Whats worked for Munchkin?

Its been a while since I blogged. For various reasons I've neglected my blog and apologise to anyone who may have been following to see Munchkins progress. I'll bring you up to date with this post...

I get asked a lot "what has worked for Munchkin" as she's made such incredible progress over the years. Part of me gets a little irked at times when I think a parent is looking for the "magic solution" that will "cure" their child. Lets be straight folks... there is NO CURE for autism or aspergers but there are many many therapies that will help your kiddy reach their full potential. Its also not a quick fix or something that you can throw money at to make the problems go away. Its a hard slog and somewhat frustrating at times but with hard work and a lot of input, you can make huge strides in helping your child understand and cope with whatever issues they are struggling with.

So back to the question... "What's worked for Munchkin?"

When the bottom fell out of my World and I heard the confirmation that she has an ASD, like many I took a little while to pick myself back up off the floor, dry the tears and realise that having a nervous breakdown (which allowed me to hide in my own little world for a while), or looking for the answers in the bottom of a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon wasn't going to help the situation. I needed to become her advocate, her tutor, her teacher and look for practical help. If I was to wait on the never ending waiting lists for therapies, it would be time wasted and lost forever. In this country you find yourself in Limbo, waiting for someone to come and fix the problem. DON'T! Find a local support group, if you can't get out get online support, join Irish Autism Action and get some guidance. There are many courses out there that a parent can avail of to learn how to teach your child. ABA, PECS, Lamh etc... YOU are going to have to put in the work if your child is going to reach their goals. I was lucky that I'd already done courses in Applied Behavioural Analysis and Verbal Behaviour and so had a head start in that I could set up a program for Munchkin. Be aware though that there are plenty of sharks, sorry therapists who will offer you xy&z for large sums of money with false hopes of curing your child. In my opinion, you may as well be throwing wads of your hard earned cash into the toilet. Whilst swimming with dolphins might be nice if you're on holidays, its not going to fix your baby.

We dabbled with the GFCF diet for a year and made great progress. On reflection, I have to question if it was indeed the restriction of foodstuffs or the intense ABA program I had implemented that gave Munchkin the push into verbalising and communicating. She has no restrictions in her diet now and still making forward strides.

In her Assessment of Need she had an occupational therapy assessment. I found the therapist to be very informative of what sensory issues and needs Munchkin had. I took notes on how to help and put the exercises into her home program. A year later, she was still on the "list" for therapy and my local support group Cottage Autism Network provided her with an updated assessment so we could see where she was at that stage. Some of her issues had been overcome and new ones came to light and I was then able to tailor her sensory diet and adjust her program myself. By the time she moved up the list after a few years, we had dealt with many of her issues. Boy was I glad I hadn't waited for the HSE OT slots....

Speech and Language she received when she attended a special needs preschool. She received daily group SLT and once a week she had an individual session with the speech and language therapist. Everything that they were working on in school we were also still doing at home with her.

Home Tuition. This was a godsend as we had the cream of the crop when it came to home tutors. The most amazing person came into our lives in the form of Ursula. She was the teacher in the local ASD unit and hand on heart, I will always be indebted to her. Finding a good tutor is paramount when setting up your home tuition program and we've been so lucky in the three tutors that Munchkin had. DON'T just leave it all to your tutor though. Become involved and work together as a team. As I said earlier, you can't just expect others to fix the problem and the more involved you are in all aspects of your childs program the better the outcome is going to be...

Socialisation. Hugely important! There has rarely been a day since I first suspected that Munchkin might be autistic that she hasn't been around other children. At first there was resistance and little interaction but now she has a host of kids that she refers to as her friends. Sure she might meet someone for the first time in the playground and tell me they're her best friend but hey, she's really social and interested in other kids now.

Play skills. We taught Munchkin how to play with her toys. This doesn't come naturally to a child with ASD and lack of imaginative play is a huge problem for many of our kids. Through ABA and a reinforcement schedule, she learned to play. To look at her now happily playing with her toys its hard to remember back sometimes when this wasn't the case. And as for her imagination... well its amazing!

School. She's now attending an ASD unit full time. It was a difficult decision whether to place her in the unit or not but I met with the school and they agreed that it would be a great stepping stone to mainstream next September. While she has no problems expressing herself verbally there are other behaviours that can be worked on while learning the social rules of school. They are teaching her how to transition and helping her focus on tasks etc. I know that come September, she'll be fully ready to mainstream.

Well that's whats worked for Munchkin... We've both learned so much over the last two years and continue to do so. I'll leave you with a quote from "Parenthood", a show I watched last week which struck a chord with me...

"The greatest barometer for success for children with Aspergers is their parents involvement"

The Power of Reinforcement

I've struggled lately to blog, really struggled trying to think of something to write about and the realisation hit me that this was because I had started to write for the reader, rather than for myself. When I first started blogging, I found it cathartic to be open about my feelings and talk about our journey, however, lately I have found that as I'm not "anonymous" anymore, and several people know me in person, or through my family, I'm more aware of what I put to paper. This in itself has made me cautious and I've lost the groove as such. In other words... I no longer found it reinforcing.



All autie and aspie parents will know the value of a good reinforcer. A good one can help turn a reluctant learner into an active participant in a task. We learn very early on that what we would previously have thought of as "bribery and corruption" had another name when applied using the principals of ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis).

In short, a reinforcer is an item or activity that can be used as a reward for attempting a task that will ensure that the child will attempt that task again, (or in jargon - Reinforcement is a term for the delivery of a stimulus, (immediately or shortly) after a response, that results in an increase in the future rate or probability of that response). Its something that happens to us all everyday of our lives, but we never really put a name on it. People who dislike their jobs, but who smile when they reach payday, parents who hate cooking, but who love to sit around the table with their family watching them enjoy the food they've prepared (well ok, maybe not in this house, but I do believe it happens in some houses :) The donkey who follows the carrot dangling before him... ok I'm going to far now... but you get the idea!




When you are faced with a diagnosis, words such as ABA, PECS, Lamh, Intraverbals, Mands, Echoics etc... all seem like a foreign language, and many parents are daunted by the thoughts of what they'll have to learn to help their child. Some parents might prefer to take the ostrich approach for a while, afraid of starting something they feel they themselves might not understand. The jargon and lingo are rattling around like a foreign language inside their heads and it is easy to forget when talking to the parent of a newly diagnosed autie or aspie that they don't understand the language yet. There is a fantastic introductory course in ABA detailed on the IAA blog here that if you can get to, please do. Having someone translate the jargon will help you realise that it's not an impossible task, and in fact is quite logical and makes a huge amount of sense. If your child is non verbal, there is a two day PECS course which you can read about here, and if your child is already using PECS, perhaps you might like to look at this post about the Grace App for the iPhone and gladly throw the dreaded laminater in the bin...

(right, blog post done... now for that chocolate I promised myself :)