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Bkdad82
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17 Jul 2014, 12:51 am

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
Bkdad82 wrote:
ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
Lights are probably tricky to find replacement stims for. Does he like certain colors? You could try to see if he likes florescent versions of those colors. He might focus on them instead of lights if they are bright enough.

I know you are worried that he is not focusing on what you want him to, but your child probably needs the stim time to modulate energy level and self-calm.

If you are doing a particular thing that you want focus for, you could try using florescent/brightly colored materials if you child will accept it as a substitute. Alternately, you could try to be creative and add lights as part of your play. They do make "flashlights" for toddlers with a frosted plastic end, so the light is not excessively bright.

You also might try using toys with lots of colorful lights to engage in joint play with or whatever you are working on.


He does like toys with lights. I understand the stim helps him to calm down. The problem is that he can't spend all his time stimming. At this point we try to redirect him. For example he used to like to mouth toys. He would have his shirt full of slobber and his hands were always busy because he would need them to hold the toy in his mouth. The ABA teacher took it away. First he cried, but within a week he stopped mouthing toys. Now he can play with toys more because his hands are free. I understand that on the one hand stims help to calm people down. On the other hand they are distracting. The lights are very tricky to deal with. If we are near we cover his view, but we cant do that all day. I will try different colors. I think he is attracted to the contrast. Maybe we need to make the light more even in our house.


I understand that you want your child to do other things. I would try really hard to integrate lighted/colorful objects into the play itself. Whenever we want my son to do anything, integrating the special interest seems to help us. My son is 8 and we still do this.


Interesting I will try to add that to his play. Right now we're working on tracking so maybe we can use lights. By the way I absolutely love ABA if it's done the right way. My thought is that it's up to us as parents to give our kids the right tools to use, to teach them to speak etc. I feel that my son wants to learn, wants to speak , wants to understand us but he doesn't know how to. He is stuck in a repetitive self contained loop. ABA breaks that loop and it gives him something that doesn't come naturally to him.



Bkdad82
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17 Jul 2014, 1:00 am

Stormymomma wrote:
My son (almost 3 yrs) isn't in ABA yet, but he likes to do this side glancing thing. Likes to look at reflections or something. Really likes shiny things. I took him to the eye dr. and his vision is fine. In about a year, my son's eye dr. is going to have a test for kids with autism. They think maybe it takes a longer time for some of them to process what they see? I guess it would be interesting to find out if this is the case or not.


I don't think it's a delay in processing so much as a strong stim ( based on suggestion in this thread). Btw I highly recommend ABA. It can be really rewarding, but it's repetitive. ABA is like animal training but what happens is that when a child gets trained he/ she gains a skill, and can use that for communicating and understanding their world. For example cause and effect. My son was being taught to point to what he wants. So now he understands to get this I need the point to the jar and the parent willl open it and give me a treat. You might think how dehumanizing this is. However my son brought me a water bottle and showed it to m e to open. Cause and effect. While the training itself can be animalistic, the results learned can be used to think in a very human way.



btbnnyr
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17 Jul 2014, 1:51 am

I would rather stare at lights than do ABA.


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Bkdad82
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17 Jul 2014, 9:59 am

btbnnyr wrote:
I would rather stare at lights than do ABA.

Of course I would rather eat junkfood and watch tv all day. The way I see it is that sometimes doing something unpleasant makes life better later on.



Stormymomma
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17 Jul 2014, 11:23 pm

Bkdad82 wrote:
Stormymomma wrote:
My son (almost 3 yrs) isn't in ABA yet, but he likes to do this side glancing thing. Likes to look at reflections or something. Really likes shiny things. I took him to the eye dr. and his vision is fine. In about a year, my son's eye dr. is going to have a test for kids with autism. They think maybe it takes a longer time for some of them to process what they see? I guess it would be interesting to find out if this is the case or not.


I don't think it's a delay in processing so much as a strong stim ( based on suggestion in this thread). Btw I highly recommend ABA. It can be really rewarding, but it's repetitive. ABA is like animal training but what happens is that when a child gets trained he/ she gains a skill, and can use that for communicating and understanding their world. For example cause and effect. My son was being taught to point to what he wants. So now he understands to get this I need the point to the jar and the parent willl open it and give me a treat. You might think how dehumanizing this is. However my son brought me a water bottle and showed it to m e to open. Cause and effect. While the training itself can be animalistic, the results learned can be used to think in a very human way.

That was just his eye doctors opinion. It would be interesting to see if there is some truth to it is all I'm saying. What my son is experiencing may be different from yours. He likes lots of movement and strong input. One of his OTs mentioned it and I asked if they think it is something he would benefit from. So, we will see what happens.



setai
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18 Jul 2014, 11:49 am

btbnnyr wrote:
I would rather stare at lights than do ABA.


My son really enjoys his ABA. He anxiously waits for his BI to arrive and opens the door with a huge smile and a Hi to them. There are times he doesn't like a specific task, esp if he as mastered it and they haven't closed the program. He is bummed if they have to cancel and this is even with it being 6 days a week. They push him, but do it in way that it is bite size changes and filled with play, attention and engaging activities. The two BI, they trade off days, are young professionals who care and have really gotten to know my son. The supervisor is very knowledgeable, approachable, and always not only listens to us, but treats us as equals in the team and the experts on our son. I know that ABA can be a really bad experience for some people, horrible in the past when it was punishment based, but his program is has exceeded our expectations. I don't know if it an outstanding program because I have nothing to compare to, but it has been great for him.