asd treatment not working! | Autism PDD

Our son is a bp/adhd mix type. He is 11 and evening primrose oil helps his moodiness. I use 1,000 mg daily from gnc. I am a type 2 and son is type 1 they say. Natural takes longer then meds. Therapies also take time as well. try 5 htp this way help the seratonin and give it 1 hr. before bed. My son who is 10 yrs old has been dx'd bipolar mixed type since he was 6, dx'd asd at 9yrs old, he also has ptsd. We see people at Fraser, the "place" for asd treatment here in Mpls. First they had him in a Aspergers group but it did not go well so they have had him in one on one social skills training for about 3 months now and he is not responding well. They say his emotions are getting in the way due to him not being able to express them and that they come so quickly. I had really hoped that this place would be the key to his sucsess. I have been trying so many different things in the past I don't know where to go from here. He takes so long to get used to new people and here we go with another change. At home he seems to respond good to some asd idea's, they have acually worked better than any other idea's we've tried. I don't know why he won't respond the same when he is there. It is very depressing not being able to find someone who can help my son. Does anybody have any ideas?

Have you read anything by Ross Green? I worked with him once on a case. the client had ADHD, BIpolar (rapid cycle form) and HFA along with PTSD.

Ross was great and his book, I think it is called the Explosive Child was wonderful.

Your son has a complex psychological profile, with bipolar, ASD, and post-traumatic stress. It sounds to me that he needs more individualized help than a group program could provide.

There is hope, though. On my son's first IEP (1st grade), one of the goals was to teach him to talk about his emotions and explain his reactions. Now, on the year-end report after 3rd grade, this is actually described as one of his STRENGTHS.

We and the teachers just keep talking with him and help him find his words, often in connection with his drawings. We have also used the Incredible 5 Point Scale to help him visualize the strength of his emotions, and I've also dabbled with Comic Book Conversations using the website described below.

The following topic on this forum has some other free online emotions activities that might be of interest. Good luck with everything.

http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17136&am p;KW=comic+book+conversations

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Comic book conversations:

For those of you who have heard of comic book conversations, this free online activity is a very good tool for this purpose. You can easily make a 2 to 4 panel comic strip that illustrates what went wrong in an incident and help your "mind-blind" child see what the other person was thinking. Here's the link:

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/comix.php

It's very easy to use. Here are the basics.

1. Click on a character, then click on the arrows to select the appropriate emotion. Click on the image to select it, and it will appear in the comic strip panel.

2. Click on a talking bubble, then click on the arrows to select the appropriate size and orientation. Click on the bubble to select it, then click on "text here" to type in what the character says.

3. Follow the same procedure to select a thought bubble and type in what the character is actually thinking, but not saying.

If you want to delete something you click on the delete button and then the object you want deleted. Other buttons work in a similar way. Just experiment and you'll figure it out.