As an autism consultant, I have observed that families struggle with the overwhelming amount of information and recommended treatment options for their children. While I don’t believe that any one approach addresses all the needs of a child or family, I have seen the effects (both positive and negative) of enough approaches to appreciate the principles that seem to lead to the best results. In my quest to get to the ‘root’ of obstacles to my client’s progress, I have been trained and certified in various complementary modalities over the past few years. This list is a summary of some of my observations on what is most helpful in working with families through a variety of developmental approaches:

1. Treatment is heart-centered: all caregivers (parents, babysitters, therapists) and service providers should ideally come from a place of loving and supportive energy. (Not to be confused with celebrating for no reason).

2. Family priorities are established in the admission process to guide treatment goals.

3. Treatment goals are directly related to functional improvements in the child’s and family’s quality of life. (A kid in Florida doesn’t need to know what a sheep is when he doesn’t know someone else is in the same room as him.)

4. The spontaneous and independent display of skills and behavior is the way in which progress should be measured; it doesn’t matter what a child does when asked if we don’t see the spontaneous generalization and use of skills.

5. Instruct parents that they don’t have to do everything at once, nor do they have to do everything before the child’s 5th birthday. The medical establishment unnecessarily stresses parents by instilling this false notion in their psyche. People grow and develop throughout their lives. Otherwise none of us would have learned to drive a car.

6. Don’t believe the “conventional wisdom”. Science is important and critical thinking is imperative. Keep in mind, however, that it takes decades before cutting-edge research is distilled into textbooks that are used to train the next generation of therapists. Most professionals who diagnose autism and make treatment recommendations have little real-world experience in the homes of families living with an autistic child. Also, it is rare to find a diagnostic professional who has a good idea of ​​the pros and cons of various treatment modalities. Just because a PhD or MD says ABA is the “only” effective therapy for autism doesn’t mean it’s true (it isn’t). It just means it’s the only one you’ve heard a lot about and probably learned about it in your Ph.D. program or med school at a continuing education seminar.

7. Autism can be considered a regulatory disorder; therefore, treatment priorities should emphasize “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing modalities that support brain and nervous system regulation. Self-regulation and co-regulation can be addressed by a combination of various mind-body approaches (i.e. HANDLE® and MNRI®) and cognitive and developmental approaches (i.e. RDI® and Miller Method®) that are very successful in getting to the root of many of the processing challenges that children with autism often have.

8. Teaching skills (ie academic, ABA, etc.) should be addressed after self-regulation and co-regulation are in progress or under development. (Self-regulation should not be confused with “compliance,” which often occurs in place of mindfulness and self-regulation.)

9. Parents should be taught as soon as possible about the concepts of regulation, co-regulation and communication to share experiences. Co-regulation is rarely discussed in most autism therapies, other than RDI®. It is critical for families to understand this concept because it is a foundation for independent functioning and communication and often does not exist in people with ASD. Instead, a pattern of compensation develops and a “pseudo-coordination” or “pseudo-conversation” occurs.

10. Beware of the tendency to “over-therapy” the child with autism. Remember that children with autism are children first. It is not ‘normal’ for a child to spend dozens of hours a week in one-sided therapeutic interactions (which much of the treatment of autism can be without understanding co-regulation, which is mentioned in # 9). It is important that children with ASD are provided with competent roles and participate in family life like their siblings. We expect children with autism to become “normal” as adults when much of their childhood does not provide “normal” experiences if they receive excessive therapy.

11. Pay attention to how the child spends his time. The brain changes and organizes itself through experience. This means that every hour that he is awake, the child with autism is practicing and rehearsing the construction of neural pathways, digging ever deeper ‘grooves’. Think about the child’s interests and how much time he spends participating in repetitive and “pointless” activities (to refer to Dr. Steve Gutstein), how much time he spends watching television or playing a video game. Parents can significantly alter the course of a child’s brain development by educating themselves about the deficits of autism and making simple adjustments in daily interactions to create opportunities for mindfulness, social participation, and creative thinking. The brain doesn’t stop self-organizing after age 5, and parents can make a significant difference in brain development by knowing a few key strategies.