Calling all SALTS - help please!

[TheTimeTravellersWife]

I have just had what I can only describe as a bizarre conversation with DD's SALT. She called me out of the blue, to update me on DD. Great, I was really pleased that she had taken the time to call me to talk about DD.

BUT, she then proceeded to say that as DD's progress had slowed, she would be recommend at our AR that her SALT provision is reduced from weekly to termly! The reason she gave for this reduction was that DDs social communication difficulties were due to her autism, that she would have life-long difficulties with social communication and that further weekly SALT sessions would not help.

DD has also been diagnosed with a speech and language disorder, that is separate from the difficulties caused by the ASD, but apparently, that has now been overcome and all the difficulties now are with social communication which is ASD related and cannot be overcome by weekly SALT sessions. She said that her speech was now "age appropriate" but she had on going difficulties with social communication.

I maybe a bit thick, but unless you are talking to yourself, isn't all communication social?! Therefore, she has communication difficulties, therefore she should continuing having regular SALT sessions.

Can any SALTs out there point me in the direction of some research on SALT and ASD to that I can use to counter the argument that as her progressed has slowed, she should have less SALT input.

Surely, she should at least retain the same level of input if her progress has slowed.
I just don't accept that because she has ASD, she cannot make further progress with her communication skills.

She caught me "on the hop" cooking lunch for DS, so I didn't think to ask her for copies of her latest assessment tests.
But I did try to explain that 1:1 with someone she knows well she will perform much better than with a stranger or in a group situation.

Just looking for evidence to counter her recommendation that DD's SALT is significantly reduced.

Sickof Lougle does know a considerable amount about ABA. IIRC she has some issues with it that are actually pretty close to your issues with it.

Having said that, whilst I agree that ABA teaches the child that they get further by talking than not talking in the first instance, the child upon seeing and experiencing the new world that they can now access, they do then want to talk.

But I also have a bit of trouble understanding how you would teach someone how to want to talk without having gone through the transactional bit first to open up the experience iyswim.

I think this is a big issue for those trying to get professionals to be open to the possibility of ABA. They deny the want to ever occurs. Which is why I find it so odd that they are so resistant themselves to finding out or observing ABA, as if they fear that doing so will make them want to give it to the child................................

I can only add that anyone I have ever shown how we use ABA in the classroom (teachers, salts, asisstants, parents, inspectors,SWs, OTs, physions, MTs) comes away thinking it is great and staggeringly logical.

In effect it is what a specialist education should be.
Comprehensive assessment.
Strenghts and needs identified.
Needs targetted and worked on using the child's interests as reinforcers.
Datsa kept so we can see what is and isn't working and adjust accordingly.

Result?

Happy kids making progress because they are working in a way that makes sense to them.

Happy staff who realise that they can and do make a difference.

Happy parents who see their children progress.

No more money spent (and often less) than on the usual pathetic mishmash of softplay, unfocussed 'play', fuzzy assessment, lack of data and an underlying sense of why bother because things don't change?

I see Star, I am just a bit sick of the uninformed prejudice against ABA. It's not just an idle moan on my part - this prejudice could, imho, be denying a whole generation of autistic children the chance to express themselves. Why do we allow our children to get a less effective education than do autistic children in the US, Canada and Scandinavia? Even if the SALT profession just took 20% of the ABA methodology on board (eg the motivational stuff, or the extinction on attention-seeking) I am pretty sure outcomes would be hugely improved. I would like to see the best of ABA in all our special schools. Which bits of ABA do I have a problem with?

The unregulated bits. The delivery of it by unqualified 'consultants' with no bearing on or understanding of child development. The appalling practice and justification of it.

But perhaps I'm just projecting................The more I have got 'involved' the more I see this. Although I do believe it is the government's fault for forcing parents 'underground' with it all.

What I find so hard to understand about it all though, is why on earth are behavioural techniques so absolutely relied upon by mainstream classrooms to 'stamp out' negative behaviour as they are considered the most effective and fastest way to achieve this, and yet they are so reluctant to use these techniques to 'stamp in' education. Although 'stamp' is probably a poor choice of word but you get what I'm on about.

Yes Moondog but so many of us have a situation where professionals declare they are dyametrically opposed to ABA and as such refuse to get close enough to see it in action.

No-one has said this to me but I feel as if I am being treated as if in a dangerous cult and that if they cross my threshold when ABA is 'on the premises' they'll get brainwashed into the cult too.

