Hi I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, board
certified behavior analyst and
best-selling author.
I'm often asked how do you get parent
out of denial so they make an
appointment to determine if their child
falls on the autism spectrum. In the
first page of my book, The Verbal
Behavior Approach, I say that my husband
first mentioned the possibility that
Lucas might have autism when he was just
21 months old and on that day I was
horrified I told him I never ever wanted
to hear the word autism again which is
so ironic because I say speak type write
the word autism so many times a day I
want to count them. But I was in denial
for about a year and when I think back,
when I look at the little children that
I now work with, I think that was a very
crucial year for me to be in denial. But
back in the late 1990s when
Lucas was diagnosed I didn't know what
ABA was and I certainly didn't know
these techniques either so it's very
exciting when I get to work with very
young children because that's when
you're going to see the most progress.
However you may be watching and you may
have an older child or older clients and
I want to tell you now that it is never
too late. I'm seeing lots of progress
with older kids as well and so it's
never too late to start these critical
interventions. I think now there are
fewer parents in denial then they were
back then because the prevalence of
autism is so much higher and it seems
like everyone knows someone with autism.
There's also more evidence to show that
really intervening early and
aggressively can turn things around so
people are less likely to be in denial
now. But there still is probably going to
be some denial in some people and it
sometimes happens where the mom's in
denial and dad is pushing things more
and saying
"there's something wrong" and lots of
times it's the mom saying "there
something going on I want to get
evaluated and pursue a diagnosis" and dad
might be in denial.
So you just have to realize that
everyone has their own history and
they're going to come to terms with the
diagnosis more quickly or more slowly.
They also have cultural issues and the
dynamics between a two-parent family is
quite complex. Grandparents can also come
into the mix a lot with denial and
either grandparents are totally on board
or totally not on board and then you
have to deal with those dynamics as well.
In most cases I have found someone is in
denial or in more denial than other
family members and so the question is
"How do you get a person out of denial no
matter what their role is?" So my advice
for getting people out of denial is to
offer hope and even tell them that if
they intervene very early and
aggressively kids sometimes recover from
autism. They become indistinguishable
from their peers and don't need any
treatment. Also tell parents in denial
that even if it's not autism, it's always
better to kind of look under the hood
see what's wrong and get some
assessments just to make sure if it's
not autism or if it is autism. Regardless
these ABA and verbal behavior techniques
can be very important for even a child
with a mild speech delay or even a
typically developing child that you want
to engage more so these are really easy
techniques for parents to learn. The
third thing to tell that a parent in
denial is that there are wait lists for
diagnosis. And treatment also have
wait lists and many developmental
pediatrician expedite assessments for
children under two. Time is of the
essence at for infants and toddlers and
the
quicker you can get a child evaluated, the
better their chances of having a really
good outcome. In the meantime encourage
parents of young children with signs of
autism to check out my website
marybarbera.com and learn all they can
about ABA because if ABA works to
sometimes help kids with severe autism
become indistinguishable these same
techniques can help children with all
kinds of delays.
These are the things that got me out of
denial so I just want to review them.
Get a thorough check to rule out autism
if you don't think it had he has
autism. Get on a waiting list now. You can
always cancel of things turn around. If
ABA can help kids with severe autism it
could help my son Lucas who I believed
was just speech delayed. And give them
hope because there is hope no matter
what the age. If you're watching this
video blog anywhere other than my blog
page at marybarbera.com, I hope you
will hop on over to my website leave me
a comment there or share this video blog
on your favorite social media channel.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you
next week.