It’s been almost 2 decades since my first-born son, Lucas starting showing signs of autism at the age of 21 months and that’s when my husband, Charles (who is a Emergency Medicine physician) first mentioned the possibility of autism. I was horrified at the thought of an autism diagnosis and in denial about Lucas’ delays...
It’s been almost 2 decades since my first-born son, Lucas starting showing signs of autism at the age of 21 months and that’s when my husband, Charles (who is a Emergency Medicine physician) first mentioned the possibility of autism. I was horrified at the thought of an autism diagnosis and in denial about Lucas’ delays...
My husband (who is a physician) and I were not surprised when Lucas got the diagnosis of autism one day before his 3rd birthday in 1999 but what was shocking to both of us was that the doctor diagnosed him as having moderate to severe autism. We both thought that since Lucas had some language,...
Did you know that up to half of children diagnosed with autism can recover if they are treated with ABA therapy when they are very young? It was first shown that kids with autism could become indistinguishable from their peers in a classic study done by Dr. Ivar Lovaas published in 1987. That was 30...
My weekly video blogs are usually for autism professionals and parents, but I have a little secret on autism and language development. All the techniques I talk about work great for any child even a child without disabilities. You see all of the strategies I recommend are based on the proven science of applied behavior…
In celebration of Lucas’ 21st birthday this week, in this video blog, I’m going to share 5 lessons I’ve learned that might help you! A lot of these lessons are in Chapter 12 of my best-selling book, The Verbal Behavior Approach which was published a decade ago, sold more than 50,000 copies and is now...
In last week’s video blog, I discussed a few ABA strategies to develop first sounds and words in children with autism. Today I’m going to discuss expanding expressive language carefully in children who are speaking in 1 or 2-word utterances where we have echoic control meaning if we say “say ball” the child will say...
Today’s video blog is all about when a child with autism will not take medicine. As you know, I’m a behavior analyst and a mom to 2 adult sons, one with autism. Some of you may not know that I’ve also been a Registered Nurse for over 3 decades. I feel that my nursing background...
As you probably know, I’m both a mom to an adult son with autism as well as a BCBA. But what you may not know is that I’m also a Registered Nurse. I often remind people that medical issues can cause some behaviors in children and adults with autism. And you cannot treat medical issues...
Several years ago, I attended a keynote presentation with Behavior Analyst, Dr. Dennis Reid. He spoke about the importance of programming for (and measuring) autism and happiness in our children and clients.