Is Your Child Diagnosed With Autism? Options To Help You
When you are a parent of a child that has recently been diagnosed with autism, you may feel a bit overwhelmed and unsure of what to do to help your child grow and learn with their disorder. While it is understandable to feel shocked and confused by your child's diagnosis, the best thing that you can do for your child that has autism is to start looking into various options to provide them with the education and assistance they need to thrive in this world. Get to know some of the different autism therapies and treatments available to you and your child. Then, you can start trying different options to find the ones that work best for your child and their autism.
Animal-Assisted Therapy
One of the treatment options available to young people with autism is known as animal-assisted therapy. Animal-assisted therapy is a form of autism treatment that involves interaction with animals. Some people may opt to get a service or emotional support pet for their child with autism (most commonly a dog). These companion animals can help to calm a child with autism when their senses are overloaded and simply provide them with a close and loyal friend to keep close by at all times.
Other animal-assisted therapy involves interacting with horses. Equine therapy or therapeutic horseback riding can help to teach your child new skills (riding and caring for a horse), allow them to interact with an emotionally intuitive animal, and can build confidence, independence, and can improve language use and behavior.
ABA Therapy
ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapy is another popular type of therapy for children with autism. ABA is a type of therapy that involves looking at and assessing behaviors. Most children with autism will have negative behaviors that parents would like to change, as they can be detrimental to their child's growth and overall well-being. However, it can often be difficult to change or do away with these problematic behaviors.
ABA can help. This therapeutic technique looks at why behaviors occur, including environmental factors, and can help a child with autism learn to behave differently. Looking at any situation in which a behavior might occur, there is always a precursor to the behavior (antecedent), the behavior itself, and then a consequence (positive or negative). By using positive reinforcement for good behaviors, a child with autism will, over time, learn which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
This process can be long and difficult for parents and children with autism alike. But, with the help of an ABA therapist and various techniques they use, your child will learn to thrive and you will learn how to help them manage and control their behaviors better.
Now that you know a few of the treatments and therapies that can help your child with autism, you can be sure to give them a try as soon as possible. Get in touch with a business like Excel ABA to learn more.
