Educate Toward Recovery: Book | Autism PDD
Hi Folks,
I have been asked to post a message on this list from a long time member (Daddy) who feels it would be of benefit to many of you who visit here.
My name is Robert Schramm and I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Lead Behavior Consultant for the Institute Knospe-ABA (Europe's largest ABA/VB intervention institute). We are currently supporting the education of over 170 children worldwide.
I am writing to inform you about a book I have written and released last August titled "Educate Toward Recovery: Turning the Tables on Autism." The book was written specifically with the needs of the parent of children with autism in mind but it has also been reported to be very valuable to teachers, therapist, and anyone who has a child with autism in their life.
I can tell you all about the book but would rather you do it for me. If anyone has read the book, please reply to this topic with your honest assessment and recommendation. For those of you who haven't I have a place you can go to get much more information about the book for free.
The site is at www.lulu.com/knospe-aba.com. At this site you can see a long list of important names who have recommended the book to others, three reviews of the book that were printed in ABA journals, and if you go to the actual book page on the site you can read the entire book Introduction.
Additionally, I have added three papers I wrote that are excerpted from the book. The topics are "Motivation and Reinforcement the value of ABA and Verbal Behavior," How to earn instructional control with your child without ever having to force him to participate," and a Comparison paper that discusses the relative benefits and weaknesses of ABA, VB, and RDI. The papers are absolutely free to anyone who wants to download them and have been reprinted (with permission) in FEAT newsletters and in other autism publications all over the world. Feel free to download these papers, share them with others, and even post your reviews of them here.
I hope you take the time to look over the website www.lulu.com/knospe-aba I have put my heart and soul into the book "Educate Toward Recovery" and have been blown away by the response it has recieved. I hope that if you decide to read the manual that you take the time to post your thoughts here. I am always interested in seeing what others think of the work we do and offering help when I can.
Thanks,
Robert
I have not read your book but am inspired by your enthusiasm. I will try to work it in this summer.
I also posted some of your info on our long "books to recommend" thread...Hope you don't mind!
Blessings!
I actually think the book is very good - very empowering for parents. I've only read up to chapter five or so (the seven steps of instructional control), but the information contained in the book is straightforward and easy for the layman to understand, even if it's slightly verbose (I can't criticize verbosity!).
I like that the book is empowering to parents - explaining to parents how to help their own children by bringing the concepts of behaviorism into daily interactions, and the skills of discreet trial and the VB approach to ABA. It all makes a lot of sense, and de-mystifies some of the arcane techniques of the behavioral therapist and behavioral analysts and gives a parent some confidence in fulfilling those roles, to some degree, themselves.
I also like the respect that is afforded to the children. Autism is not characterized as a debilitating disease, but as a set of mannerisms and personality traits, of dealys and impairments that make our children difficult to teach - not broken, not poisoned, defective, empty shells, diseased, etc - just different, and with great potential.
That said, I wish that there wasn't so much emphasis on hiring a certified behavioral analyst to run the show, because it goes against the grain of the message - that parents can and should do this themselves - that even those of us who cannot spend 100 or more dollars per hour on expensive behavioral analysts can still provide behavioral interventions for our children - that with the techniques described in the book and with the curriculum that are mentioned (what to teach), that a parent can provide a reasonable program to their children.
I've actually considered recommending this book at times to the list, but since I'm still in the process of reading it, I haven't so far. I do believe that I have read enough, though, to recognize its value and the importance of the message of adopting behaviorism as a lifestyle, using the power of behaviorism to teach our children throughout the day as we go about our lives.
I think this would be a good book to recommend to parents who are dealing with a new diagnosis of a young child and who is looking to take on some of the work of providing effective teaching and behavioral interventions themselves, because they aren' receiving it through EI, the school district, and/or cannot afford to hire a team of therapists and consultants to run the show.
Oh, one more thing - the book does seem geared towards younger children, which is to be expected. At four and a half and with good functional language , reasonable behavior, compliance, and self care skills, much of the specific material is no longer relevant for us (though the general concepts are). I wish I had known about this book when the girls were in their ultimate 'control' phase (around two) - it would have helped immensely in those dark days :)
Thanks for your partial review. I hope to hear more when you have been able to work through the rest. As you know from reading, I firmly believe that parents need to stop being pushed to the sidelines or marginalized when it comes to the education of their children. Some of the very best teachers and therapists I know are parents. Nobody can ever understand a child to the depth that their parent can and because of this no one will ever have a better perspective as that childs educational guide.
But, I do have to say that good Autism intervention often goes against typical parenting instincts. Most of what we do, is teach parents how to change their daily interactions and approach. This offers the child good reasons on a consistent enough basis to begin changing his (or her) behavior in response.
As a BCBA, I understand the complexity of what we do on a grander scale than what needs to be done for any single child. With this perspective, I have seen so many different children who are so uniquely affected and so many families who are uniquely capable of understanding the value and technique necessary to do as the book suggests. With this knowledge, I would feel it unethical to not recommend that parents seek the support of a professional who has met certain criteria in the field (whenever possible).
Regardless, you are right. If you take the acronyms and funny names away there really is nothing rocket science about what we do. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily make it easy. If it were we, would be educating far more children to (or even toward) the concept of recovery than we currently are. I just hope to be able to give parents the information that I think is most valuable to them in a way they can best assimilate it into their daily lives. But, some kids are extremely severely effected and can be very harmful to themselves or others and to expect that 300 pages and a workshop or two is enough to teach any parent to help any child without professional help would definately be unwise. I hope you can understand.
By the way, if you think the book is on the verbose side, you should have seen the rough drafts. :-) Thanks for taking the time to post.
Robert
Hope you have great success with your book...I forward it to my BCBA :) She did the VB/ABA approach with my daughter when she was her therapist for 2 years:) She trained under Vincent Carbone in New York and my child is near recovered as can be:) She is in a VB/ABA playgroup 2x a week for social issues but doing amazing:) You would be very very busy on our quaint little board:)
Shelley
[QUOTE=ruggerschr] But, some kids are extremely severely effected and can be very harmful to themselves or others and to expect that 300 pages and a workshop or two is enough to teach any parent to help any child without professional help would definately be unwise. I hope you can understand.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, you're quite right. My experience is limited to my own relatively mildy affected children, so my attitude is skewed by that. You're speaking to a wide audience with kids at all points of the spectrum, so you're right, it would be irresponsiblet o urge parents of severely affected children to proceed without professional oversight.
Oh, and if you're interested, Tracy Vail (Let's Talk Speach and Language, Raleigh, NC) is the one who encouraged me to buy your book.
BTW - if my review souns negative, folks, I didn't intend it to. I had been meaning to recommend this book, especially to the many new parents that are on waiting lists are still in the various queues but are desperately trying to provide this sort of intervention for their children. It's a good'n.
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