A must-see webinar recording on autism in eating disorders, with:
Tony Attwood @drtonyattwood
Only viewable till 2 April, THEN IT’S GONE
Who should know this stuff?
a. obviously, parents of someone with ASD and ED
b. all ED therapists
c. ALL PARENTS WHO HELP OTHER PARENTS ON ED FORUMS
I was gripped for the whole 2.5 hours.
It brought home needs for:
Collaboration, problem-solving, flexibility from parents: How damaging forceful strategies may be.
We should not be telling other parents to be a 100% brick wall, to use punitive leverage (taking away mobile phone), to never allow anything to be left in the plate, to never allow one food to be swapped for another.
I know that any of the above principles have served some youngsters well. The issue is that 1/3 of the parents on a forum may have a kid on the autism spectrum, and they don’t yet know it, and for them, a more collaborative, flexible stance from parents may work better, while a hard-line stance may do harm.
Other take-home messages (but you need to see the whole webinar, honest!)
1. ED therapists need to be super-knowledgeable on autism as approx 1/3 of of ED patients
2. Issues with residential treatment if not adapted
2. Eclectic, individualised treatment, rather than by any one-size-fits-all manual
3. Importance of ‘psychological archeology’ – what led to this belief, this safety behaviour – so that we can change it (I was struck by this difference with FBT)
4. Side-effects of psychiatric meds more common with autism
5. Importance of parents and support for parents (nothing new there!)
6. If the recording shows the “Chat”, there are super-informative parents’ experiences in there.
Much of this converged with what I have been learning from parents that I support one-on-one. Clearly it also resonated big-time with parents on the webinar, judging from the super-emotional ‘chat’.
I am busy revising some of my own resources, in the light of all this. Not to lose the good stuff, but to make parents even more attuned to their child’s particular situation and needs.
Here’s the info from the @edfaustralia who created the webinar:
“Please note that this video recording is available for purchase from interested parties for the next 30 days via this link: