What Types Of Therapeutic Supports May Improve The Quality Of Life For Individuals With Autism?
Toni Thomas answers the question: 'Therapeutic Support For People With Autim?'
Oct. 23, 2008 -- Question: What types of therapeutic supports may improve the quality of life for individuals with autism?
Answer: The beneficial supports that will improve quality of life for an individual on the spectrum fall into five different areas.
We want to look at their communication, and the ability to say what they want, and get their needs met. We want to look at their social skills and their ability to interact with other people.
We want to look at where their self-care skills are, level of independence skills, you might say, in terms of dressing, taking care of their needs, immediate needs.
We then want to look at their leisure skills and whether they have the ability to make choices and do the kind of things that their peers are doing when it comes to activities, clubs, hobbies, those kind of things.
And the last area we want to look at are any kind of behavioral supports that might be needed to help an individual to cope with life, to deal with changes. Those kind of things are all the different areas that we want to tap into, think about, when we're thinking about quality of life. If we address those areas, we should be able to meet the needs of that person.
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