NICE Autism Quality Standards published

[AgnesDiPesto]

News release is here if you click on quality standard you can then read / download pdf
Worth doing just to take to meetings and count the ways your local services fail to comply (I've lost count).
Its very interesting - services here would have to totally transform be ripped up and start again
Our local services are talking about time limited key workers etc for a limited % - this suggests everyone can have one and it will continue indefinitely. Much more proactive planning and reviewing not just waiting for s**t to hit the fan before support is offered.
And lots of ABA stuff (under interventions for behaviour that challenges)
Video modelling techniques delivered by trained professionals (wot are those then, nursery workers?) ducks quickly under flying pig

I can almost hear the clicking of keyboards as health authorities & trusts devise strategies to keep people off the first rung of the ladder so they don't have to do the rest of it.

I previously had access to the Map of Medicine NHS care pathways. The previous one has disappeared or my uni no longer has access.

The old one had a section on education:

"•needs should be documented in a statement of special educational needs (SEN):

?support to be provided by the SEN Co-ordinator (SENCO) at the child's early learning centre, who is also supported by an area SENCO [11]

•the local education authority should provide for the needs identified in this statement
•the child’s progress can be reviewed through an individual education plan
•approaches that focus on social functioning should be introduced as an on-going intervention strategy from early years to adulthood
•inclusion of children with ASD in mainstream schools [12]:
?some children cope with good support
?some studies have found that social isolation, loneliness, and bullying are commonplace for pupils with ASD who attend mainstream schools"

I can't this in the new nice pathway. Is it there?

Agnes - if you look at NICE quality standard 8 for "behaviour that challenges" it pretty much exactly describes an ABA programme.

I reckon anyone with an autistic kid with challenging behaviour should take this page, a brief description of ABA and go see their local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group and say:

"Please pay for this ABA programme as it is recommended by NICE"

After all, even if ABA is not name-checked: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck!

Here is the bit I mean. Can anyone tell me why this isn't basically ABA?

publications.nice.org.uk/autism-qs51/quality-statement-8-interventions-for-behaviour-that-challenges

Keep have you tried googling it. I found it somehow and have the link in my favourites on the laptop. I have also printed it out. I did have to print it twice because it wouldnt all fit on because of the scrolly bit.

I will pm you the link later when I put the laptop on.

Am off to read the Nice link

Sickof I know

But am I going mad Agnes, tell me if the following is or is not true:

• The NHS looks to NICE for guidance on what to fund

• NICE is now clearly recommending ABA-type therapies for challenging behaviours in autism, even saying they MUST be tried before medication

• Therefore ABA certainly fits the bill of being an ABA-type therapy

• Therefore if asked for ABA for challenging behaviours in autism, the NHS must say yes?

Or, of course, offer a cheaper equivalent. But where from and delivered by whom? Very few people can really deliver, and QS5 says "must be delivered by a trained professional" - so some old schoolgates mum LSA with a tatty A4 handout on behaviour just won't cut it

Any thoughts?

Mind you, most people who have had half a day's training in anything to do with asd consider themselves 'trained professionals'! Which is where so many of the problems begin...

It is so odd - are autism and other special needs like Down's syndrome the only areas where rank amateurs are considered fine?

I wouldn't turn up the dentist to find Shona from accounts having a go on the drill, because she read an article in Dentists Weekly.

Is it basically just down to a "they're not worth it" mentality?

YY sickof. You'd think our kids deserve those with the most expertise! It's like we should be grateful that someone has bothered to take a 2hour module in order to 'help' children with special needs. Imagine the ones who consider themselves 'untrained'!!

Scandalous. But has been ever thus, sadly

That's ABA sickof, but it already happens for challenging behaviour (though shoddy quality)

The ambiguity is here in the definition though: This is defined as culturally abnormal behaviour(s) of such an intensity, frequency or duration that the physical safety of the person or others is likely to be placed in serious jeopardy, or behaviour which is likely to seriously limit use of, or result in the person being denied access to, ordinary community facilities

This 'should' apply to learning behaviour, but the social model says they won't be seriously limited or denied access if they are 'accepted' and 'accommodated'.

Oh ok where are you finding that bit Starlight?

Under the heading 'behaviour that challenges'.