"A survey study asked parents about their use of 111 different possible autism treatments. These included many different categories including behavioural or educational therapy, medications, diets, supplements, medical procedures and alternative therapies. Parents (mostly from the US) indicated that they had tried an average of seven treatments for their child (Green, 2006). In choosing to use so many, some parents may be selecting options that have little research evidence to inform them what to expect. The danger here is that in some cases, a treatment may cause unpredicted harm to a child. Alternatively, it may not have as much effect as it is promoted to have and may result in a loss of family resources (time or money), which could be put to better use elsewhere.
One approach to this problem is for parents to review as much information as possible concerning a treatment they are considering for their child. But, this unfortunately, may not be enough... available sources such as the Internet, requires knowledge of how to evaluate levels of evidence...learning how to appraise research knowledge at a more basic level can still be useful." - from article by Stephen Gentles.
Please browse the blog at your leisure. You are welcome to comment on the posts. If you are a parent, an autism consultant, counselor, teacher with information on autism resources available in our area, please email your information to benziesangma@gmail.com. Your information will be added within 24 hours.
At School Social Stories
Local Autism Support Groups
Parents Engaging Autism Quinte (PEAQ), an autism parent support group, meets once a month on the first Tuesday of the month (no meetings in January, July and August) at Kerry's Place, 189 Victoria Avenue, Belleville at 6:30 to 8 p.m. If you have questions or suggestions for autism topics that are important to you please go to our FaceBook account and post your suggestions so that we can invite appropriate autism professionals to speak at these meetings.
Autism parent support group meeting hosted by Mental Health Agency, Trenton and Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) is on every second Thursday of the month (from September to June) from 6 to 7:30 pm. For more info, please contact Bryanna Best, Special Needs Inclusion Coordinator at 613 392 2811 ext 2076 or email at bryanna.b@trentonmfrc.ca
For info on Community Living Prince Edward County Parent Support group, contact Resource Consultants @ 613 476 6038
Central Hastings Autism Support Group meets in Madoc at the Recreation Centre. Contact Renee O’Hara, Family Resource & Support, 613-966-7413 or Tammy Kavanagh, Family Resource & Support, 613-332-3227
Parenting your child during Covid-19 pandemic
In it for the long haul...
I created this blog with my sincere wish that those of you reading this will want to share your own stories, both good and bad, what worked for you and what didn't and together, we can make it easier for the next family beginning their own journey of discovery. By posting what you know, where you have recieved certain services, who you have talked to, whose expertise you trust, how you navigated the school education services and by responding to questions in the discussion thread, know that you have helped a family in need. So, parents, experts in the field, counsellors, teachers and everyone who has any information on resources available, please feel free to post on this blog.