Why Your Child Needs a Comprehensive Autism Plan
If your child has a diagnosis of autism, or even if you have concerns but they aren’t yet diagnosed, you need an autism plan. Like… yesterday! I don’t want to cause you to panic but I do want to light a fire because I know from 20 years of experience in the field of autism that the sooner a child starts receiving high-quality, targeted interventions, the better their long-term outcome. Precious time is often wasted before a child has a diagnosis or when parents are waiting for services to start. It’s hard to imagine that if your child had a medical condition like cancer that you would have to wait in order to get them treatment. So, why is it okay to wait for autism therapies? Autism is urgent and I want to empower you as a parent to feel confident taking action now.
I know it can be a very long road from your first concern to diagnosis to getting a therapy plan in place. Wait lists, insurance hoops to jump through, and lack of services are all very real and frustrating realities for many parents. But, I have some good news for you. You can get started today regardless of those factors. I believe that parents are the leaders of their child’s autism plan. You are the expert on your child and know them better than anyone. You also are their biggest champion and advocate so who could do this better than you?
Now, if that seems overwhelming because you are feeling intimidated, confused, or anxious about autism than you are in the right place. I have developed a 5 step framework to help you take the right steps right now in putting together your child’s comprehensive autism plan.
1. Understand Your Child’s Autism
I want you to go beyond understanding autism in general and dig into deeply understanding how autism impacts your child. There are endless ways that autism manifests for each person. Understanding your child’s “flavor” of autism is the first step to identifying strengths and weaknesses necessary for planning. Take stock of what information you already have from reports or evaluations and make sure you really understand the information in those reports. Decipher any jargon or confusing terms so you have a clear picture of your child and their needs.
2. Develop a Comprehensive Plan
Only after you have a clear idea of your child’s strengths and needs can you begin to put a plan into place. There is no “one size fits all approach” here. Each child is unique and needs a customized plan created specifically for them. This plan involves identifying priority areas of concern and determining the best approach to address these specific needs. Maybe your child needs to learn to request what they want, get dressed in the morning, increase their vocabulary, engage with other people, walk into a store without screaming, or countless other possibilities. This will look different for every child and your plan should address each area considered a top priority.
3. Learn Autism Best Practices
Most parents are not experts on autism. But, you are an expert on your child. Educating yourself on the interventions, strategies, best practices, and therapies will empower you to be the best advocate for your child. Parents can learn simple parenting techniques to teach their child new skills and reduce problem behaviors. You don’t have to be a professional to use these strategies. And, learning the strategies will also help you be an informed consumer when collaborating with your child’s school or therapy team. Creating a comprehensive plan involves for most children the trifecta of home, school, and outside therapy working together. This approach provides the most consistency and intensity to help your child make progress quickly.
4. Implement the Plan
Now that you know what your child needs to work on and you understand how to work with your child, it’s time to get busy. Implementation is when you put the plan into place. Now, this may be just one part of the plan such as home interventions if you are still waiting for outside therapy. And, that’s okay. It’s actually better than okay because your child is probably at home for the majority of time and that gives you valuable opportunities to work on the skills identified in the plan phase. This is also the time that there are going to be bumps in the road even with the best laid plans. A strategy probably won’t work right away. You may wonder if your even doing it correctly? Life happens and you couldn’t follow through on the plan. We need to anticipate that this will happen. Getting support and coaching is the best way to implement any new plan.
5. Assess and Revise
The last phase is assessing whether the plan is working. We want to assess after we have implemented the plan for a long enough period of time that we can accurately determine whether progress is being made. Learning easy ways to define and measure progress will help you stay objective and data-driven rather than relying on your feelings about how you think it’s going. Maybe there are some changes to be made in the plan. Or, maybe you are seeing good progress as your child learns new skills. This is the result of all the hard work that went into creating the right plan for your child and the time to celebrate your child’s wins!
That’s it… the 5 step roadmap for solving your child’s biggest autism challenges. Following these steps will get your child the interventions that will pay off the most for them and lead them to reaching their own highest potential.
Want to learn more about how to put these 5 steps in place for your child? Let’s talk…. Schedule a complimentary call today.