This is about a year and a half old, but I find interesting its comparison of ABA to DIR. It seems that DIR is less focused on making kids act normal and more on getting them to relate to others and communicate. Other than the article, though, I haven't heard much of anything on DIR.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...-1,00.html
Think I've hear Kristina Chew at Autism Vox mention Floortime alot.
They don't accept stimming. The kids are told "hands down" if they flap. Is that they "don't smile", "don't laugh" when a kid is happy?
They don't accept stimming. The kids are told "hands down" if they flap. Is that they "don't smile", "don't laugh" when a kid is happy?
That was when they talked about ABA I think, and not the DIR.
They told me it created negative pathways in the brain.
Any activity that someone performs on a regular basis creates stronger pathways in the brain relating to that activity. However, stimming is hardly a negative activity. It seems most professionals and parents regard ANY autistic trait no matter how harmless as something that must be eliminated at all costs.
Sorry for the duplicate
I do triple all the time.
So did these kids raised in a "Skinner Box" turn out strange?
When I was six, five minutes felt like an hour. In elementary school (and up to high school until this year) I would miss months of school because I got burnt out so much. I don't know how kids who spend 5+ hours a day in a program like ABA can handle it without massive tantrums afterward. That was usually the case when I went to my elementary school, and I was pretty free to not interact, participate.
At least in elementary school the vast majority of the time I wasn't paying attention to the task, and would do my own thing. But I still would run around the house and fight with my sisters and a good portion of my self-injury at that time was because there was so much energy and frustration from the school day, and that was how I used it at first.
I remember when I went to first grade in '97 at a new school and a new place that they were worried about the fact I wouldn't talk to people in class and about my concentration problems, as I would usually not do what I was told to do and sort beads instead. Turns out a lot of my not paying attention to instructions was because I wasn't understanding them. It still amazes me that it wasn't until 3 or 4 years later I finally went through the process of being diagnosed.
About distractions: I remember when I was in first grade and my dad started coming to my classes to help me. I'm not familiar with these formal types of programs, so I'm not sure on what a day was like. I remember when my dad would sit at a chair to the side of the room, I wouldn't be able to focus on the stuff I was supposed to do, but when he would sit next to my chair and help me along, that I was much more focused at doing the tasks, as I could get help from him when I didn't understand, and his presence wasn't for me a novelty.
"The ritualistic behavior that is characteristic of autism is strongly suppressed. "Hands down," says a teacher to a child who begins to flap. "We're not a culture that accepts that," says Taylor. "Fifty percent of the battle is addressing behavior to look good.""
I'd much rather my son was happy and flapping than a miserable wee robot who kept his hands still and trotted out standard phrases that had been drummed into him relentlessly for 40 hours a week. What kind of childhood is that? What a terrible school!
The other school sounded much more joyful - making things fun for the kids and letting them share small triumphs and activities with each other. And I noticed it was about 2/3 of the cost of the ABA school, although still expensive!
Yes, these were pretty much my thoughts. I mean, what's so horrible about adjusting the current culture to be more accepting of harmless behaviors? It would've been considered psychiatric blasphemy 100 years ago to suggest adjusting the culture to accept gay people (not that we've been wholly successful, but things are a lot better than they used to be, and it is no longer a psychiatrically blasphemous idea).
Another thing I liked about the other school was that they gave a kid something to fidget with - much more effective than "Don't do that."
Yeah, that just makes me cringe. Lucky, my dad was not given dire predictions about me and encouraged me to be an individual, that people who can't stand that aren't worth listening to. Anyone who would get distressed over that and claim that it means "not doing anything" to help kids has seriously distorted the issues.
Being suppressed from my stimming, has caused me and many people who have shared their similar experiences, to have much more constant base level stress, and takes up significantly more energy to learn and pay attention than it does when stimming. Just because someone looks attentive, and is acquiring new skills, does not mean that they have reduced the stress (usually quite the opposite) or that they are doing things most efficiently.
This is why I cannot, for instance, make eye contact - I am unable to do things like participate in a conversation or retain information or instructions, and in the case where I am able to do these things, it requires much more energy and stress. It's not the stress that's getting reduced, it's the (autistic-looking) stress responses.
As for stress and anxiety to certain degrees being normal in everyone, we are not talking about the usual stressful situations, but a continual buildup of stress and a gradual (or sometimes sudden) overload of mental faculties. Sometimes this buildup will result in a sudden loss of skills (often called "regression"). Something like this happened to me a few times, and I have fewer speech skills at age 18 than at age 13 (though granted much of my speech has always been echolalic), and fewer at age 13 than age 10.
It is like bullying: it is common and normal for people to be teased in social situations, and encounter mean people and unfair treatment. But for some (including very many autistic people), bullying is a constant barrage of insults, threats, physical attacks, stalking, theft, and exclusion, often either directly or indirectly condoned by school staff.
Unfortunately, when bullying (like constant stress) is severe, it's often brushed off because "everyone has that trouble sometimes". This was the same line of thinking that led to me getting absolutely no help from the school in learning daily living skills to prepare for living on my own at college, even though I am quite behind in these skills compared to most peers.
The opposition is not to learning skills, like improving communication (whether speech, typing, pictures, whatever), or daily living skills, or academic, but in harmless behaviors being suppressed because they are unusual. In this case, it is society that needs to be more open and accepting, and while changing societal attitudes is no simple feat, it is the more ethical approach when it is the society that causes these difficulties. And it is certainly doable, especially if there were more funding for positive awareness campaigns, so that people learn that if someone is flapping or spinning or rocking, that it's okay and they should be accepted like anyone else.
This is different from self-injury, making loud noises during class, or throwing things at people, things which it is reasonable (and particularly in the case of the first and the third, ethical) to teach people to change these.
not bullshit (biased opinion). aren't adults nervous and unhappy at times? do you think a 40 year old who "stims" to be a way in which s/he could have a fulfilled life? Not many woman would date a man who tantrum or be empathic. And the history of children on the spectrum growing up, having jobs and successful relationships is just not that great. Don't you think that perhaps developmentally, infants and children might have missed some milestones that perhaps make them anxious? Why can't we try to re mediate, provide safe environments in which the child can learn to deal with these anxieties in a more dynamic way.
It hasn't been proven to work very well and besides, most people can't afford it.