Parental Affiliation as a Key Reference in the Treatment of Infantile Autism

Abstract

In the last twenty years there has been an increased involvement of parents in the treatment of children with infantile autism. This trend, which is apparently becoming more and more common, involves a number of different techniques, sometimes taking up several hours in a parent’s daytime. It has often been connected with treatments which make little use of activities belonging to the usual sphere of parent-child relationships. For example, strategies creating a new type of behaviour at home such as those described by Lovaas (1979), when the first response required is “for the child to sit in a chair for 5 to 10 seconds” do not belong to the usual sphere of relationships that parents establish with children. The same also can be said of nonverbal imitation training, such as raising arms in imitation of the therapist, followed by imitating the therapist touching his shoe, then clapping hands, touching a table and so forth. Similar arguments can be brought forward for other behviour therapies where parents are requested tobecome therapists themselves (for adequate reviews of the literature see Berkowitz and Graziano, 1972; Johnson and Katz, 1973; Baker and Heifetz, 1976). On different theoretical grounds Delacato (1974) asks that parents should give special stimuli to their affected children such as lights, rough objects to touch, etc.