The family with a disability

Abstract

I would like to start by quoting the Head of Psychology at the University of California, an international authority on autism, Dr. Lovaas, who during the research that led to his excelIent programmes admitted; "The first serious mistake we made was to treat the children within an institutional (hospital or clinic) environment ... We had hospitalized the children in the first place because we still held the old view we had been taught, that children like those with whom we worked were ill. It seemed to follow then, that since they were ill, they needed treatment, ideally in a hospital. Given our background, it was an easy mistake to make. We decided then to change the place of treatment from the institution to the children's natural environment; that is we began to treat him in his home and school. We were successful and this brought us to question the necessity or desirability of using a hospital as a teaching and learning environment. Our goal was to help these children to live and function in the real world and not in an artificial setting, such as an institution."