This is the advice recommended by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick in his book "Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion". For an interesting discussion of his views,

 http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/6045/

'He shows us that our children are indeed being helped tremendously, not by unscientific autism treatments that falsely promise cure or recovery, but by educators, scientists, evidence-based therapies, and new understandings of what it means to be human, and different, in the twenty-first century.'

The news today that around a third of all secondary schools in England have SENCOs who are not qualified teachers is interesting. If parents are the child's first teacher, as I believe, then parents have a teaching qualification by default. Almost all the special needs classroom assistants I have met are parents themselves. Being able to establish a relationship based on  trust is the primary qualification required for all effective teachers in a secondary special needs department. Does a teaching qualification take precedence over parenting in this regard?