So Your Kid's on the Autism Spectrum

[lizzywednesday]

Please be very careful with ABA, it is not well researched and the people providing the services are often not well trained or educated, but hired and given a rigid script to basically follow.

And this is exactly what the Actually Autistic community talks about when describing their bad experiences with ABA.

It's made me EXTREMELY skeptical that it will be helpful for DD.

CBT for her anxiety? I absolutely think that will help.

ABA ... I'm reading A LOT of things that point me to "no, thanks."

[lizzywednesday]

SPAN NJ is a great community and resource. Lean on them heavily! They’re generally are against ABA too.

I have to sit with the site some more and maybe *gulp* make a couple phone calls.

How specific are her IEP goals? I can see what your brother means because sometimes the too specific goals hurt the person who needs help most than being helpful. Your DD is also at the age where she is going through huge changes emotionally and physically, so it is a lot for the typical tween, never mind a ND tween.

Well, for stuff like her speech goals, they have a specific list of sounds she should be able to master (mastery is defined as something like 75% to 85% of the time in spontaneous speech, complete with some self-correction) which is useful for that support.

For ELA, her goals are more specific because I panicked that her teachers weren't properly accommodating her needs and wanted line items to point to when they weren't following her goals. I guess I have to think about her IEP less as a contract and more as an agreement?

I’m glad you’re getting additional help and resources and finally a proper DX because I know you’ve struggled in that aspect in last few years

I just want the right plan of action for my kid to feel supported and smart.

[AnnieW625]

Just want to send hugs to you and your DD.

We finally got DD1’s IEP done this past spring and while there was no on the spectrum signs it was good to see finally how the district was planning for her educational success (she first qualified for an IEP in our old district right before Covid but it never got done). The old principal at her Catholic school could only do so much and was she was great with suggestions and when their were issues with other kids really worked with DD to find solutions and make the issues with other kids and Dd2 stop. Only a month and half in though public school so far has been the better option and it is a better experience than the prior elementary school experience she had in old district. She is also doing much better in school (currently has just about a 3.00 on her first progress report with a few weeks left in the first quarter) and she is liking school. There have been no behavior issues so that is good as well (and thankfully for the most part behavior has never been an issue). We still need to work on making her apply herself and not tell us she has no homework when it turns out she is not completing work (which I think is the work she doesn’t understand completely); just got her weekly report from her language arts teacher and there was missing or incomplete work. I need to work on strategies for myself so DD2 doesn’t dismiss what I am telling her (she has a habit of automatically getting mad and not listening to us) so I emailed the teacher and asked for ways to help and referenced her study skills class teacher who is supposed to help her with her work (which is her elective this year until she no longer needs the class) as well. My first instinct is to take away privileges like watching TV while doing homework (which we have let her do because DD1 does it), and she is still working towards the goal of getting her own cell phone.

I have no input on therapies as well but it sounds like you have some great local advice from the wise women here.

(Not sure if my post helped at all because it was about my kid and her struggles but just wanted you to know you aren’t alone).


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[niccig]

Lizzy and Annie, many students need help with executive functioning. DS was 7th grade when he was diagnosed with a medical condition and he had many absences, his medication affected his memory, and his grades plummeted. We worked with a behavior specialist and she set up routines for us and for DS.

One routine was I had an alarm to call DS at same time each day to ask about his homework. That was his cue to get on Google classroom and check each class and he had to tell me what homework he had and what was the plan (first I’ll do math then history then science). He had to get started before I got home. Then at 9pm I was to check what was done and what still needed to be done, as that gave him enough time to still work on things and submit if he hadn’t submitted it yet.I had his Google classroom logins so I could check if things were overdue and have him do them.

I did this through 8th and 9th grade and started to back off during 10th grade. I didn’t do anything junior and senior year. It was explained to me that I needed to provide the executive functioning and I would be fading out the support as he started to do it on his own. So it’s not a forever thing. But you can’t just say “go do your homework”. It did help that the behavior specialist set up the routine with DS in agreement on what I would do and what he would do.


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