An Adolescent and Her Family in Need

This article from CNN (see the link below) is the introduction to a new series they’ve done on about a 13-year old girl whose family needs help in figuring out how to manage her behavior which consists of uncontrollable screaming and tantrums. The Autism Partnership, a behavior intervention agency located in California, provided this family with a week-long intervention to help the family. The family was connected with Autism Partnership through the girl’s school.

This article brought up a couple key issues for me. First of all, this family is among many others that have spent their lives since the diagnosis of their child struggling to provide their child with the intensive intervention recommended. This, as is pointed out in the article, can be very expensive and beyond the means of most families. Something needs to be done at the local, state, and federal level to ensure that children with autism and their families are able to access the most intensive and effective treatments. The second issue that jumps out at me is the fact that the family was offered limited support from the school to address the girl’s issues at home. This is an issue that I deal with as a teacher. The public school system is not set up to help families at home…family-centered programming and support stops when the child enters kindergarten. This is a sad reality and something that needs to be addressed because it has been shown that consistency across all environments is the most effective in addressing issues with children with autism…if there is limited support for the family by the school which is full of trained professionals, there will not be as much success as possible. It wasn’t until the Autism Partnership got involved that the family was able to get help at home. The final issue is the fact that this girl and her family are suffering because of the intensity of her behavior which has increased as she has gone without treatment and as she has entered puberty. It brings up the point once again that early intervention and education of family members is vital to ensure the progress of the child and solidarity within the family.

Autism 911: Help for a family in crisis