If ABA was free, would you do it for a 3 year old?

[missworld2010]

Or, hypothetically speaking, if you had been given enough money to cover the cost of doing it for a year, would you? Or anything else?

Not sure I've read enough about it, but am worried that we're not doing it, and that every day is a wasted one with very little intervention. Our DD wil be 4 in June and has just started a mainstream nursery where first few days have gone very well, but I can already see the behaviour sliding and am v concerned for the future...

:(

"swimming horsriding, sensory , music therapy etc .

they are very happy."

Mine too :) (not sensory actually ds has zero interest in sensory rooms etc). Ds loves his ipad!

The marriage failure statistic you quoted is oft quoted urban myth you realise?

""There really weren't any significant differences in terms of family structure when you consider children with autism and those without," says study researcher Brian Freedman, PhD, clinical director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

"In fact what we found is that children with autism remained with both biological or adoptive parents 64% of the time, compared with children in families without autism, who remained [with both biological or adoptive parents] 65% of the time,"

"That debunks the myth of an 80% divorce rate,""

Ds' programme is pure play - a casual observer would have no idea he was working, he certainly doesn't see bowling or x-boxing as 'work' ... he's has no comprehension of 'work'. We've got to the point now where he is learning incidentally which is a massive milestone.

perhaps its the added strain on the relationship and the pressure of doing an ABA program . all i know is three of my friends marriages have ended who did aba !

oh breast feeding ...
best burn me at the stake

as i breastfed all three for 12months for i always thought breast milk was for babies and cow milk for calves .

nice chatting with you must go now to tickle my daighter ..... yes she is still awake giggling away bliss
good luck with your child
much peace

It was judged in relation to his peers.

So he was on the 2nd percentile for receptive language, and 6 months later he was on the 2rd percentile. Progress I guess in that he hadn't fallend behind, but then we had started some work with him unguided.

Then we started ABA and 6 months later he was on the 34th percentile, 6 months after that he was on the 92nd percentile.

wah have I missed something where did breast feeding come into this?

It is not a fact that 80 or 90pc of marriages fail when a disabled child is in the picture. Nowhere near the truth in fact. If that were so you would hardly ever come across a disabled child with married parents! I think that is a myth that needs to be challenged as people now assume it is fact.

I'm not going to tell anyone what to believe. All I'm asking is that people take a balanced view, and accept that if there are children they know who have made no progress on ABA, that there are also stories like mine where the programme has been fantastic and where the child has been transformed. And I respect everyone else's views but for my particular DS music therapy etc would not have cut it. Not by a long way. He was failed by every other so called professional who ever walked through our door, not least by their catastrophically low expectations for him.

And yes, it is always possible to say that studies have been skewed. But if your only counterpoint is anecdotal evidence from your own experience then that is pretty skewed too. Much more so in fact.

And as an aside, regarding the issue of family disruption/ stress etc, all I can say is that I was caressing towards a breakdown BEFORE my son started ABA. He was frustrated, unable to communicate, interact, play or do the simplest of things for himself. His programme has been a salvation for all of us

Oh :(

I didn't mean to start a fire! Am really jsut not sure where to go or what to do for the best, but am not convinced that I can change our lives so drastically as the little reading I have done about ABA seems to suggest (assuming we could afford it).

Zzzzz you speak lots of sense and have settled mymind for now, so thanks loads. I guess like with everything there are definitely rollercoaster times and that's not about to stop! Thanks everyone else for your opinions too, I've read it all and lots to think about.

Relationships failing, now that's a whole new thread, but without the ABA slant!!

I breastfed my son for nearly 4 years is it relevant to ABA? Supernatural powers? Marriage breakdown?

oh and for those who've mentioned the ipad.... suggestions for apps please?! now that would be a good new thread.... it's one of the few ways I think our daughter will actually learn things, but find it hard to find decent non-american apps...!

Oops obviously I meant careering towards a breakdown

I didn't breastfeed either of mine but wasn't for lack of trying - expressed for some time instead. Pretty sure that has nothing to do with how they've turned out......

missworld Good luck with what you decide.

If you like I will try and find my posts when I was where you are wondering wtf ABA was and bloody scared of it both in terms of worrying that it might not be the right thing, and if it was the right thing what that meant too.

Ah thanks Starting, that's a kind offer. But I guess from here I need to try and find someone fairly local who does or offers it - the trouble is, as with everything, that's just not straightforward! It must be the autistic bit of me that is really bugged by the fact thst everything is so difficult, no two systems are the same, even within the same county - diagnosis, statementing, SALT, courses offered, information access etc. Shouldn't there be a standard best practice?!

Oh well perhaps contact the woman I linked to then, or at least look her up. She is very generous with her phone time too and has a thing for parents new to the system and world of interventions.

