3 Counties Counselling and Autism Assessment

23/07/2025

https://apple.news/AuW_-xtFlQDCFt5L_NVyw7Q

A condition that was once considered rare suddenly seems common. Are people more likely to be autistic today or is this overdiagnosis?

22/07/2025

22/07/2025

Would you add anything to this?

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22/07/2025

20/07/2025

https://bsky.app/profile/chanda.bsky.social/post/3lug6vqef422n

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23/06/2025

Of course, there are many people for whom expanded diagnostic criteria for autism and greater awareness have been helpful in providing much-needed treatment and school services. A positive result has been identifying people who would have been missed before or misdiagnosed as having another mental disorder.

Still, we should be concerned about the increasing tendency to mislabel socially awkward behavior as autistic. A diagnosis of autism can shape both external perception (how others respond to you) and internal (how it affects your self-esteem, behavior and expectations). Diagnoses, especially in children, should be written in pencil, not engraved in stone or rendered eternal in medical records. A false diagnosis of autism can haunt someone for life and be very difficult to remove from medical records. Overdiagnosing autism also often misallocates very scarce resources away from the more severely impaired people who most need them.

The history of psychiatry is full of diagnoses, like multiple personality disorder or adult attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, that seem to be used to explain all sorts of mental distress and disability and quickly take off in popularity. I worry that clinicians and parents are sometimes too quick to embrace an autism spectrum diagnosis.

The explosion in autism rates has become fodder for Mr. Kennedy’s conspiracy theories. He has redirected federal research efforts away from the real science that could elucidate the causes of autism. He has instead hired David Geier, a longtime vaccine skeptic, who is reportedly seeking access to public health databases to hunt for a link between vaccines and autism. Mr. Kennedy also recently fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that advises on vaccine safety and efficacy. Among their replacements is a doctor who has called the term anti-vaxxer “high praise� and a nurse who serves on the board of an organization that has linked childhood vaccines to autism.
Mr. Kennedy’s statements that people suffering from autism don’t pay taxes, implying they are useless, has created outrage among patients and families. His proposed autism registry is a scary invasion of privacy.

Figuring out how to accurately diagnose and appropriately treat autism is incredibly hard and the source of many fraught conversations among researchers, clinicians, people who have autism and their families. We need a health secretary with the good judgment to judiciously help us navigate these thorny questions and properly allocate scarce research resources. Instead, we have Mr. Kennedy, who has only served to sow confusion with false promises, to trigger anger with disparaging comments and to replace funding for real science with wasteful false science.-Dr Allen Francis -NYT

20/06/2025

A sensory room in schools can be an invaluable tool for supporting students' self-regulation and executive functioning, especially those with sensory processing challenges or difficulty managing emotions. These rooms often include calming lights, sensory objects, comfortable seating, and sometimes gentle music, creating a structured environment where students can de-stress and regain focus.

Sensory rooms help in "calming nerves" by providing a safe, quiet space where students can access sensory items like weighted blankets, dim lighting, and soothing sounds to reduce anxiety or overstimulation. For children prone to sensory overload, this controlled setting allows them to decompress away from the busy classroom, decreasing feelings of frustration and enabling a sense of security.

In terms of getting organized and supporting regulation needs, sensory rooms help students process sensory input and regulate emotions, which are necessary for strong executive functioning. Activities that involve deep pressure, tactile exploration, or gentle movement allow students to release excess energy and improve self-regulation. After a sensory room visit, students return to the classroom better prepared to organize thoughts, engage in problem-solving, and initiate tasks.

What do you think?
Everything you need to know about sensory rooms in schools: https://www.theottoolbox.com/sensory-rooms-in-schools/