Module 7.0 Living with Autism: Impact on Family and Siblings
Jake lives with both parents and 5 y.o. sister. The father is self employed and they live in a country setting as what I would describe a typical middle-class family. This home setting does not allow him many opportunities to interact with others outside his home or in his neighborhood. Jake does not fully understand the dangers of traffic and will run out of the yard and into the street. Dad is not as involved in Jake’s treatment as we would like him to be. He is the primary breadwinner of the family, but he needs to offer some alternatives for Jake and mom. The interactions could be very beneficial to Jake.
Mom has the most interactions with Jake and attends every appt. even accompany him during therapy interventions. (I can’t help but to stress the overbearing nature that I feel she imposes on him by directing all his responses. There is not much time for him to process his thoughts or provide a response- whether correct or not. I addressed this again with his primary therapist and she agrees that it could be limiting his learning potentials.). Jake’s preferred communication style for learning thus far has been with verbal techniques. He is lacking the cognitive abilities to realize abstract thoughts or ideas, or so it seems. The abstract thoughts and prompting issues were discussed with mom, and she states that she will be aware of her interruptions as well. Jake needs room to explore and expand his abilities- freely. If mom sees Jake make positive advancements with learning and his play, she identifies a greater need to jump in and lead him. This has a negative impact on Jake’s initiation attempts. We continue to work with mom to decrease “prompting”. While every parent wants their child to succeed, it is sometimes through our mistakes that we learn.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteIt is good insight into the realiztion that Jake's Mom can sometimes impact the success in therapy. I find it a challenge when family's have good intentions but limit progress. Sometimes I suggest staying in the waiting room. If I think it will be unfavorable, I ask them to stay in 1 session and come back the next or whatever they agree upon.
Kirsten
Sometimes I ask the parent to stay in the waiting room for the first half of the session to give me and the child some time to form our own "relationship." This allows the parent to have some alone time and also still be a part of the session. I appreciate this mom's desire to be an active member of her child's intervention, we work with many children whose parents we never meet. It is all a dance:) As well, I have worked with many families where one of the caregivers is much more invested in the child's day to day routines. Our readings did indicate that a good number of father's tend to focus on meeting the financial needs of the family, it may be that this dad needs to better understand what an important role he can play in the life of his son. As well, if the mom is so overbearing, she might be unintentionally pushing dad out of the "picture".
ReplyDeleteLove your additional "stuff" on your blogs.
Christina