Customer Reviews

Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The Me Book

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Read this book. We have implemented an intensive at-home ABA program with our autistic son which started when he was 31 months old. In 3 months, he has progressed from avoiding eye contact and interaction, and not using his hands at all for anything except eating/drinking, and being easily distressed to: smiling and interacting with family members and friendly outsiders in a variety of environments, normal play at the neighborhood park, and normal play with many toddler and preschool toys, including 12-piece peg puzzles. He was almost totally mute at the start of the program and now happily vocalizes while playing and interacting.

Like many parents facing autism we were skeptical of Lovaas' methods. What we are coming to realize, however, is that many critics of the method (including ourselves, previously) have NEVER seen it done! Punishment is not the goal--positive reinforcement is. A good ABA therapist will want your child to: 1) be successful and, more importantly, 2) to enjoy his/her success. To use the words of a previous parent reviewer, you lovingly insist on your child attending to you (as you would with any strong-willed toddler or child if you were, say, changing their diaper against their "better" wishes!) and over time you then present a series of teachable moments where your child is first taught the simplest of actions or tasks, the primary purpose of which is to be able to then positively reinforce your child for a "job well done," with a hug, a tickle, a toss in the air, accompanied by tons of verbal praise and maybe a tiny bit of candy. Little by little, the success enjoyed in all of these teachable moments leads to learning more complicated and relevant tasks and actions and gives your child a sense of purpose and self-esteem, ultimately communicating to him that interacting with the world around him is a good and pleasurable thing, not something to avoid with disturbing withdrawal or bizarre self-stimulatory behaviors. I urge all parents of autistic children to read this book in conjunction with LET ME HEAR YOUR VOICE (by Catherine Maurice) and seriously consider this therapy; then, sit in on a session of an established program involving another child before saying no to it. Careful reading, research, and discussion of The ME Book and current ABA literature showed us that the aversives and punishments emphasized by Lovaas' critics are typically used in situations where the autistic child/individual is caught in a behaviorial "loop" involving repetitive, severe, self-inflicted injury or seriously threatening behavior to others, with this behavior often unwittingly reinforced by concerned caregivers having the best of intentions. Read this book, find an experienced ABA therapist, check references, and ASK YOUR QUESTIONS. Seeing is believing.

This is an extremely important book for parents of autistic children or professionals dealing with same. Unfortunately, it has not been revised since 1981, yet a lot has been learned since then. Still quite useful, but requiring some judgement and additional knowledge for the best application of the techniques. I'm not sorry I bought it. Catherine Maurice's books "Let Me Hear Your Voice" and "behavioral Interventions [...]" make good companions to this book, and Robert Koegel's "Teaching Children With Autism " adds some different and useful perspectives. [I'm a parent, still learning about all this.]

Of all the many, many books I have read on autism since my 3 year old was diagnosed last month, I found this to be one of the most straight-forward, easy to read books with clear, easy-to-follow instructions. Although many other authors claim to have improved on his method, Lovaas has the proof to back his claims and no other methodology has come close. I agree that it is dated (chapter 2 deals with physical punishments), but it is very well-written, easy to read and follow, and well-explained. I give it 5 stars because I was able to employ it immediately and get positive results the very first day with my son. Even the use of aversives (I use a loud "no!" or simply ignore/withhold rewards) clearly aid in behavior modification. At the end of the first month of using his methods, my previously NONVERBAL, poorly attentive, self-injurious son is noticeably more affectionate (my friends and sisters have actually been shocked at his progress), comes when called, makes eye contact, can point to items he desires from his toy shelf (he previously only hand-guided but could not point), has significantly reduced tantrums and self-injurious behavior, and has a VOCABULARY OF 30 WORDS! I started the first day just with teaching him to sit down. It took me 2 hours to get him to sit down on command, and even then I had to prompt him constantly and reward him each time, as advised in the book. By the second day, he was sitting without being prompted, in clear anticipation of his treat, and I was able to begin teaching him to look at me. After mastering these 2 first basic skills, we had the foundation set to teach him, since we could now obtain his attention. We have generalized his teaching with the aid of flashcards and portable toys, and now teach him regularly in the car, in the bath, at mealtimes, etc. so that he is constantly in a learning environment. Our school district and regional center have been very slow in providing services; we are still waiting for assessments and placements. I am so happy that I got this book and started teaching him on my own, especially with all evidence pointing to superior results with earlier intervention. Most importantly, my son is noticeably happier and making rapid progress.

As far as one can tell from this book, Lovaas has not significantly updated his techniques since the '60s and '70s, except to eliminate extreme aversives such as electric shock, and his theory is straight '50s Skinner (stimulus and response, reward and punishment, and don't worry about comprehension).

