Jordi Font Comas d’Argemir |
Barcelona (EFE) other complications, they cannot communicate orally, all with insufficient ratios and underfunding that forces families to bear part of the cost.
The 20 users of this specialized day center for people with severe ASD have a level of disability that prevents them from attending special work centers, nor can they go to special education school, because they have exceeded the age limit of 21 years. .
But since its foundation in 1996, Els Xiprers has resisted being a kind of “warehouse” for people from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon from Monday to Friday (the usual service hours), but has applied methods of learning that, very slowly, give its results.
The strategy is to give them some minimal functional skills so that they gain autonomy and can break with repetitive behavior patterns, in order to be able to carry out tasks as common as washing up, cleaning, cooking, going to the supermarket with their parents, being able to tolerate waiting for the checkout line or spend a while with them in a bar managing the noise (many have hearing hypersensitivity).
“It is slow work, with learning processes that can take years, and we cannot rush,” the director of the center, Laura Chicón, explained to EFE.
The problem, he continues, is that they are trying to apply new methodologies from other countries where they have high ratios, but here they are one specialist for eight users (plus an assistant, who does not have pedagogical training), which in the end becomes translates into that “in an hour you can only serve each user for 10 minutes”.
The subsidy they receive from the administration not only does not allow higher ratios but also does not cover the existing ones, so families have to contribute a fee; In other words, we must resort to “private financing,” lamented Chicón.
At present, diagnoses and awareness of ASD have increased, especially at an early age, but most of the cases that have more media projection are mild and functional, as can happen with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome, which they may have social disturbances but not cognitive deficits.
“Those who are in this center are the invisible part of the ASD because those with asperger or high-functioning can go out to claim their rights and have a voice and a vote, but they have no way of communicating and no one will hear them, and those of us who have to Giving the voice is us, entities and families ”, he emphasizes.
Cheaper than a residence
Investing in these day centers is cheaper, for the public system and the families, than if they were all in a residence, day and night, and they also receive care that improves their well-being, asserts Alfons García.
His son Pol has been going to the center for a decade and the improvement has been of such a caliber that they have banished the idea of him going to a residence, at least for now.
“Now life is very, very, very difficult, but before it was practically impossible… unmanageable,” he says.
Anticipate, tolerate and communicate
The improvement involves reducing uncertainty as much as possible, by anticipating everything that is going to happen with images, for example, of the tasks that are going to be done during the day, and also reducing stress through physical activities.
Another line of work is to provide tools, through images or gestures, so that they can communicate what they want to say, which is essential so that they do not get frustrated and react with aggressive behaviour.
They also prepare them so that they can make themselves a sandwich, go shopping with their parents or to the doctor’s office, something essential when a person suffers, for example, from hypertension.
This is the case of one of the users of Els Xiprers. Until recently it was impossible for his mother to take him to the medical center because he would get extremely nervous.
“What we did is dress in the white coat, frequently, and simulate the whole scene of taking the blood pressure, and three months later his mother managed to take him to the doctor for the first time to take the blood pressure,” explains the coordinator and therapist of the Pilar center. Savall.
This case was relatively quick; “In others, it may take a year for them to go to the supermarket to buy a package of ham or for them to accompany their father to the bar for a while, but it is better to work on all this than to spend the day painting,” he says. Savall.
