Suppernanny and Autism

[eidsvold]

The show someone was chatting about the other day is being aired here in Australia - apparently there is a little boy who has autism and his family is featured on Supernanny and Jo Frost calls in a specialist in the field of autism.

I intend to watch it and will let you all know what happens.

I saw it! It made me cry. The little boy was so sweet and the parents were so thrilled when with a little bit of help he started to talk to them and interact with the family. I felt sorry for the little girls and felt that the mum needed a bit of help - she seemed like she had a bit of PND.

PMSL about how SuperNanny has to call everything a technique for the US audience 'the give them something to do to occupy them so you can walk away and load the dishwasher technique'. ROFL.

Very interesting... at first I wanted to cry - they showed the family sitting down to dinner and the parents and two little girls were huddled up one end and the little 3yo boy who had autism was at the other end of the table - very isolating. IT seems like once they got a diagnosis they decided everything was too hard and so not to do anything at all. The mum left the children to just get on with it. He did speak and interact - I wonder how ready he was to speak anyway and just needed an incentive/encouragement etc to do so. Found it strange that they would have someone diagnosing their child but not recommending therapy etc ... seemed odd.

The mum seemed to want a lot of me time and felt as though the children intruded on her life which was sad - the girls would follow her round the house desparate for the mum to say anything or interact with them in anyway.

It all did seem so wonderful that they were able to get this boy to speak - very simplistic hour shot of life......

Very interesting viewing - would love to know what mums of children who have autism felt when they saw it....

Haven't seen it but the supernanny strategies (techniques ) are just behavioural techniques. Got 'em coming out of my ears! These days I describe ABA to people who don't know about it as SuperNanny but more intensive!

she did call in a specialist who is based at the University of California (?) who had been working in the field of Autism for over 20 yrs apparently and she worked with the parents and the 3yo boy.

I watched it too, eidsvold. Agree with pinotgrigio about the PND - she was very disconnected from the children. The father going to pieces when his son started talking had Dh on the verge of tears too! Was quite impressed that she didn't beat around the bush with them - when the mother had a whinge to the daughter about how hard it was and SN said 'this is a conversation you have with an adult, not a 4 year old girl', I was pleased - I'd been thinking the same thing!

sounds odd in the states eidsvold but normal here. ds1 was dxed at 3, we were given a leaflet on the NAS, told we would get SALT when they found one (when they did she had no experience of autism and no pecs training), and told we were on the waiting list for OT but not to expect it for at least 2 years.

Yep, sadly a lot of parents are just given the dx and left to get on with it. Ds1 was barely able to use his hands because of sensory problems, which in turn affected pretty much everything he did. He was put on the waiting list for OT at 3.5yrs old. I was told not to expect him to reach the top of the list before the age of about 7. Fortunately we were given lots of suggestions for things to try otherwise ds1 would still be unable to touch anything and falling flat on his face because he still couldn't bear to use his hands to break his fall.