Perhaps it is because that is actually what happens. This cult of common sense and logic really can change minds

True that Star, I have been treated like I've joined a dangerous branch of the Moonies and am subjecting my child to cruel, anti-autism devices!! I effectively had to smuggle ABA into my son's mainstream classroom. And only once they had seen that his LSAs (ABA-trained) weren't ogres, could I risk telling them there was ABA afoot!

The thing is though that, having paid out good money for both, I would still take a crap ABA tutor over a crap TEACCH tutor every time, as the ABA methodology is robust enough to stand up to poor practise, while TEACCH isn't, imho.

Because people are afraid of change and anything that challenges their construct of the world.

As I always say, SN is an industry and a (billion pound) industry that exists because it is founded on one basic principle: children with SN do not change (much) thus need armies and armies of special equipemnt and different 'professionals' to deal with them.

It challenged my construct of the world when I learnt about it and I was afraid.Then I was horrified, Then I was angry.Then I became determined to be part of a solution.

The Emperor's New Clothes

You are right Moondog. And to be honest, from what I saw of much TEACCH and SN provision in general, there was also a very strong CBA* factor. They may know underneath it all that th autistic child could do more, but they also know it will take a lot of HARD work, and it's coffee break time coming up.

I remember once watching a kid at my son's TEACCh school lick the window for a full half hour. I asked the teacher, all innocently, why she let him do that. "Oh, that one has a sensory need to lick glass, so we let him get on with it" was her reply. In other words, justifying her own lazy-arse teaching with a bit of pseudo-scientific guff. To this day, I hate it when people bring up my son's sensory need to stim, or lick, or bite, or spit. I don't care if he has a sensory need or not: if it's an anti-social behaviour, it's my job to work on getting rid of it to the best of my abilities. For my boy's own adult sake.

• Can't be arsed

Yes indeed.
Pseudo-scientific guff and CBA@

I would laugh if it was not so tragic.

I do enjoy demolishing the former and challenging the latter.
However when the CBA@ brigade realise how powerful they can be, I find they often turn into the IRCBA@* brigade.

That gives me hope.

As someone said in a presentation I went to recently

'They don't know what they don't know'

So true

*I really can be arsed

'They don't know what they don't know' pees me off to the extreme. Not the TA not knowing, but the class teacher not knowing but refusing to even engage with the concept, research it, listen etc. when everything I was asking for was already written into her code of conduct.

If ds' teacher was to give me some of her time to hear me out, to ask questions, to observe some of what we can do with ds and then say to me, in all honesty 'I really don't think that that approach is doable in my classroom for x reasons' then I'd have less frustration and respect for her.

But it is what I can dogmatic ignorance of the professionals that is my ds' disability, not his autism and wish someone could diagnose him with that instead.

I bought the TA and class teacher some posh chocolates for ds' last day at nursery but the night before I spent hours and hours drafting the statement appeal and so I just opened the teacher's chocolates and ate them. She was a good teacher and she ran a good nursery. Unbeknown to her she had a lot of behavioural stuff going on and brilliant rules such as all children have to respond on 'one ask', a listening tree, turn-taking games etc. It could have been brilliant and I do thank her for ds having made no progress rather than declining, which he could have done easily.

But she didn't deserve those chocolates

Sickof...

I think that the thing here, is that I am seen as anti-ABA. I'm not. At all. I am anti-one size fits all, and I am anti teacch bashing.

In my view, any technique that actually works, is valuable. Also, any technique can be implemented efficiently and effectively, or haphazardly and ineffectively.

I do understand the principles of ABA. I do understand the transactional approach to education.

I do understand the TEACCH approach, and it is used in my daughter's school, efficently and effectively.

I am not keen on seeing the TEACCH method written off because of anecdotal experience of lazy, inept teaching, which happens to share space with TEACCH as a method.

In my daughter's school, every minute is teaching time. All of it. The teachers use a rota to share the teaching element of break times and play times, so that they each also get time to eat. Lunch time is teaching time.

They have specific ASD classes for children who require intense intervention. Does it matter if it is called ABA? That is what I struggle with. That an approach is becoming a brand, just as it would concern me if someone said 'we use TEACCH' but didn't then show what they do.

I was merely pointing out that there is an incongruence between 'how to talk' and 'why to talk'.

But did you give yourself 1 chocolate for every paragraph you wrote star?

I have spent roughly the same amount of time in my career working in ABA as I have being a SALT.I would some crap ABA provision over some crap TEACCH provision but not always because I've seen some dangerous stuff BUT I wouldn't settle for crap TEACCH provision either.

