EffortPost [any]
What the fuck? No, do not give a fucking iphone to a child.
My take on that article was that it was identifying ways parents can better understand their children. I agree that the focus in the headline on reducing the chance of an autism diagnosis wasn’t great. Whoever chose that headline for the article emphasized the wrong outcome. For reference to anyone unfamiliar with this, it’s typically an editor and not the article’s author.
Mulling this over more, I understand why the study would be constructed on the singular outcome of measuring the impact on diagnosis rates since that is a commonly understood quantifiable metric.
I do appreciate that the study specifically calls out that diagnosis rate is not an ideal metric and that a more productive metric should be established. The scope of doing so would need be its own research and studies that identify these sorts of short comings are exactly how we surface these problems so that they can be picked up by other scientists.
Long comment, but reading through the article gave me encouraging bloomer vibes. I am having a good day though, so my perspective is of course influenced by that.
Going to start this by saying that making folks less likely to meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis is shitty and encourages the development of masking behavior. It also feeds into the stigma of neurodiversity as somehow being “bad” or “undesirable”.
With that caveat made clear, providing better skills for parents and children to communicate well early on is great and helps reduce stress on both of them.
The therapy is parent-led, which means parents and caregivers, who are the most prominent and important people in their babies’ lives, are trained to deliver it.
These methods appear to be parent training reframed as “therapy” techniques. Good method for parents to be more accepting of learning these skills since this makes it clear they’re learning a new skill vs “doing something wrong”. Disarming people’s defensiveness is critical for getting through to them.
If you need an example for how sensitive of a topic this can be, think of the stereotype where someone’s personal worth is so attached to their ability as a parent that react to any feedback with "are you trying to tell me how to raise my kid? While it is maladjusted behavior, this is still a very understandable response for a person to have about such a huge part of their life.
Parents are videoed interacting with their baby in everyday situations, such as feeding and playing. The trained therapist then provides guidance to the parent about how their baby is communicating with them, and they can communicate back to have back-and-forth conversations.
We need to remember that most parents receive literally no training for childcare and instead learn through trial and error. That is not ideal and a side affect of the alienation caused by the nuclear family model common in western culture. Other more collectivist cultures can learn from their community and relatives vs the overwhelming “individual responsibility” pushed on parents in western culture.
This can be especially challenging when your child responds to different communication methods than you’ve been able to find in different childcare books that are exclusionary of neurodiversity. Feelings of shame can permeate a parent as they blame themselves for somehow failing, especially when they’re a first-time parent.
The therapy takes the approach that children who develop differently experience the world and learn skills in different ways. By understanding unique abilities and interests of each baby, we can use these strengths as a foundation for future development.
All children develop differently, but their point is a great one. This is the correct way to approach teaching and child care. One size does not fit all and the desire to force compliance into a single lived experience is extremely damaging for folks.
By understanding who a child is (their strengths and challenges) rather than what they are (a diagnostic label), we can provide individualised therapy supports that will help them towards their full potential.
YES! Good conclusion. The author of this study struggled some with articulating a Neurodiverse vs Neurodivergent viewpoint, but ultimately found their way to a productive understanding. Very encouraging to see this sort of progress developing in mental health. We’re making a lot of progress in this area over the last decade.
This article has me feeling very bloomer. Love it.
Based.