Why ABA? My personal background and beliefs.

Today we had the Tidewater Autism Summit, where a ton of service providers in the area came with their information and families could come and see what there is in the area for those with autism from kids to adults.  It was my second year going and it, again, was a blast!  I really enjoyed getting to meet other providers, and especially picking up some information I can pass along to families I work with that didn't get a chance to go themselves.

Being there and seeing the different services made me again think about why it is that I choose to provide ABA therapy and how I got where I am.

How I got into ABA was entirely an accident.  I was just about to graduate with my BA in psychology, and my first ABA job was the only place I had sent a resume to that called me to interview.  I knew very little about autism or ABA at that point, all I knew was from a brief video I had seen in one of my classes that showed a few clips of discrete trial training that left me thinking what I have since heard many people say: "Isn't it kind of like training a dog?  That poor kid!"  I had the impression that kids with autism were cold and robotic, not very much fun.  I went to the interview thinking it probably would not be for me, but I went anyways since I had signed a lease and needed a way to pay my rent so I might as well give it a chance!  Luckily for me, the center conducts performance interviews so I had a chance to not only see what they did- but try it out.

It was amazing!  The kid they had be work with was adorable, easy to work with, and affectionate!  I worked with him for basic imitation and receptive instruction tasks for 5 stickers and after he earned the last one he crawled into my lap and gave me a huge hug.  After that, how could I NOT want to do this?

Eventually I realized that this was not just a job I was doing to get experience in order to apply to better grad schools, it was something I was (and am) truly passionate about.  I knew working with kids with autism would be a likely career, and started looking into what other forms of therapy were out there, the reasoning behind them, and the benefits of them.  If I was going to pursue this, I wanted to make sure I was learning the best ways to help these kids.

I'm not sure if it is the way I was raised, just a part of who I am, or the way I was educated starting in grade school and continuing without fail through my Masters degree, but I require proof before I will believe anything to be true.  Looking into what other therapies were out there repeatedly led me to wonder "ok, but where's the proof?" so many claims just seemed so unrealistic, with no good evidence to back them up.  If I am going to be helping someone, I want to be reasonably sure that what I am doing and what I am asking them to do is likely to actually be helpful.

ABA has consistently shown to be effective from the first studies of the Lovaas approach continuing to present day studies of more recent techniques such as those used in the Verbal Behavior approach.  Most importantly, by it's very nature ABA includes constant assessment of an individuals progress as well as assessment of the effectiveness of the techniques being used.  The continual, objective, data-driven  methodology allows us not only to know when something is working but to let us know when it is NOT  working so that we can try something else with minimal wasted time.

I would like to finish up by mentioning that this does not mean there are not other treatments for autism that may be effective, just that I choose ABA because I find it to be the most convincing.  Many other therapies that have empirical support are based on ABA principles.  Other therapies that may be effective simply have not had adequate (if any) well designed studies demonstrating effectiveness.  Objective data is the key to proving a change has occurred not just in studies but in every day practice.

For more information on different available therapies and which have empirical support, please visit the Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT) interventions page.

Signing off for now- coming soon my responses to the "ABA vs The Son-Rise Program" video series.

~KVL

Correlation vs Causation

I am really frustrated by this.  There's news reports on the jaundice study that say "jaundice increases chances of autism!" WOW.
How misleading can they BE?

I am low on time so rather than rant, I'll just link Wikipedia!  How easy is that? ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

~KVL

Autism, Jaundice, and Sunshine

This morning I came in to work and had an email from our office manager with a link to the following article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39580262/

I am not sure, to be honest, what I think about this article overall, however, some of the conclusions the individuals in the article seemed to be drawing were bothering me.

Let me preface this by saying I am an advocate of tanning both indoors and out.  I spent a great deal of time in past years reading scientific studies devoted to effects of UV exposure, and have made certain conclusions that are not popularly held due to biased media reports.  Through this, I have seen evidence of a number of POSITIVE effects of getting UV exposure and NEGATIVE effects of preventing UV exposure. 

It was stated in this article that individuals have wondered about a link between liver functioning and autism in the past.  While a link between autism and jaundice supports this hypothesis, I feel it is important to not jump to conclusions.  I also want to suggest an alternative hypothesis:

After reading the study I have read a little on the internet about neonatal jaundice, treatment, and causes.  The impression I got from this is that it may even be an unfounded assumption that there is in fact anything wrong with the livers of babies with jaundice.  It seems as though light exposure plays a natural and critical role to metabolizing bilirubin out of the body.  The fact that jaundice is more common during winter (darker) months supports my idea that it may in fact be a lack of light exposure that is a problem, either in adition to or instead of inadequate liver functioning.

Let us extend this hypothesis.  Does it not make sense that inadequate light exposure could cause both jaundice AND contribute to autism, rather than the link having anything at all to do with the liver?  Of course, both hypotheses need to be examined to see what is truly going on. 

It is critical, in fact, to look at ALL possible links rather than the most common/most popular.  Disproving links will help us narrow down and eliminate potential treatments that would in fact be ineffective, and potentially harmful.

My lunch is up and I am out of time but I would love to hear your thoughts!

~KVL

Introduction

Hi there!  I have decided to start this blog to post my views on different autism topics.  On occasion, I run across an article or other information that I feel either needs to be shared or needs to be re-thought.  This blog it to share my own personal thoughts.  Nothing I write in here in any way reflects the views of the organizations or individuals I work for or with.  I hope you find the entries here interesting and informative!

~KVL