I think a lot of the stuff that is seen as crap TEACCH or crap ABA or crap SALT is just that, crap. People talk about the TEACCH model as though it were being rigorously applied in this country, but it's not. I have never worked in a TEACCH setting (though I have observed in them) but my understanding is that actually, very few places apply it to research standards so really when we talk about evidence in relation to models in the UK, we are not talking about what has been researched. TEACCH is supposed to be behavioural too, after all.

Very many approaches in this country are dilute and pretty much all in the public sector. I read an interesting blog this week about something else entirely where someone was talking about how humanity is irrelevant in public services in the UK and everyone is a thing to be processed at the cheapest possible rate. This really rings true to me. It's packaged as though it were something else, but really when it comes to SN and mental health and many other areas of vulnerability, there is only minimal lip-service paid to what's really best.

Back in the real world, for these reasons and more, I never say anything bad about ABA because I want to see it mainstreamed and I think it's really important as someone with hands on experience to focus on the positivies and because I think the current system is appalling in its inefficacy. However, I am wary about seeing it as a cure-all or panacea or that it has All the Answers to Everything. I think it probably has all the answers to how we could more efficiently design cost-effective, evidence based education and skills-based speech therapy etc BUT I do also see the benefits of other approaches e.g. cognitive-behavioural approaches (which I see as having benefits for my particular client group). And I have seen some kids with terminal conditions really enjoy sensory rooms. And some kids who have been sexually or physically abused transform after play therapy... and I have listened to adults who stammer talk about how "touchy feely" speech therapy changed their lives..

I will stand up and shout for ABA and be a cheerleader, but I don't believe that behaviourism tells us everything about what it is to be human, whether disabled or not, and sometimes touchy feely stuff has its place too.

Lougle said it much better than I could have. Cross posted!

I don't think any one thing is going to be a cure all.
I do a lot of touchy feely stuff too. I have a completely wooooooo! sideline that makes some ABA types do a double take. For that aloe, it is fun to do (and lucrative!)

As someonewho has a pretty good understanding of ABA it bothers me that people talk of 'doing ABA'. It's a bit of a misnomee. The principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis can be applied to anything so what peopel who 'do ABA' see is good teaching which utilises this powerful technology

It can easily be used with anything to make it better-music therapy, piano teaching, jigsaw constructing (my kids are at this right now), business management. It's quite simply a tool. If things are going well, it is because people are already harnessing (often unknowingly) the principles that underline behaviour.

9-5 is right about poor quality service. I see people pass themselves off as PECS/ASD/TEACCH/Makaton specilaists who haven't had more than them ost cursory of training (if that) and have probably never read a research paper in their life. That's ok as long as they are honest about it.

PECS for example. I know it like the back of my hand. I coudl weep at some of what I see is done by peopel who pass themselves off as PECS specialists.

I don't agree with 9-5 on her observation that 'everyone is a thing to be processed at the cheapest possible rate'. The SN 'provision we provide now costs an absolute fortune. I am confident we can do better for less. Much better. In fact, we already have proved it.

Some parents will never want a rigorous evidence based education for their kids.That's fine too.If they want their kids to be doing sensory stuff and playing all day, then that is their right. I respect that.

However, the thing that strikes me most about many kids and adults with SN is how bored they are and how they are so underestinated in termso of potential.

Leisiure is only leisure as a contrast to work. With no 'work' to balance the 'leisure', the 'leisure' means nowt and unfortunately a lot of the peopel I see have lives crammed with 'leisure' activities.

Lougle - you are lucky to have a found a good TEACCH school. I have seen nothing but poor examples of it, and had direct experience of it at its most woolly for what I now realise were the three most crucial years of my son's brain development. I feel that I lost those years. That's why I advise mums on here with newly-diagnosed autistic kids to try ABA. Not because it can help me get those years back, but because it might just help their kids.

What happened to my son within the state TEACCH system makes me pretty angry, though that anger is not directed against you. You are of course free to have different views - but is there no part of you which would like to have tried the early behavioural interventions which show such excellent results in many studies, in the UK and elsewhere?

In what other sphere of education would parents have to fight to get something which has been shown - again and again, in robust research studies - to work best?

Have you seen and used good ABA, or just heard/read about it?

The thing is, from my understanding, is that TEACCH is only applied within the classroom, as it is the standard "treatment" rolled out for all ASD children (initially). Using an ABA approach is all the time, every minute of every day. It also combats behaviours, and addresses deficits in every kind of developmental area and skills, rather than just 'learning' in the narrow meaning of the word.

