To tell or not?

[salondon]

Hi all

My daughter goes to a mainstream private day care for mornings.

We are starting home-based ABA soon. She isn't verbal yet. Her sessions will be 4 mornings and 3 afternoons. If they allow the shadow then great if not, then I don't mind at this stage. I am still waiting to hear. If this means she goes fewer mornings to the day care we don't mind(initially).

She gets portage and NHS SALT services in the day care. Those will now have to come home because the senco will say that the child isn't in the setting enough hours for them to work on. I asked my portage worker if she had heard of ABA and she said yes. She is looking to train in ABA too. Should I tell her we are doing aba? Or keep it quiet till we see results? Would her senco, salt, key worker, portage worker feel cheated or hold resentment when I tell them later(I'll have to eventually inform them if I want to continue ABA in the setting, which we will definitely have to). Just now the reason I can give the nursery is that we want her to spend time with us at home.

What if I jeopardise the whole thing by telling them now and they pull away whatever support I am getting?

The diagnosis process is underway. I don't want to rock the boat.

What are your views? Apologies if my post is a bit all over the place!

[achillea]

I don't think they would pull away any services if you do ABA - what make you think that? Has anyone suggested that in the past?

[babiki]

It's difficult to say, sometimes NHS people react very badly to ABA - ours did. Perhaps you could call it something else, many people do that initially.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Some LA's do pull away services if you are doing ABA. It's considered akin to going 'private' which allows them to strike you off the public funded ones.

However, you may well find once you start ABA that you actually don't want the other services, especially if they they take credit for the progress you see with ABA.

I would be open about the fact that you are doing some intervention yourself. You can call it EIBI or just play therapy if you like. I wouldn't call it ABA. It's not a dirty word but there isn't a shared meaning amongst most professionals.

[silverfrog]

we lost services due to starting ABA (although our then programme was very part time, so no reason to lose services).

we lost SALT and Portage. and nearly lost the extra funding from the severe and complex needs group for an extra person at dd1's preschool (but luckily preschool were very pro-active in ensuring they retained it. the extra person was hopeless, but freed up dd1's key worker a bit more, who was very keen to learn anything and everything about how to help dd1)

we knew we would lose services if we went ahead with ABA, but we were upfront about it anyway. I wanted a clear line between before/after, so that we could all be clear as to when (and why!) dd1 was picking up new skills.

[salondon]

achillea, zzzzz - I dont think ABA is a dirty secret. Like babiki, StarlightMcKenzie & silverfrog said, sometimes using your own intervention is taken akin to going private. They might say, "oh you can afford your own therapists, so we will give the portage and SALT to someone else". I dont want any services pulled till we know for sure what path we want to go down.

I have already asked them if they will allow a 1-1 person (since PSLA cannot provide anything (according to them my daughter is making good progress - yeah right, she cant speak a damn word!. I digress)) privately and I am still waiting to hear if that's possible or not.

[silverfrog]

we lost services because they were 'incompatible with ABA'

no one asked what we were actually doing on our programme - just the fact that we had one meant that what we were doing was incompatible with hat SALT and POrtage wanted to do, apparently.

clearly even the mention of ABA was enough to put the wind up everyone.

it did clear a lot of hopeless professionals out of dd1's life though!

[salondon]

silverfrog - huh! I say no more.. My portage worker wasnt averse to it when I mentioned it in the passing. She has been to the Treehouse school and wants to train. I just dont know if I should mention that I am doing "my thing you like it or not for 30hrs/week" to them yet.

[Dev9aug]

Our experiences were the same as silverfrog.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I seriously think that the professionals involved in ds' case were scared to death that someone might ABA them when they aren't looking and turn them into a robot who simply can't get out of the ABA-Cult!

[moondog]

Silver, it is so ironic in so many ways, not least, because Portage is one the things that is most like ABA in that it breaks down tasks into small steps.

It seems to have gone a bit out of fashion now which is a great shame.
Data driven evidence bases approach/intervention is a good one to use because

1. It's what every professional is supposed to be doing anyway (and they know it and are running scared)
   

1. It sounds impressive and a bit intimidating

[silverfrog]

it was because ABA is so inflexible, dontcha know . all 'do it my way and only my way' - this explanation from the SALT who spent an hour ignoring dd1's requests for an activity (in a so-called pairing session!) because dd1 was not asking for one of the things the SALT wanted to do.

and because the SALT didn't want to read a book with tricky dinosaur names (which dd1 could pronounce perfectly ) in it

but what we were about to do was the inflexible stuff...

[Ineedmorepatience]

I think I am just about to witness services being withdrawn from a family who have decided to use ABA

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Oh. sorry to hear that. Hope that the services weren't worth keeping then.

[Ineedmorepatience]

Well, I am not sure one of them is but surely that is not the point.

I know I see things in a very black and white way but surely everyone working with children should be pulling together for the benefit of the child.

I am feeling very disiliusioned(sp) with early years in my area at the moment

[moondog]

'surely everyone working with children should be pulling together for the benefit of the child'.

Hah!
If only!
People's first priority (in every place) is ensuring they maintain their status.
Once you understand that it's easier to work it all out.

[Ineedmorepatience]

You are sooo right [moon] and normally it doesnt get me down but I have been made aware of a number of local autistic Dc's being treated very badly this week by so called proffs and it has made me feel sad and frustrated

[MareeyaDolores]

Ineed, don't get too . Some people can work in a rationed service, accept they can only do their best, and keep their integrity. Others, for whatever deep-seated reasons, react by feeling the need to take it out on their unfortunate clients.

Luckily, not the majority [slightly naive, hopeful emoticon]