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This week was the season premiere of one of the shows I have a like/love relationship with: Parenthood on ABC. My love relationship is because its good TV. My like relationship is because I can’t stop being a therapist when I watch it. So true to form, I must provide lessons and strategies for playground success.
I am the first to raise my hand or nod in agreement when and if the question "Do you think current top of the line AAC devices are cost prohibitive?"
For as long as I can remember, the very popular phrase "Honesty is the Best Policy". While there are many others, I remember hearing this one frequently in classrooms, in church, and at home. It is true, honesty equals peace. And peace is priceless. Recently on a listserve to which I belong the question was posed "Do we Teach Honesty is the Best Policy" to people with social language challenges such as Aspergers. The person who posed the question went on to illustrate how this particular population may be too honest when following this rule based policy regarding honesty. While it is true that honesty does not always make everyone feel comfortable, it is needed.
I appreciate great research, well founded studies with clinically relevant recommendations that can be utilized by therapists and consumers. The topic of Bilingualism as it relates to autism or even relevant research with strong implications for bi or tri language acquisition in people with autism is a subject not well researched. However, the answer of "No, use one language only preferably English" is often communicated to families (typically Spanish speaking families) whose children have a diagnosis of autism.
Much has been said, written, with even the daytime talk show circuit discussing the movie, Waiting for "Superman". I too, have found myself in talks over dinner when the topic of education comes up. I find myself offended for those dedicated and knowledgeable educators, the unsung heroes, who educate our children everyday without praise, pay increase, or resources to do the job they are evaluated to do and passionate about doing. So on Friday evening, when a well meaning adult male decided to say that he was trying to volunteer in a school system under his own organization ...I quickly said "if you are truly passionate, then go and get certified..get licensed...go and teach". To my comment, he stated "No I don't want that full responsibility". I inwardly smiled until he said "After all, teaching is not rocket science". I then turned to him, meaningful looked in his eyes, and stated "No its not, but since the rocket scientist had a teacher, I would think twice about demeaning the profession that is responsible for educating each and everyone of us at this table". Needless to say, that there was silence and this man could not look at me for the remainder of the evening.
I read an article today posted on the web about teaching social skills. The authors of these articles are correct: We cannot leave the teaching of social communication to the teacher.
About two years ago an eight year old boy with autism who was being treated by our therapy team had a massive seizure in his sleep and died. I will always remember him because he was one of the severe children with self injurious behaviors and a great smile when he was happy. I will remember his family as his mother was trying to master the English language and did not receive all the services she could have due to the language barrier. I will remember the day I received the news that he passed away...it was right in the middle of my day..I still had clients to see after I received the news. I found that throughout that day and week...I just couldn't seem to pull myself together enough.
