Disclaimer. This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor.
I am near completion of my book concerning my family's recovery journey, contributing factors, and treatment planning.
I suppose one should start with the cause, rather than how to reverse it. But, there are many reasons I am not starting with the cause. For one, the causes are many, and difficult to treat. Thus, it's not like you are going to do something for a few weeks and be cured. If anyone has been successful in such a manner, they have kept it to themselves because all I see are the recoveries that take months to years, most seemingly taking 3 years or more. My children were able to do regular school in about a year's time, which really is amazing. One I adopted at age 4, and one that I did not start treatments until age 14. Many people ask me about specific symptoms and severity and such. I suppose they are looking for understanding and believability. As much as I understand, realize that faith is the main ingredient to recovering your children; the symptoms and severity are less of a concern. If you believe they can be recovered, then you will put forth the effort. If you put forth the effort, you will learn many things towards recovery.
There are many complexities to recovering children. Many say that they have tried everything with no improvements. Some say they got great improvements from a technique that others said did not work at all for their child. The biggest hindrance I see in recovering children is the emotional side of it. Many are embarrassed that they have not been successful or are in denial that their child has a diagnosis; many are afraid of false hopes; many face much antagonism from family doctors, relatives, and others when they put in efforts to recover their children; and then many also feel guilty or blame themselves, mostly because there are a lot of unknowns. Admittedly, recovery efforts take a lot of time, effort, and faith. I have seen numerous postings on autism forums where people said they tried everything, but nothing worked. When these persons were asked to go into detail on what they tried, many do not. Thus, it is strange to me for someone to say he/she tried everything, but then not accept free information when offered from those who have been successful.
I applaud those who enter this very challenging journey. It's not easy, and most I come into contact with in my city, won't even try. The ones who stick around to keep learning, do appear to figure it out eventually. Thus, it's a matter of trying till you figure it out. I used no ABA or RDI or any other autism-specific behavior modification program. I used biomedical. I searched for answers, and they appeared to be in the biomedical realm, so that is where I delved. I have no regrets on making that decision. I am not against behavior modification techniques; I think they are helpful. I went by mostly what parents reported and what I have seen. It just so happens that parents reported getting results with biomedical over behavioral modification techniques. Sometimes, with-in hours, one could get amazing improvements with biomedical techniques, so this sold me. Also, I am concerned that since the problem is biological, modifying behaviors without biological treatment seems worrisome. I don't want my children to continue to be ill. After all, children with autism are ill. They are medically, physically, and biologically ill.
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