A new program for children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been launched by Kenora – Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services (KRRDCFS) to provide enhanced services designed specifically for the needs of people living on the spectrum.
“A lot of clinicians felt inadequately prepared to work with children on the autism spectrum because of the varying needs,” Becky Andrusco, supervisor of clinical and community services at KRRDCFS in Fort Frances, told The Times. “There was a push provincially to delve a little bit more deep into that. We’ve been able to take several trainings that were specific on clinical interventions for children on the spectrum and we’ve kept building on them.”
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that can appear vastly different from person to person affected by it, which is why it is considered a spectrum; it might show itself in the form of minor social differences or it might cause someone to struggle with communication to the point they are non-verbal. While those are two examples within the wide range of the disorder may present itself, the reality is that a person with autism may experience the condition very differently from either.
Funding for the program came from the Ontario Autism Program’s Workforce Capacity Fund, a two-year grant, the majority of which is being used to expand the services available within the KRRDCFS office. The office space has also been redesigned to feature flexible seating, sensory‑friendly lighting, weighted items, fidget tools and calming kits. The grant also provides aid for improved training for clinicians within the district school board, to help them offer better support for students with autism.
“We’ve enhanced our core clinical services,” Andrusco said. “We’ve increased our clinician capacity. We’ve offered some training opportunities for specific modalities that work well with children who are neurodiverse, one of them being AutPlay. We’ve also had our staff trained in something called Internal Family Systems.”
AutPlay is a play therapy framework focused around assisting children on the spectrum. It utilizes the psychological and counselling approaches of traditional play therapy, another child-focused form of therapy Andrusco said is also available at KRRDCFS, allowing staff to further refine and restructure their approach to better fit the needs of a specific child.
“It works even with children who are non-verbal, so we’ve been able to offer services to kids that we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Andrusco said.
The Internal Family Systems, in which staff are trained, is a therapeutic approach that supports people with autism and any necessary caregivers to understand emotions someone is feeling, methods to reduce stress and better strengthen familial connections. It also strives to reinforce that autism is not something that can be cured, as it is a neurodevelopmental condition, but rather something that should be learned to live with while understanding how to support oneself and others while doing so.
Due to the broad nature of the autism spectrum, it is typically broken into three levels to give a better understanding of the type of support a person may need. Level One, formerly referred to as Asperger’s syndrome, is considered “mild”; a person at this level may just need some help in specific social situations, but doesn’t require much beyond this.
Level two is a more noticeable form of autism, in which a person may have both verbal and non-verbal difficulties in communicating and require regular and substantial support in managing their behaviour and navigating social interactions.
Level three is used to describe “severe” autism. A person on the third level of this scale is expected to have high difficulty in communication and social interaction. Speech is often limited for people at this level, and they may require constant support in daily life.
Finding out if a child is on the spectrum is something which can be best handled by medical professionals. The first step is to start with a family doctor, who may refer the child to a psychiatrist or psychologist for an autism assessment.
If a child has ASD, learning about it early can help a parent know how to offer the best support and assist the child in navigating difficult social situations as they go through life.
