Does Therapies really work

Yesterday one parent called me from Mumbai, he has a 10-year-old child partially verbal in the autism spectrum. I suggested Avaz, he heard it for the first time, I told him about the benefits of using Avaz, he questioned me how can you guarantee that my son’s speech will be like normal people once I start using it. My red flag is the word “normal”. So, I told him if you want your child to be normal, I will not be able to help you.

In the evening talking to another parent, she is saying why my son has to carry the device to communicate, my speech therapist told me let him use gestures as he is completely non- verbal. So, I told her why you are going to such speech therapist who herself does not believe in using AAC. No one is stopping the child to use gestures, but can you communicate everything using gestures?

From my own experience with Ashmit I learned running from one therapy centre to another only adds up to tension and disappointments of the child as well as of the parents. I feel parents need to understand that we are doing therapies so that the child has a better life not to endanger his/her ongoing life. The most important thing is the happiness of the child. We should go for therapies that your child enjoys doing. If we ignore this, whatever skills we struggled to develop in the child might all be in vain, as they will start breaking down with frustration & behaviour will crop up.

So, the question does therapies help?

It does however our expectations decide it. If you want to make the autistic person so called “normal” by doing therapies then it does not help.

What I learned from my own experience are:

• Do not do too many experiments with child
• Follow a structured schedule for the child
• Do not overthink about future
• Select what works for your child
• Find out your child’s interest and work on them
• Start working with your child yourself, by structuring of home environment, work materials, etc. 
• Work on the communication skill development 
• Follow a daily schedule
• Work on the sensory requirement of your child
• Take the child everywhere malls, restaurants, vacations, relatives house, etc
• Use social stories to teach social skills
• Have realistic expectations

Let us all be patient, be positive and gear up for this long journey ahead. Do respect, love and learn from your child, however different he/ she may be, and do not forget to celebrate small achievements.