Re: Peer -reviewed research on the efficacy of TEACCH

[Anonymous]

#5207

Your attempt to use “parents” like myself against my argument of teacch is interesting as well. Fortunately, there are many many informed parents out there. Those parents who take the time to investigate their children’s diets, and learn about salycilates and biomedical interventions are usually parents who have done a lot of their own research do not make decisions lightly and are well informed in general about their children’s conditions.

for those parents who are not informed about edcuational interventions for autism, (there are as many uninformed as informed) teacch provides, in my opinion, an alternative to them that in the face of nothing else, is accepted and considered “helfpul”.

I say again, that unless parents are presented with educational alternatives, which in the main in the UK they are NOT, that many parents, particularly parents who are at their wits end about how to educate their children, will accept that teacch is appropriate for their children.

In light of the fact that very few alternative schools and methodoligies are being used for children with asd, it stands to reason that parents are accepting teacch. do they have a choice even if they didnt? Have they got the money to pursue an ABA program, or RDI or sonrise or whatever else that they want to pursue?

Have parents in general the time and energy it takes to fight an educational system which insists that “they” know best how to teach our children? Not all parents are up to this fight and why should they have to? Yet this is the reality.

Anecdotal evidence about the use of teacch being “great”, having efficacy etc, can hardly be compared to anecdotal evidence of parents using biomedical interventions. Where a parent who has a child who wont eat, cant think, is in pain and isnt thriving, suddenly sees a healthy child, can this be compared to a parent who considers their child “progressing” because they can suddenly match the color blue from a selection of 15 cards? There is no verifiable proof that the matching skill was developed via teacch, it could have been through maturation. further due to the almost complete lack of peer reviewed study of teacch, its proponents would have a hard time proving this matching ability was “progress” because it wasnt being compared to anything else.

In terms of parents who are seeing before their eyes, and via the indisputable medical tests of their children, that their children are becoming healthy, well this is a totally different kettle of fish.

I will be happy to bring some parents who use biomed to this forum to further explain how when they cleared up their children’s immune issues that they were able to learn much more easily. Its really a “cart before the horse” scenario here.

There are parents who do want teacch, no doubt about that. But i ask myself if they could afford ABA or other interventions, if they could have ABA programs put in place in their child’s schools run in an efficient and comprehensive way, without the stress a home program creates, i am quite confident that they would be very pleased with the results. Every ABA school in the UK is filled to capacity with huge waiting lists. I can send my son to the local teacch facility tomorrow if i wanted. There is ALWAYS a place for him.

Hmmmmm wonder why. Instead i chose to do the best i can for my son, and for us, we had the money and the opportunity to pursue the best educational intervention in the world for our boy. That is applied behaviour analysis, which is includes every program my child needs, not a watered down version of behavioural control which is what the teacch program is, designed for teachers, not for the child and predicated upon outdated and harmful suppositions about what “autism” is. Funny, how the best minds in the world cant really define autism for even one child because it is so very different, yet the proponents of teacch seem to think they have a handle on how our children think, in totality.
When the government offers something as cheap and “cheerful” as teacch, one should immediately be immediately suspicious. It takes money to teach our children, it takes time, energy and intensive training. None of these things are particularly required to run the teacch program.

go figure