Parents Can Provide Autism therapy at home

It's expensive to care for a child with autism. Even if you have top-notch insurance and a wonderful school district, you'll pay premium prices for everything from babysitting to summer camp. Therapy can be a costly added expense, especially when (as is often the case) some of the best therapists won't accept insurance.

Fortunately, however, there are many well-established risk-free therapies that parents can provide on their own with relatively little cost in time or money. Even better, therapies provided by parents can be just as effective as those provided by therapists. Best of all, these are therapies that can help parents bond with their children while also building skills. Of course, not every parent wants to (or is good at) providing therapy to an autistic child, but if you're hoping to save money while bonding with your child it's well worth a try.

Play Therapy

Play therapy is exactly what it sounds like: learning through the process of play. For children with autism, the goal of play therapy is to build social interaction and communication skills and, in the long run, to enhance children's ability to engage in novel activities and symbolic play.

You can start by connecting with your child through simple chase-and-tickle games, bubble blowing, or sensory activities such as swinging, sliding, or wriggling through a tube.

Speech Therapy

Speech therapy in Oviedo deals with speech and communication disorders, both isolated and within more complex clinical pictures as in the case of:

• Intellectual disabilities and congenital and acquired neurological diseases (such as genetic syndromes or infantile cerebral palsy)
• Deafness
• Autism spectrum syndrome.

These disorders can affect both the expressive side, and the receptive side and, in the most serious cases, both areas.

Applied Behavior Analysis

Applied behavior analysis is often referred to as the gold standard of autism therapy, largely because therapists set very specific, measurable goals and often succeed in teaching skills.

While it's possible to take courses and be certified in ABA, it's also possible to do a quick online training and use ABA techniques in your home through a program like the ATN/AIR-P Parent's Guide to Applied Behavior Analysis.

Floortime

Floortime has a great deal in common with play therapy but is built around the idea that parents should work toward increasing "circles of communication" with their autistic child. In other words, through the use of Floortime techniques, parents encourage their child to participate in back-and-forth interaction (verbal or non-verbal) —something that can be very challenging for people on the spectrum. 

 

Relationship Development Intervention 

RDI is a therapeutic technique specifically developed for parents. Like Floortime, it uses developmental theories to help parents help their children build social communication skills. Unlike Floortime, however, RDI has a prescribed series of goals and activities​ and requires that parents work with a consultant in order to get started.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for Aggressive Behaviors

A significant minority of children with autism spectrum disorders have aggressive behaviors that make it very difficult to leave home or participate in typical activities. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) technique, intended for children with aggressive behaviors, is provided by parents who are trained by consultants.

According to their website: "To interrupt a cycle of escalating negative behaviors between parent and child, the parents learn to incorporate clear limit-setting within the context of an authoritative relationship.