were seeing and weigh how to deal with the behavior. We

observed other individuals and watched the trainers work with different

children.

I think what was also helpful was the early childhood program which worked with

children as young as three years old on learning and working with other

children.

But my point in writing in this E mail is that early intervention for autism is

indeed important; however, we need to add parent training too! It's hard enough

to parent a normal child but autism is quite another matter. Parents are too

often overlooked...don't you all agree? Martha

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