She is doing a PHD in Autism in Education and really knows all the interventions going and is in no particular camp. She's just a really good signposter I found.

I'm sorry, haven't time to read the whole thread yet (but I will) but just wanted to answer your original question: yes yes yes

We started ABA (Verbal Behaviour strand) last September for our ds (now 3.9) and it has been absolutely the best thing we could ever have done. In 4 months he has made more progress than he did in a year and a half previously.

Second what others say about good providers.

It is also very expensive - but really a no-brainer if you can afford it.

There's a great book (which has a section on the "controlling" child which might be relevant to you given what yuo say) - Robert Schramm, Educate Towards Recovery. Bit full of ABA terminology which you have to learn, but I read it before we started (and before ds was diagnosed) and thought yes yes yes, that is ds! Informative and useful book to introduce you to the principle of ABA/VB and how it might work for your child. Think you can get it on Amazon, not sure of cost.

Look around different types (ABA/VB) to see what suits your dd.

Where are you based?

Will have a read of whole thread and post again properly tomorrow if I get a chance.

missworld, if you are considering it at all the most useful thing is to contact local families & arrange visits. You'll get a much better understanding seeing it done & have an idea of if it could be useful for your child (and fit with your family) :)

Programmes are completely variable because they are dependent on finding things the child loves to do - my ds is highly motivated by going out so this week his sessions have been - bowling, animal discovery centre, river & walk in the woods, trips into town (once on train, once on bus), dancing, playdate, swimming & tomorrow will be soft play.

We started off with just the consultant, them only a few hours with a single tutor, then we took on another - the most we've ever done was 24 hours (with 3 tutors), now we average 18-21 (with 2).

Ds has a bunch of apps he loves - can I come back tomorrow with a list (it is on dh' computer)? He likes angry birds atm and has been playing preschool lunch box obsessively all week.

ZZZZ - How do I know it works? Because DS does not learn hardly anything incidentally (although ABA is teaching skills that will help him do so) therefore we know he did not request before ABA but did within days of starting; certain words he stopped using months before ABA, but he started to use them again when we retaught them with ABA; he could not imitate at all eg clapping hands but then we taught him how and within a week he could copy whole chains of actions; often he will learn new skills or words in a day or a session - words or skills he has never seen before and then start using them regularly. Also he gained 20 IQ points in a few months on cognitive tests. But also he does not learn things which are not on his ABA programme so it is not as though he is making progress evenly all round.

Also ABA take data so I can see on a graph he uses more spontaneous language, he has fewer tantrums, he can follow a longer chain of instructions and because DS does not learn these things of his own accord we can see direct links with specific programmes we have followed to teach these exact things. eg when ABA started to go into nursery they took data on how often he approached another child (never!) then they started doing work eg rewarding him if he handed an object to a peer, and holding a peers hand - within 2 weeks he was approaching other children and asking them to sing songs with him - after 18 months of never approaching or speaking to another child, even his brothers. It cannot be coincidence. Now he has sussed out which children are more likely to agree to sing with him and picks them out and chooses to sit with them. Before he sat always on his own.

Also we spent a year teaching different skills at home with ABA than the nursery staff and LA professionals were teaching at nursery and we moved through our targets and added new ones and they never met a single one. So it cannot have been natural development as they would have had the same progress rate as we did but they didn't.

Yes Please to app plust tomorrow!

We're in Herts..... Jic anyone here is doing ABA. Will try the book, thanks

That should have been app LIST!!! Bloomin spellcheckers.... !

Ah!

missworld - I was going to link to a post I wrote last year on ipad apps, but the search function is not currently working...

will do so tomorrow.

dd1 uses an ipod/ipad, and we have a whole list of apps she uses.

a lto are american, but you can sometimes get away with no sound, or learn to live with it!

will try to link tomorrow.

electra so wise one i am talking bollock!!! well you seem to know it all

i just speak from experience observing what has happened i have sat with friends who banged on and on and on about ABA quoting all the stuff you all are rambling on about the research. science this papaer that paper.......

fine READ ALL THE PAPERS you want i couldnt care less
they are of no interest to me
WHAT IS OF INTEREST IS THE CHILD!!!

so i i looked for improvement with them and saw none.

perhaps i am not back slapping every one here about the wonders of this therapy i just voice my experience in this field.

Any of you out there who think i am talking rubbish about realtionship breakdowns

well get out of your bubble to deny the strain asd puts on a family is to live a lie .

but hey electra you have all the answers afterall you think i talk bollocks

so may be you can put the world to rights with your all knowing knowledge of ABA, realtionships and everything else.

just because i challenged this therapy when many of you have spent god knows how much does not mean i talk bollocks
it means i disagree get over it .

i have two severe non verbal asd children so i am not living in a gilded cage
nor am i fooling myself.
i suggest that some of you need to respect that others have their own views on the so called merits of this therapy