9 Summary

One message from this week is that no ‘one size fits all’, due to the diverse nature of autism. Increasingly psychologists are advocating a combination of methods, individually tailored to the person’s skills and needs. While many interventions do require training or specialist therapists, some adjustments can be implemented easily by families, schools or workplaces. For instance: removing, as far as possible, sources of sensory distress, such as fluorescent lights or noisy air conditioning; providing a secure place for when the person feels overwhelmed, or a ‘traffic light’ card system so that, at times when they feel unable to speak, they can signal positive or negative feelings with a green, amber or red card.

This clip from Arabella describes some of the strategies she has used to help Iris.

You should now be able to:

• appreciate contrasting views on ‘curing’ autism
• understand what is meant by ‘intervention’
• appreciate the importance of interventions being evidence-based
• understand broad principles for evaluating interventions
• be familiar with key interventions and recent developments in the field.

Now you can go to Week 6.