ABA. It's exactly as good as the person delivering it. Or, as bad.
Many autistic adults are suspicious of what's often 'clicker training for dogs', adapted for autistic children. Note I said 'often', not 'always'. This is important. I'm not insulting all ABA people or all parents who choose ABA.
First, ABA in its original form often assumes that we can't possibly progress unless we have it. That's not so. Most autistic adults had no therapy at all, and still learned social skills.
Secondly it often assumes that we socialise in a broken way, that needs fixing. That's no so either. Our communication is different. I live in an autistic household, work in an autistic business, and socialise mostly with autistic people. And we understand each other really well. We empathise with one another. We collaborate with one another. We're not broken. We're different. We have fantastic fun together. Our way. It may not look like someone else's way, that's true.
I'm not saying that self-harm needs to be permitted, by the way. Clearly we need to work on safety first. I'm also not saying that children need no social skills training in their lives. We all need to learn basics.
Eye contact's a big one here. Many would say that we are 'broken' in our ability to use eye contact. Many ABA schemes train us to stare into eyes, offering us rewards for it. Some parents claim that they are devastated that their child won't look in their eyes. Many claim that we are 'locked into a world of our own' and need releasing from it.
In reality, we see pretty much fine out of all parts of our vision, not just the central bit. We can see you. We do love you. The brain is wired to handle input from the sides of our eyes too. Looking straight into eyes registers the same as you staring into the eyes of a tiger. For how long would you do so, just out of interest? I bet you wouldn't manage it for more than 0.5 seconds before screaming and running. Well, our eyesight registers human eyes as predatory, and that's the instinctive reaction. (Generalising). 87% of autistic adults say that eye contact is scary, exhausting and pointless for us. Most say that it is also hugely distracting, and stops us listening.
If a child was blind, how much money would parents spend teaching them to make eye contact? Well, it's like that.
So, a fair number (not all) of ABA original stuff is based on social ideas that arguably don't apply to us.
Some ABA practitioners adapt things to make it fun and respectful, and that's great. If a parent has one of those, go for it.
Others put us in intense social and sensory pain, then reward us for 'behaving' by giving us lots of sweeties. That's not OK. They need to stop it. And I speak as someone who has worked for and with ABA schools and practitioners. Those individuals truly believe they are doing us a favour - because they have no idea whatsoever how we feel or why we are responding the way we are. I can't even enter some of the spaces those children are made to sit in all day - the sensory pain is too great.
Do investigate. Explore lots of different options. But always, always assume that your fine young person deserves respect for difference.
and I don't see it as a negative 