Treating autism 'right the first time'

[HuckleB]

Treating autism 'right the first time'

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25494

"Autism therapy is bedeviled by unpredictable outcomes. Even with the best behavioral treatments, which are the only ones to have been scientifically demonstrated to work - says Laura Schreibman, professor of psychology and director of the Autism Research Program at the University of California, San Diego - some children improve dramatically, some only somewhat and others not at all.

Many families try one thing after another, losing precious months before hitting on the therapeutic method best suited for their autistic child. Given the importance of early intervention, Schreibman said, "we need to get it right the first time."

A new study coauthored by Schreibman and recent doctoral graduate Michelle Sherer successfully matches autistic children with an appropriate therapy. Published in the June issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the study is the first to develop and test a predictive profile of children likely to respond to a particular treatment, in this case Pivotal Response Training.

PRT is a child-directed behavioral intervention developed by Schreibman and UC Santa Barbara colleague Robert L. Koegel. Focused on improving a child's motivation and responsiveness, PRT targets language skills, play skills and social behaviors that can be generalized to a natural, non-lab setting.


..."


Sounds like a worthy direction, anyway.

[Gothmog]

1. My wife worked on an Autism replication study

She got really close to one of her clients. This was a Lavoss (sp?) replication study that had some success. It is amazing the results that can be achieved if the right therapy is used.

[Shrubhater]

2. Nowadays I've heard that autism spectrum disorders

can be discovered at infancy.

[HuckleB]

3. Indeed. It appears that we're on the way to it, anyway.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/05/06/autism_study_suggests_earlier_detection/

[VegasWolf]

4. The religious right will call them witches and burn them as in the past.n/

[HuckleB]

5. ?

:shrug:

[Dervill Crow]

6. Call who witches? The autistic patients or the therapists?

[VegasWolf]

10. The autistics of course! Being autistic is one of the 111 signs of

posession! This is what I heard at Holy Rolling School anyway.

[KamaAina]

11. Then it's true! I'm going to hell!

I may be going to hell in a bucket,
But at least I'm enjoying the ride...

[cornermouse]

7. No they won't.

While its true they don't know how to deal with children who are autistic, or retarded, or disabled in other ways, they usually just hide them somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Then they don't have to find a way to deal with them.

This is yet another reason why they should never have gotten suckered into Bush's Faith-based Initiatives. Most of them have no accurate idea of how much these children NEED in the way of physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, learning aids, and trained personnel.

[hunter]

8. There is a critical period for learning language.

Kids younger than four or five learn languages easily. You don't want to miss that window of opportunity, especially in autistic kids who may not otherwise be paying much attention to people.

[KamaAina]

9. This therapy appears to be an improvement to ABA

applied behavior analysis, which is itself an updated version of what they used to call "behavior mod" back in the '70s.

So, it isn't really the bolt-from-the-blue, Salk-vaccine type of cure that the media, and many parents, are slobbering over, but rather a potentially important new intervention for children with autism.

My goodness, between this and the oxytocin study, we certainly are dominating the headlines today! I'd sure hate to think that we might become this year's version of shark attacks..