What is valued and what is under-considered in current practice?

What is valued in current practice?

The new Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Corbett, recently announced his new budget plans, which included massive cuts for education – in fact, a 1.5 billion dollar cut from education, re-setting the budget to an equivalent of the 2008-2009 school year budget (Gallagher, 2011). This budget plan also includes no decrease in special education funding (but no increase either), threatens full-day Kindergarten programs, and proposes elimination of salary increased for teachers who receive master’s degrees (Hofius Hall, S. (2011). I know most of you are not from Pennsylvania, but this recent news of the proposed budget has sort-of panic-stricken Pennsylvanians. The tax payers are worried about huge increases in taxes, and school officials, not just elementary and high schools, but universities as well, are worried about the budget cuts and the impact on school programs.

So, what is valued in current practice? Unfortunately, money doesn't grow on trees.  Consquently, what is cost-effective and easiest to conserve money for the school districts is what they desire. For families of children with autism as well, there are so many financial considerations to make. We are still at a very difficult economic time in our country, so while parents will want to do what is best for their children, money definitely is a huge factor in that decision-making.

With regard to behavioral and social interventions for autism, the most popular interventions are those that use ABA principles (Tomchek & Case-Smith, 2009). However, ABA, when applied as suggested, which includes 25-40 hours per week of treatment and assistance from trained ABA therapists, can be very expensive (Healing Thresholds, 2011).

What is under-considered, and may be valuable, to current practice paradigms?

There is so much variability within early and intensive behavioral intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (Love, Carr, Almason, & Petursdottir, 2009). Social and behavioral interventions are often competing against one another. Most research available is on particular intervention options, again social versus behavioral, but not in looking at models where social AND behavioral components are present.  As Garcia-Winner & Abildgaard (2011) stated,

“Providing increased opportunities for naturalistic rewards, extinguishing negative behaviors while providing encouragement and reinforcement of positive social behaviors is the focus of all skilled care providers and should not be seen as belonging to one treatment camp or the other. It is common sense; it should be our common treatment goal… So rather than argue whether a student should receive ABA or Social Thinking, instead we should continue to explore how we can merge the best ideas from both treatments into one intervention approach for our higher functioning students and continue to create new ideas in treatment for our population as it ages.”

Read more: http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/news/social-thinking-and-applied-behavior-analysis-not-black-and-white-autism-22932344#ixzz1H47tlgbN

I would argue, then, that minimizing educational funds and not providing salary increases for furthering education for teachers, etc., could potentially have indirect negative impacts on autism interventions. Do any of you work with those individuals who feel comfortable with their current practices, are resistant to change, and who only take continuing education opportunities because they need the CEUs to keep their job/title? Well, on the flip side, there are those of us who are taking courses to gain knowledge, improve our practices, and all with the goal of improving the lives of the students that we see and doing what is in the best interests of the children. A push for more experienced professionals should be the key.

References:

Gallagher, J. (2011). Pennslyvania Education Budget Cuts Have Wide Consequences. Yahoo! News. Retrieved from: fahttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110315/tr_ac/8068682_pennsylvania_education_budget_cuts_have_wide_consequences

Garcia-Winner, M. & Abildgaard, C. (2011). Social Thinking and Applied Behavior Analysis- Not “Black and White.” Autism Support Network. Retrieved from: http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/news/social-thinking-and-applied-behavior-analysis-not-black-and-white-autism-22932344

Healing Thresholds (2011). Autism Therapy: ABA. Retreived from: http://autism.healingthresholds.com/therapy/applied-behavior-analysis-aba

Hofius Hall, S. (2011). Cuts to Education Deep in NEPA, State. The Times-Tribune.com. Retrieved from: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cuts-to-education-deep-in-nepa-state-1.1116277#axzz1H3cT0GDi

Love, J. R., Carr, J. E., Almason, S. M., & Petursdottir, A.I. (2009). Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention for Autism: A Survey of Clinical Practices. Autism Spectrum Disorders (2009) (3) p. 421–428

Retrieved From: http://www.auburn.edu/~lal0011/autism/love.pdf

Tomchek SD, Case-Smith J. Occupational therapy practice guidelines for children and adolescents with autism. Bethesda (MD): American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); 2009. 132 p. Retrieved from: http://www.guideline.gov/content.aspx?id=15292