I read an article this morning from Dr. Ann Milanese, director of Developmental Pediatrics at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford, who highlighted some great points with regard to how therapy can be more effective.

1. Children are children first, and they have symptoms of autism second.

Think about that for a minute. We push Calvin to work as hard as he can, and he's made great progress over the years. But we also realize that some of his progress has probably come from simply growing up; all kids can do more at 8 than they could at 4, right?  Also, just because a kid has autism doesn't mean he/she doesn't have fun - kids like having fun, and fun means different things to different kids.

2. Autism is a spectrum disorder with a good deal of variability in the way the symptoms express themselves.

I'm sure most of you already know this... Duh. But I think this point is still lost on the public at large. Autistic kids have different strengths and weaknesses, and are all unique individuals, just like typical kids. There isn't a one size fits all description available.

3. Therapy is more likely to be successful if it's fun. I think Dr. Milanese's point is that, while you need to work to develop weaknesses, no kid is going to prosper if they're not having fun.

We used therapy, especially in Calvin's early days of strict ABA-style, to hammer on his weaknesses. Basically, here's the program – now let's work our way through it (using rewards/motivators and breaks when necessary.) Calvin made a lot of progress under this program, but it's true that his most successful times were when we could figure out how to incorporate something he enjoys into the process of working on something he didn't. Even today, we try to mix hard work with play. Whenever we get greedy and demand a lot of hard work, all in succession, we'll also see lots of avoidance behaviors.

I don't think that's very different from anybody else, either. Our youngest, Jonas, doesn't enjoy work for work's sake. But if you get him playing an educational game he'll soak in every last bit of knowledge. I'd have to say I'm the same way – I'm older and have the discipline to force myself to work on improving my weaknesses, but I get a lot more out of it when it's fun!

People are people. Kids are kids. And autism can make learning and communicating a challenge...

Deal with it. Hit it hard. Make it fun!