one-to-one interventions and social interaction

Children in a school could be said to have an experience of different people - fellow pupils, teachers, support staff. I'm not clear as to the magic distinction, and how do you know that your method is "digestible"

By after school I mean transition and beyond into adulthood. You yourself have no personal experience of working with a more mature person. How do you know the method better equips people on the spectrum in adulthood? Short term improvements in a person's experience can be quickly cancelled by bad experiences later.

By scientific evidence I mean studies of groups of people going through treatment that meet scientific requirements. That's what all medical procedures have to go through.

Testimonials are meaningless. Go on any double-glazing company website and you will find glowing testimonials from people who have appreciated the services. But you've no way of knowing whether they are talking about the same service, whether they were offered discounts or incentives, or whether they changed their testimonials when things subsequently went wrong (or even that they were actors or relatives of the company's directors).

The critical issue here is making claims you cannot substantiate. You personally  may believe in it but you are asking parents to invest in this treatment you are promoting based on hearsay, vaguaries and assertions with no validated context. And the fact that professionals declined to comment because they were unfamiliar with the programme or felt it was outside their remit, comes over to me as a tactfully expressed decision to avoid contact with untested claims.

A lot of parents have spent money on schemes in good faith, but are now watching their children struggle just as hard in the real world years on. For some it might appear to have worked but with autism it is difficult to make comparisons. It might have worked for your child in your view, but that's all you can do here. It is not fair to other parents to make claims about a procedure outside your own direct experience unless you can show that it has scientific credibility. Not everyone can be expected to distinguish the mumbo jumbo of sales and marketing from actual scientific evidence.

The advantage of having a team of people rotating one-to-one is that you can:

a) offer intensive opportunities for interaction and learning social and communication skills.

b) give the autistic child a "digestible" experience of different people, with their individual styles of language, mannerisms, facial expressions, etc in a safe environment.

By "after school", do you mean with someone who is older?  If so, I believe the same principles apply, though I have no personal experience of working with a more mature person.  The Son-Rise Program staff, and parents of older "children" who have attended their training programmes, have had some amazing success in working with older people.  The underlying principle is the same: building relationship with an individual through demonstrating a truly loving and profoundly respectful attitude.  When a relationship is established, then you can invite someone to change - if they want to!

It's about creating an artificial and safe environment in which to learn, before moving out again to practise newly acquired skills in the wider world, which includes multiples of people.

What so many scientific-based treatments seem to lack is attention to how the treatment method is perceived and received by the person it is applied to.  The Son-Rise Program was conceived by two parents who set out to create a way to reach and have a relationship with their young autistic child, at a time when the treatments offered by the scientific professions were, broadly speaking, unethical by today's standards.

The challenge to present scientific evidence is a tough one - not least because when I invited professionals to monitor my child's progress they declined, saying it was either outside their remit, or that since they were not familiar with the programme they were not in a position to monitor it!  Personal testimonies abound on the Autism Treatment Center of America website.  I met some of those parents  when I did a training course there, so I know they are not spoofs, as I'm sure the cynics will suggest.

The training they offered was outstanding and left me confident that, even if this approach did not benefit my child, it could do no harm.  The outcome in our case was more than I could have dreamt of. 

Thanks for explaining this but I still don't see how this equips them for the real world.

One thing you state that the ideal one-to-one intervention is one where there is a team of people involved, who each work individual shifts with the autistic person. This enables maximum contact time and minimum overload, with gradual exposure to different personal styles of interaction.

Aside from the fact that in real life people on the spectrum face difficulty dealing with multiples of people but may find one-to-one easier, how does dealing with a team of people rotating one-to-one help? OK you say it has helped your child in mainstream school, but how does that help after school?

You don't take account of change, or ability to recognise people in different contexts. I am concerned that a lot of treatment methods are derived from other contexts and used because it seems to work, (like electro-convulsive therapy?).

The real world problem is with multiples of people. If you have clear scientific evidence this teamwork process with rotation of one-to-one sessions works, show the evidence.

I find your questions really interesting.

I believe one-to-one interaction is by far the most effective way of assisting people on the autistic spectrum.  If you understand that many of them are overloaded by the sensory messages they are receiving constantly from the surrounding environment, then you realise that removing as many distractions as possible creates the optimal learning environment.  How can one possibly interpret the language and body language of a group of people simultaneously if one has not first acquired the skills to interpret these messages from one individual?  The ideal one-to-one intervention, in my opinion, is one where there is a team of people involved, who each work individual shifts with the autistic person.  This enables maximum contact time and minimum overload, with gradual exposure to different personal styles of interaction.

Only when this becomes a comfortable situation for the autistic person, and they have had plenty of opportunity to practise social skills, is it time to move them on to increasingly wider exposure.  Remember, most of us wouldn't throw a child into the deep end of the swimming pool before we had taught them the skills necessary to be effective swimmers (though there are no doubt some who would!).

The Son-Rise Program is a one-to-one intervention which I have used successfully with my child to do this.  In fact, it has been so successful that he is now thriving in a mainstream school environment, and his social skills are now spontaneous.  This programme takes the child from the level they are at and helps them learn the skills they need to become a successful social being to whatever level they are able to achieve.  It's one-to-one and parent-led, but also involves the use of volunteers who are trained by the parent(s).