DMD and Autism?
I have been reading the old message boards and I have seen a few posts from parents who have boys that have been diagnosed with autism and DMD. I realize that statistically boys with DMD have a slightly higher chance of having autism than a child without, but I was wondering where these boys were falling on the autism spectrum. I have a son who was diagnosed with autism(high functioning) in September 2007 and then diagnosed with DMD in December 2007. At the time, I thought that the diagnosis of DMD would cancel out the diagnosis of autism, but was quickly told that was not the case. Most of the posts that I have seen on this board seem to be from parents with high functioning autistic children. Does anyone on this board have any experience with the IBI program?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Karen Barnett on
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Hi Jennifer,
Could you explain what IBI stands for and what the program is?
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer on
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Sorry, IBI stand for Intensive Behavioral Intervention. We live in PEI, Canada and the treatment for autism is 20 hours a week IBI until you enter the school system. Lucas was assigned a Preschool autism specialist who writes programs for him to work on based on his needs and we have a tutor who works with him one on one for the 20 hours. The preschool autism specialist consults with the early intervention team (speech, physio, O/T, and psychologist) to make sure all goals are worked into his programming.
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Permalink Reply by Evan's Mom on
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Hi Jennifer:
We live in New Brunswick and have a similar program with applied behaviour analysis covered by the government. 20 hours is provided, but only 15 are actual time with the child. Evan was diagnosed with DMD in March 2007 and ASD (moderate) in July 2007. He has been in the ABA program since Oct. 2007 and is now in his final week of school readiness which I think has really helped him prepare for Kindergarten. Once he enters the school system we may need to seek private therapy if he requires it. The local autism community centre recommended we look at Relationship Development Intervention program which focuses on social skills, but I'm going to wait and see how K goes for him. I think of Evan's way of thinking being more "DMD brain" than Autism, but the therapy helps regardless of the cause. There is a publication on the UK site that goes into this and I found it helpful http://www.ppuk.org/library/Education/Toolkit%20Final.pdf.
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That is great that the Canadian government will pay for 20hrs of ABA! I spoke to Dr. Veronica HInton at the PPMD conference last year and she highly recommended ABA.
I consider it the "DMD Brain" as well and am not so sure of the often diagnosed autism. My son has many of the mental problems associated with what they attribute to the lack of dystrophin in the brain that some DMD boys seem to suffer from more than others. I think it is often diagnosed as a high functioning autism or even aspergers in some boys but I consider it the DMD brain as well.
That publication that you posted a link to is an excellent one to read. I gave it to my son's school to read.
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