Lougle, I think that ABA does precisely that: address the "why" as well as the "how", as once the "how" skills are taught, the "why" follows as doing the activity becomes the reward in itself, so the motivation (the "why") is sparked into action.

When we began our (VB) programme for ds, one of his biggest deficits was an apparent lack of interest in peers. I asked our consultant on our first training day if you could ever "teach" a desire to interact. He gave an analogy of playing the piano: you love hearing the piano being played and wish you could make that sound. You try, but you don't know how, it's rubbish, you are discouraged, you give up. But if you are given the tools and skills to learn, you start practising, you get better, and the more you practise, the better you get, and the more enjoyment you get out of it.

This has proved absolutely true, beyond what I would ever have thought possible.

Going back to TEACCH - can anyone explain in detail what it is - we have been offered this in ds' statement as he is apparently a 'visual learner' ( whatever that means).

Couldn't agree more with moondog. ABA is just the science of human behaviour. I apply to teach my child how to swim, how to talk, how to clean his teeth. It is just the science of learning! And makes life so much easier when you know it! Especially when it comes to training your husbands lol!

Hello Pleasant. Nice to see you.

Indeed.My own life is infinitely better and happier now i know about ABA.
(I bought the book about Shamu you recommended Pleasant.It's by my bed. I'll delve into it once I finish entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article7118260.ece this]], which, altough not an 'ABA' book, resonaters deeply with anyone who knows that the only way to get good at doing something is to do a lot of it and be reinforced for dsoing so.

Here

Yes, my ds is a 'visual learner' too. It's the 4th triad doncha know!

What is really meant by that is that the Autism Teachers, who acknowledge they can't diagnose, only have visual solutions.

My ds DOES have strong visual skills, but usually, putting visuals in is adding an unnecessary step to his learning. Why give him abstract symbols of things that have no meaning to him in a line for him to carry around when you can just say to him 'Right, today we are going to do Register, then PE, then play outside, then have snack, then tidy up and go home.

What happens is he loses his strip, he gets confused what the symbols mean and anxious about what he is supposed to do with them. The TA expects him to know what the symbols represent without having taught this to him and then when he gets in a fluster because it is PE time and he hasn't been warned he has difficulty coping with that and so pokes one of his peers. This is labelled as sensory seeking behaviour so he is put on the time out chair with a fiddle toy which is taken off him after 4 minutes so he pokes the peer again to get it back, and when the TA tells the Autism Teacher of the problems the reply is that poor ds is really struggling with his emotions and perhaps they should give him a red, amber and green card to hold up.

Do I look like I am exaggerating or over-egging it? I'm not. This is a true story.

I consequently BANNED visual supports from ds' education as far as I could (having no control really over what goes on in a classroom) and I am aware that I really do now come across as a nutter because I KNOW that visual supports are helpful to ALL children at early years stage. His lack of development has subsequently been blamed on my banning visuals and it's all a bloody mess.

Don't get me started on visual supports. My DD is verbal, but has still been given cards at school to use for needing time out, going to the toilet ect which to me seems counter productive when the aim is to improve her verbal communication.

God , that visual learner one drives me insane!!!! I used to say to them - what makes you so sure my boy learns through his eyes rather than his ears? Are you just saying that because he can't talk and because then you can wheel out all your visual aids, which are all you have in your armoury?

Star, that is horrible!

I well remember an earnest teacher at my son's TEACCH school holding the "toilet" sign in front of my boy, even though he had started trotting off toilets-wards the minute she said "time for the toilet".

I asked her - what does it add, to wave the pic of a loo in front of him, when he's already understood and reacted to your words.

She thought very hard and said "it solidifies the idea in his brain, cos he's a visual learner".

At which stage, I wanted to chew off my own arm rather than re-enter her circular, self-fulfilling debate.

I think, once, a famous and verbal autistic person said that they learned visually, and so it has become a universal truth, recognised by all in the "system".

ABA doesn't try and fit every single autistic kid into the same box; it's a far more child-centred approach as it devises individual goals for each kid.

Hi moondog. Book looks interesting, hadn't heard of it before. You'll love the Shamu book, although I had it on audio CD so chuckled along to it in my car!

I do have to acknowledge however, that what they were trying to do with my ds was BAD TEACHH. I would hope that in a proper TEACHH school with decently trained staff that the situation I described in MS would not have happened.

I'm afraid I don't have experience of properly delivered TEACHH, only the MS version. I DO have experience of daft rationales for implementing visual strategies, and experience of an alternative effective logical method of teaching my ds though, that probably costs less than laminate.