2007 Southeastern Washington Autism Conference

Hi Everyone! It's been a while since I've written anything on this blog....probably because we've been so busy. I'll try to keep you more up to date, especially since there will be more happening with Kyle in the near future...

 

Last week, my mom, Jana, and I attended the 2007 Southeastern Washington Autism Conference. The boys were cared for at Vista Elementary for 8 hours+, for two days and they did excellent! Isaac thought he was going to school. He loves the idea of school and can't wait until he gets to go. He was so proud to carry his little backpack into Vista.. 

 

There were many fabulous speakers at the conference; we were lucky to have them all here. The first was Dr. Dawson, the female director of the Autism Center at University of Washington. She spoke on recent research in Autism, as well as promising therapies such as Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and the Denver Model. The most engaging and insightful speaker of them all was Elizabeth Strickland, a nutritionist with over 30 years experience specialized in autistic feeding behaviors and nutrition. We basically left that presentation understanding why Kyle doesn't eat more than a few foods and what we can do to get his nutrition needs up to par.

 

There were many breakout sessions, and the three of us parted ways to cover them all for both days. The first day, Jana attended the nutritionist. I attended the Applied Behavior Analysis session presented by Sarah Haws, a consultant and behavior analyst. She did a good job convincing me that ABA isn't that bad after all. I like her approach: she uses positive reinforcement most of the time....and does a dang good job with it. I actually paid to attend one of her presentations on Saturday on how to teach children social play. I was very interested in this, as Kyle is always around other kids at church and home group. 

 

I also attended Politics and Advocacy the first day. I learned about how to get involved politically for my child. I am interested in advocacy because I believe the state of WA should cover therapy for the recommended 35-40 hours per week just like Wisconsin, Hawaii, and a couple states already do. Interest groups are advocating to push insurance companies to cover the therapy and I think that's the toughest approach. I believe, as rates went from 1:10,000 in 1987 to 1:150 in 2006, we have a huge problem on our hands and we have to take care of it as a society. The taxpayers, you and I, should take the burden because if we don't, it will cost more money in the long run (ie. school system care, welfare for adult autistics, etc.).        

 

Mom attended a session on HANDLE therapy. At first, she went because she thought it looked ridiculous and wanted to get a few laughs. HANDLE is a holistic approach to the treatment of austism. Some of the methods sounded absurd, but it turns out mom was quite impressed and so was just about everyone walking out of there. The session was taught by a 50 yr old autistic woman, who is mostly neuro-typical now. She sounded pretty good...I'm sorry I missed her lecture, but I'm reading her book....

 

That was about it for the conference....Mom and I both attended a couple of non-mentionable sessions, which were pretty much a dissapointment, but other than that, the two days was awesome!   

 

I'll have some more for you soon.........

--
~Kyle's Daddy.