The Importance of Multiple Therapies

Everyone knows I’m a biomedical girl. I’m obsessed. We saw such a drastic change in Matthew after starting the GFCF diet that, to me, it is the only way to go. And after we started seeing our DAN! doctor I became firmly entrenched in my belief that we were on the right track. Nothing seemed to work the way biomedical worked. I was hooked.

But I’m also practical and I look at as much of the evidence as I can. (And so does Larry, he is very logical.) I was well aware that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) only supports one therapy for autism and that is Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). I was also aware that ABA has a great track record for recovering autistic children. ABA can tout about a 49% recovery rate if the child gets intensive therapy (about 40+ hours a week) for a period of time (that time range is written in years, so this is a major commitment.) There aren’t a lot of other protocols out there that can boast that kind of success rate. So my husband and I decided to look into it for Matthew.

ABA is a difficult protocol to start. You need to find an ABA consultant that will evaluate your child, will look over IEP goals, and will work to develop an individualized program designed for your child to help them meet life and academic goals. We use a local company called Pieces of the Puzzle. Next you must find your own therapists. Originally I thought I could be Matthew’s therapist, but I soon found out that the time commitment and the emotional strain was too much for me. It was also good for Matthew to be exposed to other people in authority positions because that is what he will be dealing with as he moves on to elementary school.

Finding ABA therapists is, to me, one of the more difficult tasks. Typically you can not find trained therapists so you need to find applicants that are willing to be trained in ABA. We were looking for two to three therapists to cover a 15 hour a week therapy program. Our program was to be done after his half day of school and on his one day a week that he was off from school. I contacted the local Autism Society, the local colleges and even the public school system. Once we received a few resumes, I began to do interviews and found two women that we felt could work with Matthew. Then our ABA consultant trained the therapists in ABA procedures. After a few faulty starts, we lost one therapist and had to hire again, then we lost another one that just wasn’t working out, etc., we ended up with two women that have been fantastic with Matthew.

Matthew has been doing so well in his program that our consultant has had to find new programs for him to work on. She can’t believe the progress he is making in such a short time. We firmly believe in giving Matthew the strongest, broadest foundation upon which to build his academic future, so we are front loading him with a lot of kindergarten studies. Our belief is that if he is already prepared in kindergarten academics then he will not be overwhelmed and fearful, but instead he can put his energies towards social interactions where he still needs help. This way we will guarantee success in his studies which will boost his confidence and help him maintain a positive attitude towards school.

I’m not much of a sports person, and sports analogies are not my forte, but in this case I think it makes a lot of sense. You would never play just an offensive football game. You may score a lot of points but you could still lose the game if the other team has a better offensive line. You have to play defense too. I look at biomedical as the offense for our Team Matthew. Biomedical is healing Matthew and making the progress, scoring the goals! But ABA (and OT, PT, Speech, Special Ed Pre-school) is our defensive line. It is shoring up an gaps and making him stronger. It is teaching him those things that he should have been able to do naturally if he had not been developmentally delayed.

Lastly, I want everyone to know that Matthew’s ABA program is very natural. It is not the stereotypical, old school ABA program where the child sits across a table from the therapist and everything is done with reinforcers. Maybe if Matthew were lower functioning we would need that, but since he is high fuctioning we use a more natural teaching method, but its success is so great because it is a one-on-one method. I love our ABA and our therapists (and consultant). Together with the biomedical approach we are seeing major results. I firmly believe Matthew will be recovered by the time he enters the first grade.