Anyone got any experience of psychotherapy for an ASD child?

[pannetone]

Because that is what CAMHS are now offering for my 8 year old DD who has just been diagnosed with ASD (HFA for what the term is worth). She already has a diagnosis of selective mutism. I am pretty clueless at how psychotherapy will work as it is very unlikely that DD will speak at all... On the other hand I was not at all keen to do 'family therapy' which was offered last year when older DS got his ASD diagnosis. Managed to turn that into CBT for DS, which obviously wouldn't work for DD.

DD is very anxious and I don't know whether it is a risk that psychotherapy would just increase her anxiety - although I realize that's not 'meant' to happen!

TBH, I would imagine you are the therapist most likely to succeed with your unique experience of the combination of ASD and SM and of what makes your own dd tick. Like ASD, there are probably subgroups in SM.

Presume you know the principles of behavioural interventions already. Video modelling shows promise too. There doesn't seem to be much evidence for psychotherapy type stuff.

TBH, I would imagine you are the therapist most likely to succeed with your unique experience of the combination of ASD and SM and of what makes your own dd tick. Like ASD, there are probably subgroups in SM.

Presume you know the principles of behavioural interventions already. Video modelling shows promise too. There doesn't seem to be much evidence for psychotherapy type stuff.

DD also had about 10 sessions of art therapy organised by her school which she liked going to. It probably took her the 10 sessions to get settled. Perhaps school might consider some more mini-sessions, now that they can be adjusted to take account of the ASD?

Phone calls? emails? writing a word down? Speaking at home, then playing it back on Talking Tom during the session? Sorry if teaching granny to suck eggs

Thank you Mareeeya - some familiar stuff there and some to explore. I have got to get up to speed on all these psychology terms - I hadn't thought of the 'sliding in' work that has been done with DD as a behavioural intervention. But that is certainly what I favour as being most likely to produce results - rather than the psychotherapy/psychodynamic(?) stuff.

And i've just re-read that small steps intervention plan for SM by Maggie Johnson and Alison Witgens (I have the manual)that you linked to - and it seems glaringly obvious that it hasn't been followed properly with DD. I don't think DD's 'keyworker' was ever properly 'slid in' - I was never asked into school to do this. And there hasn't been anywhere near the time commitment to several sessions a week which there needed to be at the beginning. The school now seem to complain about the amount of time/SALT intervention invested in DD with little progress but I don't think it's been done properly. Now I feel a bit that my eye has been off the ball... Though with DS3 also being being assessed for ASD and fighting (and winning) a disability discrimination claim against ASD DS2's school life has been a bit hectic...

Off to do CBT 'homework' with DS3 but I am going to print out that Maggie Johnson link, highlight where the programme hasn't been followed, and arrange a meeting at school once the ed psych report is also in. I am not going down the psychotherapy route when the school hasn't followed an established SM behavioural intervention.