Daniel Marston – High-Functioning Autism: Proven & Practical Interventions for Challenging Behaviors in Children, Adolescents & Young Adults

Outline

DSM-5® and ICD-10 Updates

• Social-Pragmatic Communication Disorder
• Impact on service delivery (school/community)
• Successfully link home, school and therapy
• IEP/504/Do they qualify for school services?
• Co-morbid disorders: Why the difference is important

Social Skills Interventions

• Improve social skill deficits
• ”Kid Cop” behaviors and why other kids get angry
• How to get peers to recognize them in positive ways
• Group activities
• Early intervention strategies that can deliver long-term success

Communication Interventions

• Conflict resolutions that are effective in multiple settings
• Help peers and family members relate
• Verbal interventions that overload processing
• Pragmatic language and other abstract issues

Sensory Interventions

• Self-stimulation (appropriate & inappropriate)
• Sensory strategies to avoid
• Coping/calming techniques that reduce meltdowns
• Sensory diet

Anxiety Interventions

• Anxiety-reducing activities
• How anxiety impacts rigidity
• Help them “self-regulate”
• Successful transitions

Depression Interventions

• Impact on flexibility and change
• Therapy that works for people with HFA
• Emergence in adolescence
• Solitude vs. loneliness

ADHD Interventions

• ADHD vs. hyper-focus
• Commonly prescribed medications and possible benefits and side effects
• Specific triggers and what fuels the rage
• Reduce aggressive and disruptive behaviors
• Mistakes that escalate defiant behaviors
• Overcome refusals to comply with even simple request

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Interventions

• What to do when they become stuck on high interest areas
• Specific medication interventions
• Impact on socialization and behaviors

Interventions for Specific Difficult Behaviors

• Reduce Internet and electronic addictions
• Changes in technology, school systems and mental health delivery
• Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) for mood and anxiety

Psychopharmacological Interventions

• Differentiate among common medications
• Medications that mimic difficult behaviors
• Side effects and off label use

Case Studies, Demonstrations & Activities

• Case studies that demonstrate specific interventions for aggressive and non-compliant behaviors
• iPad® apps for social success, behavioral changes and speech and language
• Staff training techniques to experience what an individual on the spectrum might

Research, Risks and Limitations