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Being a responsible
learner is very important in today’s flood of information. We live in a wonderful time where we have
access to more information than ever before. With this access comes great
danger. There is as much, if not more,
bad information as good information available. Being able to sift through and
find what the truth is and what is smoke and mirrors is imperative.
While at the UNT
Autism Conference, one of the Keynote speakers was Dr. Brian Reinchow. His presentation was about evidence based practices.
He spoke about how there are studies out
there that have not been replicated, and if they cannot be replicated then they are not
valid. This is easily researched if you want to validate a practice on your
own. One piece of information I want to pass on to you, that is very easy to
implement when you do searches on the internet for information, is how to know
how trust worthy a site is. According to
Dr. Reinchow, the most trustworthy sites end in .edu, .gov, and .org. He also talked about advertising on
sites. His information was that the best
sites had little to no advertising. This
makes sense. A site that is trying to
sell their treatment will have biased information. This research is not
difficult and it can be amazing what just a little digging can find.
Let me give you an
example. My daughter went for a job
interview to be a caregiver for a young man with Autism. During the interview
the mother asked if she would be willing to come for a trial to work with one
of the team she has working with him.
They have a strict protocol they are working with and would expect her
to assist with it and follow it. When
she left she was given a DVD to watch before she returned. We went to the
website of the center they were working with when my daughter got home. Our
first sign it might not be reputable was it was very negative to ABA
therapy. That in itself was not enough
to disregard it. We continued to explore
the site. We saw a link to
research. Their research was one study
done by their own staff. They had no independent research to back up their
claims. We decided to do some digging
and could not find any independent research on this program. We watched the DVD and saw it was a made for
TV movie made in the 1970’s about a Hollywood Producer with a child on the
Spectrum who created this therapy with his wife. Neither of them had any training. My daughter called the family and said she
did not feel she could follow this protocol.
The woman seemed astonished that an 18 year old would say such a thing.
Even an 18 year old can research a protocol on the internet. Anyone working
with special needs children should do so before beginning any sort of treatment
with their own child.
With parents
looking for anything that will help their child there are always going to be
people out there who are willing to prey on the uninformed and desperate. There are some wonderful programs out there
for children with special needs that have studies and data to back them up.
Take time to do your research before you put your money and hope into smoke and
mirrors.
I am not claiming the Therapy mentioned above is fake or you
should not use it if you want to. I am
only saying do your research and make an informed decision.
For more information you can start here:
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