No Mistake About Early Intervention
October 16, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
The latest item (as of this Tuesday, 16 October, afternoon) from the Rescue Post bears the puzzling, and potentially misleading, title of “The Mistake of ‘Early Intervention’.” Lenny Schafer of the Schafer Autism Report (which I have long followed), writes that “early intervention” is a “euphemism” for “membership drive” (to a certain large autism organization) and also, and even more, to “abortion,” which Schafer describes as “the modern-day cure for genetic disease and ….. a natural conclusion of establishment genetic research.” As “Early Intervention” (according to Schafer) provides “only some notions of behavioral and educational treatment,” the term does not really (in his view) point to what really needs to be done for children diagnosed with autism (chelation, et alia). Schafer then goes on to state that autism requires “crisis intervention,” and not “soft-peddling” such as teaching, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and such provide. Autism, he states, is a “medical crisis,” first and foremost.
I am not in agreement with Mr. Schafer about much of this. I can see the logic that might lead to an equation of abortion with a “modern-day cure for genetic disease,” just as I understand why correlations might be made between a child’s receiving a vaccine and that child then seeming to “become” autistic. I am disappointed that Mr. Schafer can so quickly brush away teaching and educational therapies as offering parents “little in the way of hope,” and not only because seeing my own son learn and love learning before my eyes is a constant store of hope for me. The many, many teachers and therapists who have sat with Charlie and smiled gently, and warmly, to encourage him to “round your lips” or to try to blow a bubble, or to use the computer mouse, or just to match flashcards of words to flashcards of pictures: These many people who have walked through our door and left a mark on his life and ours have instilled the greatest hope, as they have showed Charlie that he can learn, that he can help himself.
Just yesterday a friend told me that a young relative has started to receive Early Intervention services, at the age of 19 months; the child is not talking. I noted that this sounded good, and made a mental note to email him to offer support. He asked about Charlie and smiled to hear about how well my boy is doing.
Thus, my main concern about Mr. Schafer’s The Mistake of ‘Early Intervention’ is that it miscasts Early Intervention as something potentially wrong, or wrongly undertaken. Further, he underestimates the essential role of education in helping autistic children (and children in general) when they are young and just diagnosed, and as they develop, as they grow up.
I’ve seen children make amazing progress because of early intervention. A dear friend of mine has a little guy who just entered kindergarten without any support — her secret — intensive OT, ST and ABA. He is indeed an inspiration and is living proof of the power of early intervention.
My son has been receiving ST/OT/ABA since he was two and has made steady progress. He is still extremely challenged, but because of all of the hard work, he is now able to point, say “no” and has absolutely beautiful eye-contact.
I wish there wasn’t so much negativity in our world … Mr. Schafer’s report has always been informative… But I feel the vibe of bitterness. Wish it didn’t have to be that way.
From the bottom of my idealistic little heart, I wish we could all just do our thing — whatever it might be — without feeling the need to beat up on each other.
Sigh …
Judith
My own son needed Early Intervention and still needs lots of ST, OT, ABA……and we tried a number of biomedical treatments when he was much younger; these seemed to have immediate results that were promising, but the results did not continue over time. For Charlie, as his years in school go by, things have gotten better and better. I’m very conscious of his diet and of what he eats, but it’s what he does in school—those emails from his teacher—that tell the real story.
I like the links to the Source, that way I can peruse the article and look for subtle signals.
I see condescension with “And that baby, means,…”
He also leads on to “…the medical treatment and recovery “cure” for autism.”
But then is still credited as “the father of a son with autism”
I have heard of similar Rescue parents, treatments but no abatement, at least one of which makes vehement posts that they ‘know’ what autism is.
I wonder how many years he has been participating in the cure effort and patiently awaiting an outcome, and paying for services/treatments.
I do beleive in Educational approaches to help, but I am not so sure that people can keep claiming ability to cure when they do not offer proof or verification of the promised thousands of recovered autistics, at least not in any way that I have seen applauded by the mainstream medical or psychology communities.
I often don’t comment about early intervention. My son wasn’t diagnosed till he was 4 and has not had any intensive or early intervention. He’s in a regular kindergarten class with an EA who does more class helping than 1 on 1…so I think he’s doing well.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think early intervention can be a good thing. But it’s awfully hard to tell if a child is improving because of that early intervention or because he/she is growing and maturing.
I don’t think it has anything to do with abortion and I wonder what he means by ‘crisis intervention’?
My one concern about “early intervention” is that the term sometimes seems to encourage parents to “hurry hurry hurry” and do everything possible to get a child mainstreamed into kindergarten without an aide, as if 5 is some magic cut-off date. Life with Charlie has really shown me, some things take time to learn.
I guess he means that autism is a crisis of a medical sort and needs to be dealt with aggressively, and immediately, as if an autistic person is like a patient in a medical crisis. I guess!
I agree with you, Kristina.
My heart goes out to parents who have just received a diagnosis, and they are lead to believe that they only have this small window of opportunity, or their child will be nothing.
I feel that the message these people are conveying is, “if your child isn’t ‘cured’ by age 5, it means you haven’t worked hard enough, and there’s just no hope”- that’s a terrible (and untrue) feeling to impose on a parent, especially while in a fragile state of mind.
Jaysen first received support at age 3, and that was only speech. He did not get an official “autism” diagnosis until he was 4 (almost 5). He is now receiving multiple therapies, and is maintaining wonderfully in some areas, and progressing beautifully in others. My point is to stress the importance of getting intervention period, and it is never too late.
I get so sick of hearing this cliche, but it really rings true … This journey is a marathon not a sprint. I believe in the power of early intervention … the earlier the better. But, I also believe that tremendous progress can be made at any age.
Just have to stop sometimes and be thankful for all the beautiful progress and all that’s yet to come …
It speaks to how incredibly bizarre the autism politics world can be that at the same time as Lenny Schafer advocates a quack treatment like chelation that is opposed by the autistic community, he makes a point the same point that we do about prenatal testing. It just goes to show that the opposition to the self-advocate perspective is far from monolithic and that autism politics remain the most convoluted of the disability world.