"The Me Book" still advocates a lot of shouting and slapping, and a very "macho" approach, including forcibly suppressing "unacceptable" but harmless behaviour like hand-flapping, evidently on the basis that children can be "made" to be normal if only you are forceful enough.

Despite the current wave of Lovaas-mania, based on his claims to have "cured" autistic children (claims which has been disputed by other experts, and which sit oddly with his own earlier results showing that years of work failed to produce anything resembling "normality"), he is far from being state-of-the-art in the behavioural field itself.

Researchers such as Robert and Lynn Koegel (who originally worked with Lovaas but started out on their own at least in part because of the unhappiness they observed in children on Lovaas's program) have documented that approaches such the "natural language paradigm" which utilize the child's interests and emphasise shared control and functional communication, are markedly more effective than Lovaas-style "drill".

In a Lovaas-type session, a child might be drilled to reply "ball" in response to the question "what's this?", and be given a sweet or a cookie as a reward. Lovaas's own research has shown that this is a very ineffective way of teaching communication: it may succeed in producing a child who can respond "ball" to the question "what's this", but it doesn't result in a child who is able to say "ball" in order to request a ball (that would have to be taught separately, and there's no way of "drilling" for spontaneous communication, so Lovaas fails to describe in any detail how this leap is to be achieved).

In the Koegels' approach, the teacher might initiate a game with the ball, and then when the child reaches for it, prompt them to say "ball", rewarding them by giving them the ball. Unsurprisingly, this is far more effective as a way of teaching functional communication (as well as eliminating the distress and frustration which is commonly experienced by children in Lovaas-type programs - there is at least one documented case of an autistic child who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after a Lovaas-style program).

Speech and language researchers have shown that echolalia, which Lovaas believes must be suppressed, actually functions as a stepping-stone to communicative speech for many autistic children. Other researchers, such as V. Mark Durand, have shown that modern techniques which do not use aversives, but which focus on working out what the person in question is using challenging behaviour to communicate, can be far more effective than ones which rely on punishment.

Parents should not be fooled into thinking that Lovaas is state-of-the-art, or that there is any special curative "magic" about this outdated textbook.

The concepts within this book are up-to-date even though this book is 20 plus years old. The research shows that this method works! This method is successfully used today to help many delayed children reach their potential and if done correctly, a large number even recover with minimal or no symptoms. Before you buy anything else, buy this book and learn as much as you can from it, then start applying it immediately. I personally know at least a dozen parents of autistic children who have reported a complete recovery after 2 years of completing this intensive program! There are a few other helpful books such as those by Catherine Maurice that you can buy after reading this. However, no other book will give you the foundation to start from as this one will. Anyone who refuses to apply or accept the principles contained in this book, is doing SERIOUS damage to developmentally delayed children. ... Do whatever you can to get a hold of a copy of this book and the videos if you can. Your child depends on you!!

Ok, this book needs an update that is true. However, it is the seminal work in the field, extremely important and very influential in the area of treating autism. Lovaas is a living legend.

I was happy with the book overall as it tells you, step by step what to do in order to teach a skill. What I didn't like about it though is the terminology they use to refer to the children they are treating, such as "developmentally disabled" or "retarded" because whilst that may be true of some severe cases of autism, it's simply not true with a lot of other children, who simply need extra help.

A good buy though, just don't be put off by the terminology.

To ABA or not to ABA, that is the question... While many newer, more developmentally based ABA-hybrids such as Verbal Behavior embrace the idea of teaching functional language in context (as someone mentioned belowed - rather than teaching someone to say 'ball' and rewarding them with a cookie, it seems more functional to teach them 'ball' and give them an actual ball), this is the more 'old school' style ABA.

In my personal experience, this program works for some kids by serving as a kind of mass-stimulation approach. If you can get a child who is young enough, and bombard them with language, attending, and imitation skills for enough hours (whether in context or not), then, for SOME children, it appears that the stimulation of these parts of the brain is enough. This makes sense when you think about the 'survival of the busiest' theory of neural development. Eventually they reach a point where they take over and start learning on their own.

For the kids who never reach that point and do no start picking up these skills independently, however, I would recommend a more functional approach. These are the cases where a child replies "seven" when asked 'How old are you?' at eighteen because they were drilled on this question at seven years old but never understood it. These can also be the kids who sit down at the ABA teaching table and perform all of their tasks like party tricks in order to be rewarded, but never carry this over to spontaneous language because it is not meaningful to them.

Overall, it seems that the newer forms of ABA (ie Verbal Behavior) address both issues by doing mass stimulation AND making it meaningful. 'Classic' ABA has proved a powerful tool for some (not all, but some) children, however.