Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 11:57:52 EST
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Information about abuse

Jim,
   Glad to see your input again!  I have a question though that often has
perplexed me.
   I often felt like you state that some therapies have seemed to abusive
to continue.  The hold therapy you mentioned is one good example, if it is
what I mean by hold therapy.
   Often therapy has been very difficult for my daughter (of course this is
going back to age 1 to 2 when she was incorrectly diagnosed and had many
physical limitations, at 9 months old she could not sit unsupported, could
not roll over back to front or vice versa, could not crawl and certainly
could not talk).  We went to a therapy center where my daughter began to
receive physical therapy, these were excrutiatingly painful for my daughter
and us, we all left in tears almost every time.  However she did learn to
do most of these things even though they were extremely hard for her.
Some therapies never have seemed to produce much such as occupational,
although I'm not sure how much they are getting down to fine motor, often
it seems more like re-inforcement of gross motor.  Once my daughter was
able to sit and walk etc, the  therapies actually became something she liked
and were fun to her and still are.
   As for hold therapy tell me if what I am talking about is the same thing
or not.
   When my daughter was an infant, she cried most of the time.  If we picked
her up it often seemed to get worse.  Sometimes holding her was no problem,
but quite often if she was upset about something picking her up and holding
her offered little comfort in fact it seemed like it irritated her more.
We really didn't know what to do about it and felt that since our touch seemed
to bother her we should let her be but try to stay nearby so she would know
we were there.  Finally after discussing this with people for about 6 months
or a year and not getting advise someone said that you just have to hold them
until they get over it, even if it takes hours.  Little by little we did this
and it did seem to help and eventually little by little it seemed that holding
would comfort a little bit more each time, although this took an extremely long
time building up.  Often times during these sessions her crying would seem to
get strong to the point where we wondered if there was real damage done to
cause her to scream to the point where she seemed to loose control of it.
Most kids seem to have a point when they are upset when they will get to a peak
and then gradually settle themselves.  My daughter's sessions seemed to go
for an extremely long peak.  Most people never really saw these sessions and
when we tried to explain them to them, they seemed to think it was typical
crying and watching their reaction to us, we felt they didn't really
know what we meant.  The first time anyone saw it was probably when my daughter
was 2 1/2 in a pre-school.  It shook them up pretty bad, they tried to hold
her but the session went on for about 1 hour.  When they got her settled they
called us to come and pick her up, but we could tell from their reaction it
really floored them.  Doctors never paid much attention to our concerns and
most people seemed to just think we were overestimating the depth to it.
The one person that told us to hold her through it, I think had the right
answer, but it took a long time for anyone to tell us this.

   I guess my basic overall question is that, in both of these instances
the resolution seemed to cause extreme stress to my daughter, almost to the
point it would feel abusive, but if we hadn't done it, we feel that she
wouldn't have came around to where she did.  Granted we never can tell since
we didn't go that route, but how does someone decide that any difficult therapy
is turning into abuse and needs to be stopped.  If the child is not driven
to some extent, will they have the power to overcome what they need, to
achieve the things they need, such as walking, and being comforted.  For
us this was always a very difficult issue and kept us awake and caused a
few arguments.

Thanks,
Ray Kopp
Syracuse, New York
Internet:rjkopp@mailbox.syr.edu
Bitnet:RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
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