Friday, August 31, 2012

Special needs adolescence: separating compulsion from poor choices

#1 son is deep in the unknown country of special needs adolescence. He hasn't necessarily added OCD to his ADHD, but there's always been an element of obsession and compulsion in his nature. That's a bigger problem these days.

When I consider the behaviors I'd like to change, I find it useful to divide them into two categories:

  • compulsive behaviors
  • poor choices
Of course all behavior is a mixture of both, but it's still, I think, a useful distinction. Consider, for example, a man who loses $1000 playing poker in Las Vegas. If he can afford to play and lose, he doesn't have a problem. If he chose to play and can't afford to lose, he made a poor choice. If he was compelled to play, whether or not he can afford to lose, he has a gambling problem.
 
There are ways to change behaviors, but the techniques for changing choices are different from the techniques for changing compulsive behaviors. Most importantly, his choices aren't in play if his behavior is compulsive. Until we address the compulsion/obsession aspects of his behavior we can't work on his choices.
 
So we're studying techniques that have been developed to address obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These fall into two broad divisions: behavioral and cognitive. Because of his low IQ we clearly need to emphasize behavioral therapy.
 
From what I've read so far than means "Exposure and Response Prevention" or "Exposure and Ritual Prevention", which is apparently based on "Pavlovian extinction" or "respondent extinction" (something we're a bit familiar with).
 
Based on my limited readings I'm putting together a plan that we can review with his therapist, and a reading list (below). From the list I can see that if Ross Greene is the guru of the explosive child, then Enda Foa is the guru of compulsion management. 

See also (clearly Edna Foa rules):

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