Moondog and ABA people...

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Do any of you know anything about SCERTS?

Perhaps Moondog but doesn't flashing the Rolex at shabby clothed inverted snobs just perpetuate the whole defensive thing?

What defensive thing?
What Rolex?

Lol. I meant that one of the repeated reasons for denying my child any lite form of ABA was because it was a product from American Salesmen who have been trained how to brainwash vulnerable parents and teachers.

Yes.
Well some truth in that I think especially a few years ago.
But as someone who believes in reinforcement for a job well done, I have no issue whatsoever with people being rewarded handsomly when they deilver the goods. Plenty of folk being rewarded handsomly in the public sector who deliver bugger all.

As an aside, was looking at a Unite union leaflet the other day. They were foaming at the mouth regarding performance related pay. They were also promising members a £25 voucher for every new member they recruited.

I'm still thinking that one over.

I think unison need to be much clearer the actual problem with performance related pay. In the UK, the public sector targets and measures are often political drivel and totally irrelevant to the tasks which "decent" public sector workers want to do.

Remember Haringay's children's services getting ofsted outstanding for their great paperwork just before the Baby P case?

Yes.
God the stories I could tell about that (like every other public sector I am sure).

Having lived in post Communist Russia for a reasonable amount of time, it's not really very different to the guff they used to come out with about stuff like tractor production in the Urals.

Peverse incentives NHS gaming and Cheating schools

Yes, the insane collusion with pursuing things that make no sense whatsoever.
In s/lt departments across the Uk there is an obsession with first appointments happening within 3 months.
However the all hands on deck effort to see that there are no breaches mean many wait even longer to be seen after this.

That's before we even factor in the issue of most referrals being utterly inappropriate in the first place-lots of kids who can't say 'th' properly for example.

Ridiculous.
Meanwhile kids who really need help languish.

If I'd done as I was told Ds (Dx today with significant hearing loss due to glue ear) woukd have had 3 hearing tests, each 3 months apart before eventually being referred to an ENT who would have referred him for surgery almost a year after concerns raised. Perfectly within their targets but failing to take account of the £35k specialist SALT and Communication package that he was receiving but unable to access.

Pushing like mad and it's still taken almost 3 months.

Ah, that one's easy. Send a "you're on a 12 week routine waiting list" note to all of them, with an invitation to phone for immediate appointment in the 'speech clarity workshop, concentrating on th' ((and/or any other minor issues that clog up the caseloads).

1.5h therapist time/week. Group parent-mediated intervention training plus very brief triage for real problems. Handouts and possibly DVD of home exercises. Ecstatically happy managers. Discharge with instructions to get re-referred if not any better by x months.

Star, that's nuts.

Yes, and more nuts is that we do it all again with dd to Tomorrow, same consultant, different hospital.

Excellent Maria. You could command a fortune in the NHS for your management style, if not already doing so.

My ex LA packed parents onto More Than Words courses then claimed a contracted hour for each parent despite on,y one SALT Delivered it.

Incidentally they also handed out a leaflet on how it was better than ABA because it started with the child and used the child's motivations to get them to communicate.

I'd LOVE to see that leaflet!

My personal view is that the NHS desperately needs more Aspies in high places. It seems unsalvageable under the current regime. Outsourcing management to slick private companies with a total lack of logic and woefully poor maths skills isn't sensible.

I think I left it in the room. It was badly photocopied and not written by our SALTs iirc. If I brought it home though I'll have it somewhere so will perhaps seek it out. I have my paperwork from the new post-Dx days in a pile that I can't bear to face going through for the moment.

Right, so the school want to give me a SALT for me and ds for half hour a week for some Relation Development Interaction to be practised at home.

Gonna go for it because one of our best ABA tutors was trained in RDI.

Hello all, strand removed again! I've been advised to take an ad in Lambeth Talk pages, but not really interested. So SCERTS - developed by leading US researchers and practitioners in Speech Pathology, Occupational Therapy, Behavioural Science, SN education etc...over a period of many years - 30 plus, based in a review of all ways of working, and taking from those which worked best.

I came at this from the perspective of having an eight year old son on a pretty good ABA/VB/NET programme, and changing consultants to one who has a very strong background in both ABA and SCERTS. The changes that she made to the teaching style were very subtle, but had the most extraordinary impact on his willingness to engage, levels of joy and enthusiasm and skills acquisition rate.

You are right that NET requires a higher level of skill than table top work.

SCERTS is a bit of a bolt on approach - you can bolt it on to whatever approach you already take, and it is likely to improve it - so if you bolt it onto a really good ABA programme, you have to get the best that is available in autism education.

But I agree, so much depends on the skills and insight of the tutors who are delivering the programme - and the consultant who designs it. In much the same way as in any sort of education delivery.

