WEBVTT

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[music]

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To have an autistic child means
sleepless nights, many visits

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at the emergency rooms,
difficult it is to keep the job

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at least for one of the parents,
and lots of stress for the whole

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family. You do it. Do it yourself.

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Try. Come on. Mommy\'s doing.

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Before our son was fine, we couldn\'t see
anything wrong with him. It was like

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from the one day to another that we
found out that our son was different.

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And then we were told that he
was handicapped and that he wll

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always be handicapped. At that
time we didn\'t even know what the

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autism is.

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[music]

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No, that\'s not Stanley, that\'s you.

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[music]

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He was very happy kid,
smiling all the time.

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You see he wants her to follow him. Look.

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How could you believe
that he\'s gonna be sick.

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[music]

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Probably around 30 percent of children
whose diagnosis is on the autism spectrum,

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um, have a loss of skills,
particularly language and social

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skills where they regress and actually
lose words they have learned.

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And regression typically happens,
usually between 18 and 24 months but

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sometimes later. So the first things is that
there is less interest in people\'s faces,

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they seem more interested in objects
and then they really seem to

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go into just being in their own world.

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Autism is, is a disorder of the brain,
so it\'s neurologically based so that

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individuals with Autism have difficulty
with social communication and they tend

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to have what we call very sticky behaviors
in that they want the world to be the same

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and they get very anxious or
agitated if objects or people or

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routines are not the same way all the time.
A towel, please

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OK. I\'m sorry Good. This
is really important.

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Right? OK. You fix it. Just fix it.
Like that? Yes, no. How?

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Just fix it, this how. This way.
This way. This way? This way.

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Good. Oh, OK. Good. Good. It\'s knife. You\'e chopping. It\'s
knife. You\'re chopping Mommy\'s going to chop. You\'re chopping.

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You\'re chopping Mommy is. Together. Together You
chop this. Put the hands here. You chop this.

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This. You\'re chopping. Eh, eh, eh.
You chop this. Enough.

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Stop it. Stop it. You chop it.
OK. Enough. Take a break.

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Take a break. OK. Take a break.
Oh, what\'s happened?

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OK. No.

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Mom. Sit up child. (inaudible)

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Very often I receive the
calls from the school that

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he\'s not well. That he\'s sick. That
something is wrong with him medically.

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All the time is his behavior,

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that\'s the main issue, but I
still have to take him home.

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[music]

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Currently,

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there are very few really good treatments
specifically for autism other than teachng.

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We don\'t have great medications. We
wish we had better ones. But teaching

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is the key thing and if we do use medication
it\'s to make a child more teachable.

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The main form of intervention that
is being shown to be effective is

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intensive behavioral intervention. And it
uses the principals of what people call

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ABA or Applied Behavioral Analysis.
But really what it is is using

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behavioral teaching methods to
teach the child to communicate.

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The school situation is not helping.
He gets difficult

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to handle. Everyday gets harder.

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I know I\'m not the only one. There
are other with the same problems

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I need to know how they cope
with the school problems

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of their children.

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Barbara, my son is in a Section 20 placement,
which is the highest level of funding

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that you can get through the Ministry of
Education. This school board has given around

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$45,000. But unfortunately,
they call me on a regular basis

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just because they don\'t know how to
motivate my son to do the work. My son has

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been in special education classes since he
started school. He\'s had a different teacher

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every single year and none of
these teachers had any specific

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training in how to teach children
with autism and as a result

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he went from a child who had skills, who
was speaking when he entered kindergarten

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to a child who is now non-verbal,
My son, Clayton, is six-years-old

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and, uh, he attended two years of preschool and
junior kindergarten with a privately funded

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ABA aide that I sent
into school with him. My

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experience this year of having him in the Toronto
District School Board supported by untrained aides

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has been as bad as the first four months
after his diagnosis. And despite the

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availability of a ABA-trained aide that I found
that was on the supply list for the TDSB,

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um, they refused to hire and ABA-trained
aide At the age of five, Andrew began

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his therapy. He was considered completely
untestable. Uh, he had a pychometric evaluation

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six months later.. And six months
later he hit the 55th percentile

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against normal children. So, he was above
the norm in six months of therapy.

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I never heard about that program.
$55,000 a year.

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Oh, I see. Oh, my God.

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Oh, OK. Thank you. very much for your help.
You\'re welcome. Thank you. Bye bye.

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$55,000.

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Oh my God.

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When a child starts programming in Applied Behavioral Analysis there
are several foundational skills that will help them be successful:

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Imitation skills, attending, eye
contact, toilet training, dressing,

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as well as, some communication programs.

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Anda, what do you want?

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I want this. Good.

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Computer. OK. Due to the
fact that New Haven is a

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one-to-one model, whereas we have, uh,
one teacher for every student, the cost

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is $55,000 per year, which is absorbent. Unfortunately, we
do have to turn students away that can\'t afford the program

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and we would like to be able to help everybody.
There\'s actually enough funding being

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devoted right now to special education in
the schools that many of the programs that

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can be effective with these kids can be instituted. Where\'s
there\'s documentation of the efficacy of these treatments,

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the government has a responsibility
to provide those treatments and

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not provide other services that, that have not been
proven to be effective. But there\'s legislation

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called the Ontario Human
Rights Code and under the code

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there is a section that is for
children that have disabilities and

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it could, it explains how these children should
be accommodated. And many parents in Ontario

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have had to put or been forced to put
in Ontario Human Rights Complaints

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against their school boards for not
servicing them with proper, uh, supports

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and services and programs
including ABA and IBI

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[music]

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My biggest dream is that my son could
be able to live independent life

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in the future. He\'s very good with
his hands. He likes to repeat tasks

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over and over again He likes to be busy.

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There are plenty of things which he could
be trained to do to provide for himself.

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[music]

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To understand the parent
of the austic child

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it\'s impossible. You have
to have an autistic child.

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[music]

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[non-English narration]

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The biggest fear of my life is

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that I\'m gonna be gone,
nobody lives forever.

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And to live with a child like

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autistic child is not
only to learn routiine,

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it\'s also to love him. And just the idea

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that\'s he\'s gonna be
maybe with a stranger or

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somebody who may not know him the way I do,

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this is the biggest fear of my life.

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[music]