When you say the self injury and aggression can be effectively treated, how would these conditions be treated? I am very interested in finding this out.
Thanks for your comments. We are hoping to go for a pre-admission meeting on Tuesday and then Glen could be admitted for his 12 week assessment on the 6th of December. I have written down what you said and will be asking those questions at the pre-admission meeting. Thank you so much it has been very helpful I will let you know how we get on and also how Glen gets on during his 12 week inpatient stay.
I’m not sure what exactly is scheduled to be done at the assessment you describe, so it’s hard for me to comment on it. I can say, however, that the self-injury and aggression you describe can be effectively treated. An assessment of his problem behavior should provide information about why the behavior is happening (this would be determined by an assessment called a functional analysis), what interventions would be expected to be successful, and also a treatment evaluation. Twelve weeks is more than enough time to identify causes for his self injury and aggression and also to begin to implement an intervention to test its effectiveness.
The most important question for you to ask the individuals who will be assessing him is “how will this help his self injury and aggression when he returns home?” Make sure that they will be conducting a functional analysis of his problem behavior and assessing treatment effectiveness and make sure that they will be showing you the data that they collect and explaining them to you. If this sort of assessment is worthwhile, the end product will be you and your son’s other caregivers learning how to effectively handle his problem behavior. Assessments of this sort can be extremely useful if they include a functional analysis, treatment evaluation, and training for you and other caregivers.