I went on a three day SCERTS workshop with Emily Rubin - one of the co-founders - and had a hard time understanding how it was different to ABA/VB - they do have so much in common. I see it as an enrichment tool - the subtle chagnes make a massive difference.

I'm just a parent of a child with autism - I have no interest in selling anyone anything - I just want to share what works - and this does. It doesn't have anything like the evidence base for ABA - ABA has around 1000 studies supporting it, and SCERTS closer to 100 - and the level of support is different - not so much evidence of effectiveness as much as evidence to suggest it shoudl be effective - there are different levels of evidence.

There is a place where SCERTS and ABA/VB overlap - an ABA professional would look at my son's programme and recognise a leading edge ABA/VB programme. A SCERTS professional would look at it and recognise a teaching session that incorporates the principles and practices of the SCERTS model....

The real difficulty is finding someone who understands both - those silos are pervasive everywhere in autism education -each camp suspects the other of all manner of wrong. I find this disturbing. I liked Emily Rubin though - I showed her my overlapping circles (Venn diagram) showing where ABA and SCERTS overlap, and she said to push the circles closer together to create more overlap.

Emily is off to Atlanta - Georgia to take part in a new research project into what works in autism education - she will be working with alot of ABA academics... sounds really interesting - I'm sure they will come up with some new leading edge approach for us all to get our heads around.

Richard Hastings looked horrified. Tony Charman was interested in an academic sort of way. Vicky Slonims was interested.

Google the cofounders:
Emily Rubin
Amy Laurent - her site has loads of resources
Barry Prizant

Bad news on the hub initiative front - sent this note out to supporters. I expect we will convert into a campaign to promote the use of evidence based strategies in autism education at every level - local, national. I'll keep you posted. I've taken out the names from this note:

To all of our supporters and wellwishers,

It gives me huge disappointment to have to say that Lambeth have chosen not to work with the Hub initiative for an autism specific free special school in Lambeth. This means that we cannot make an application to the department for education as we had intended to do.

Following a fairly long meeting this evening Lambeth's divisional director for Children with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs, I still have no idea why. Nothing he said made any sense.

Lambeth will continue to discuss the possibility of working with the NAS/Vanguard group.

I have chosen to resign both from the NAS committee and the Lambeth Parents forum, as of now.

I'm really sorry that this is the outcome. I have put head, heart and soul into this application, and into participating with Lambeth in a co-operative way. I have voluntarily committed absurd amounts of time to working to improve the education that our ASD children receive in the borough. And to engage on all aspects of Lambeth's policy that affects children with disabilities ... in return the divisional director told me that he was not obliged to tell me how he had come to his decision, after inviting me to a meeting to discuss how he had come to the decision. It is extraordinarily insulting. And I am very sorry that many of you will feel let down by this turn of events. I certainly do.

It is left to me to thank the wonderful people who have worked with me on the Hub steering group. And our internationally respected expert advisers, who have so kindly given freely of their time and expertise. You can read more about them on our website: www.thehublambeth.org.uk Sadly the extraordinary vision will not become a reality.

forum co-ordinator, you do the most difficult job so well in unbelievably complicated circumstances - thankyou so much for doing what you do. If I can support you in any way I will.

NAS Lambeth chair, you have breathed life back into NAS Lambeth and it is thriving in a way I have never seen it thrive before. I know that countless parents get support at the moment that they need it most. Thankyou for that.

With vast regret, and all my best wishes,

Veronique Kaboha.

'I think unison need to be much clearer the actual problem with performance related pay. In the UK, the public sector targets and measures are often political drivel and totally irrelevant to the tasks which "decent" public sector workers want to do.'

Why don't they just say that performance related pay is fine provided the performance is directly related to outcomes for the end user of the service rather than measurement against arbritary targets etc.?

That is very sad Veronique - though not unexpected in a country where ABA meets with so much prejudice, despite the fact that it is offered as a matter of course to children in other countries.

Can you imagine the outcry if British children were being offered a less well-researched medical treatment than those in the US? Yet it is happening every day with autism!

My personal belief is that we may waste decides trying to smash through the thick layer of prejudice in local government.

What we need to do is go over their heads, and find an advocate in central govt. One way of getting there is via the press.

Have you thought of taking your story to the local or national papers? I could see it in the Times or Mail. Or you could start with the South Lambeth Press?

Happy to help your campaign.

I'm very sorry TheHub. As disappointing as it must be I always have faith that this kind of work and fostering of relations/partnerships are still for the good of children with autism and will one day contribute to moving forwards as you envisaged.

The Hub,

I was at the open evening for the NAS Thame Valley Free School held on Monday in Reading. The principal of the soon to be opened school was asked what teaching methods the school would be using and with the usual - each child will be looked at individually etc, she said she was very impressed with SCERTs and that will probably be the method used. She also said she was TEACCH trained so does that mean she will be combining the 2?

SCERTs seems to be rather 'in' now as I heard that Oxforshire is exploring it.