My Autism Insights

Two Distressing Trends

image from the Asperger’s Express

I couldn’t make a post yesterday because, honestly, I was just too disturbed by what I’d been reading in the morning. I needed to take a step away from autism in the news.

Maddy at Whitterer on Autism posted about state agencies in the UK removing children from families, not to provide them better, safer services, but cheaper services. LeftBrainRightBrain discusses as well. And it’s not just in the UK! Remember Nate Tseglin?

Then there was the New York Times article about the increase in restraint usage for autistic students that Kristina Chew talked about. The comments were particularly enlightening and saddening to me.

Take these two trends and you’ve got the makings of almost all my worst nightmares. And people wonder why I am so insanely overprotective of my children. How can I not be when I know that one of the safer places I can send Gus to might really be the most threatening?

And one more link to The Asperger’s Express about ABA (can be useful in tandem with other therapies) with a little blurb about restraint usage at the bottom. Reading this article reminded me of the reasons I had rejected ABA at first, until I found someone who used the theory in a way that wasn’t overly dependent on discrete trials or heavyhanded.

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