Acceptance and understanding
Dan Edmunds is a psychotherapist in Pennsylvania. He is involved with the autistic rights movement. He seeks to understand the autistic person rather than trying to change him or her. Click icon to find out more about his approach.
Studio III brief explanatory crisis support videos that could be of interest.
Tony Osgood
Tony Osgood has had experience in development disability roles and now lectures for the University of Kent. He says that he considers challenging behaviour to be, above all else, two things: complaining and communication. He believes in trying to work out the meaning before deciding how to respond. Click icon for his website, then MENU – top right. His Writings offer the reader a treasure trove of articles.
Sensory overload
This article is written by a parent and occupational therapist. We, as parents and caregivers (and on-lookers!), need to remember that responding from a behavioural point of view is ineffective in these cases. As adults, we need to remove the excessive or adverse stimuli, and we may need to take the child to a calm, quiet place. Click icon to view article.
What Lies Beneath Behaviour?
PACEs Connection is a social network in California that seeks to explain the impact of a wide variety of adverse childhood experiences. They encourage adults to look beneath the behaviour of children and to understand behaviour as communication. They say,
It may be that the child is choosing a way of communicating that is hard for you to deal with but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the behaviour is driven by some deep need or physiological response. These behaviours are often punished and then we wonder why the child is “always getting into trouble” or “never learns!” when we haven’t dealt with the root cause of the behaviour. Click icon for full article.
Uniquely Human
In his book, Dr Barry Prizant has drawn on over forty years’ in working with autistic children and adults, and their families, to outline how the uniqueness of individuals with autism can be built on as, a different way to be human. He says, Rather than curb these behaviours, it’s better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer supports that will naturally lead to more desirable behaviour and a better quality of life. See: Amazon.
A mother’s story
In her book George and Sam, Charlotte Moore writes about her experience of bringing up her sons and the challenges she faces. George and Sam might be described as quite low functioning and they have contrasting personalities. Her third son Jake is not autistic at all. The book contains a lot of experience and insight. The 2012 edition has been updated to cover George and Sam’s teenage years. See: Good Reads Amazon.
After Winterbourne
After the scandalous revelations of abuse at Winterbourne View hospital there was a debate in parliament followed by a ministerial report.
After the scandalous revelations of abuse at Winterbourne View hospital a ministerial report PDF set out the Department of Health response.
Then, five years on, a BBC documentary has investigated whether progress has been made to get people with learning disabilities out of hospitals and into homes in the community. While quite a few patients have been discharged a similar number have been admitted.
Keeping people in the familiar surroundings of home while offering support seems to be considered the way forward. The Challenging Behaviour Foundation outlines how this is supposed to work. Click icon to read about it.
They have collected examples of best practice including their Time for Action PDF report.
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