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Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.

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Language people/ABA people-I have £1000 to spend and starting home schooling

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someoneoutthere · 10/09/2011 13:14

Some of you may remember my previous thread about DS. He is 6.2 and has a dx of classic autism. We have been doing ABA very successfully and he is now nearly borderline asd. I say nearly borderline because he has still severe speech delay, he only ask where questions for example and have no understanding of why questions, although can answer what questions (will occassionally ask what questions). The area he has made huge improvement since starting ABA is behaviour. We have no problem with going out, eating variety of foods, sleep issues are sorted, no problem doing new things, don't need prior warning about changes etc. His social communication is still very behind though, he will not interact with his peers, but he has been consistently playing with his little sister and doing a lot of imaginitive play with her.
The reason I am starting this thread is that I am having problem with his ABA provider. At present he goes to an ABA school run by his ABA provider. It's a small school with only about 12 kids and it's all one to one. So he is doing well learning wise. But with this also comes the social problem. All the kids at this school are mainly non-verbal and have severe autism. Whenever, I am there all I hear is either shrieking noises, children bolting, different therapist are working with them according to their abilities. Unfortunately, DS also imitates other kids and as soon as we walk through the door of his school, he changes into a different boy. He does no bolting when we are out of about, and makes very little noises. But when we are at the school his stimming goes through the roof, he runs around like crazy, he thinks it's alright to go and bump onto people and it (stimming) increases at home too on the school days. Over the weekends, he is a different boy, hardly makes any noises, can be easily diverted, will do good work with me.

I have now come to the conclusion that his ABA school is no longer appropriate for him as he is learning socially inappropriate behaviour there for not having good role models. I tried to talk to his school manager to see if we can have his therapy at home or get him to do work alone where he can't see other kids, but it did not work out. So I am going to start home schooling. I am also very concerned because they at the school follow no curriculum, so ds is academically falling behind despite having no learning difficulties. So I need your help on setting up a ABA programme (we are in the U.A.E and I have not been able to find another ABA provider), I have a budget of £1000 and the books I have are-

Talkability-hanen
It takes two to talk-hanen
300 games to play with your autistic child
Language for thinking (I can't use this book yet as he does not get even the most basic concepts on this book)

We are also doing headsprout, and subscribed to education city. I have a printer. What else do I need?

I want to follow ABA techniques into his learning and following a curriculum. I have sat in to enough of the sessions to see how the therapists work and what they do. I want the programme to be more education based.

Thanks in advance. I have also booked DS into having an hour traditional speech therapy a week to see how he goes and for social stuffs, I have joined the homeschooler's group here, so he will get to see his peers once a week (he has not played with his peer group for two years now as his ABA school has not been able to sort out a school placement for him).

Just to let you know that all my effort to put him into a normal school with an ABA shadow failed as SN education is not that good here, so no school will take him and I am continuing with my effort to send him back to mainstream school (his ABA school is happy to provide a shadow for him).

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Jaxx · 10/09/2011 14:05

Teach Me Language by Sabina Freeman would be an excellent resource. We used it a lot to teach our son WH question discrimination, and there is some good early academic stuff in there too. There is a forms book as well - we didn't get, but probably should have.

You can buy it from //www.difflearn.com or amazon/alibris. Postage may be quite high as it is pretty heavy.

I have a couple of other books in pdf form you might find useful. PM me your email address and I'll send them to you.

Something else worth considering is an Ipad. My son loves it and it can be very educational. Superduper Inc have started releasing apps, including some based on Fun Decks, which Moondog has recommended in the past. Stories2Learn has proved very useful (picture, text, sound based social stories) and Kindergarten.com has loads of stuff which might be of use.

Good luck.