To Professionals working with young adults on the spectrum

Having worked with Psychiatrists, Neuro-Psychiatrists, Psychologist, Therapists and other professionals with our students on the spectrum and with learning differences for 45 years these are my judgements about which things are helpful and which are definitely not:

• A Psychiatrist who truly understands individuals on the Spectrum is hard to find. And one who can resist knee jerk medicating of individuals with emotional responses is also hard to find. 
• Usually a Psychologist or Neuro-Psychologist will utilize psycho-educational methods to assist in remediating the problem situations. 
• Neuro-Psychiatrists can usually provide good data to understand the scope of the individuals situation. 
• Psychiatrists can be helpful extreme emergencies when the situation is drastically out of control, but it’s necessary to understand how to implement other therapies and reduce medications as soon as possible. 
• Psycho-educational proactive programming is the ultimate solution and when preventive teaching techniques are initiated before a crisis can mount it is vastly more successful. 
• The role of a diagnostician is really important, not just for a label, but to clearly show what the situation is, what it is not and how to proceed.