ABA and 'recovery' - is it possible?

[RockinSockBunnies]

So, having read Catherine Maurice's 'Let me Hear Your Voice', I was wondering whether, aside from her book, anyone was aware of children who have been wholly recovered from autism through ABA?

The book is great, very inspiring and has a happy ending. Obviously though, no-one knows what has happened subsequently to the children. Are they NT adults? Do they have any residual autistic traits?

Are there any other experiences of ABA being used an actual 'cure'?

As many of you know, I'm a SALT. ABA is without doubt the single most useless and effective intervention I have learnt about in over 15 years of work.

It's poorly understood by professionals and there have of course been some dubious and costly private programmes (but then again, there have and still are countless dubious state endorsed interventions) but used properly it transforms lives.

'We were told by the consultant psychologist that ABA wasn't appropriate for DSS as he's too high-functioning'

That is a typically ill informed colleague. ABA is essentially the science of effective learning-how to get individuals doing more of what you want/need them to do and less of the things you don't want them to do.

Simple as that and as such, it is used in a huge variety of situations-heavy plant safety, organisational management, exercise programmes, AIDS education and of course with peole with developmental disabilities.

I repeat my original assertion-it has changed my life and the lives of many people around me in the most incredible manner.

Erm, moondog, did you mean to say useful

Jomaman we've had some (!) shaky moments. Year 1 Sept-Dec mainly pairing (we had no awe inspiring start, huge demand avoidance issues to be overcome before we could teach anything), Jan/Feb no tutors, March-Sep good progress. Year 2 Oct-Nov was an absolute disaster we were very badly let down by tutors it had awful effect on ds behaviourly. I was very close to stopping programme. Dec-Jan sorted out tutor issues & worked hard on behaviours, Feb back to good progress, happy ds & we're still on target to finish the programme before the end of the academic year.

We've never had good, continuous, smooth progress it has always been in plateaus then huge leaps which has led to more than a few despairing moments.

Our LA Ed Psych said it was very rigid, taught only in a cetain situation etc, etc.

At the same time she was advising the school on ABC (Antecedent, Behaviour and Consequence) as well as Precision Teaching. I know they are tools used by Aba practitioners but did not bother to argue with her.

My ds is now 9 and I have now started using this board for advice and using rewards, positive reinforcement etc. to manage him and motivate him.

phlebas - sorry to hear you've had ups and downs but it does make me feel a bit better about my own wobbles. I feel like ABA is definitely the right approach for ds and thank my lucky stars that he got dx early and we found out about ABA early etc, but I think I naively thought at the beginning that it would somehow be self-propelling, i.e. you just kick it off and then it develops a momentum of its own. This may be true for some, but for us it seems to be endless fine-tuning, going backwards in order to go forwards, and so much depends on having the right team in place and someone driving it. Glad I'm not alone to have doubts!

I have found ABA to be of enormous benefit to ds even in very difficult areas like improving pronunciation. I think the fear and suspicion about ABA is based on fears of having to raise expectations, and on a general prejudice against any form of teaching that has specific aims that can be measured. Also a lot of special needs 'education' is so heavily steeped in 'caring' and 'accepting' that almost any form of real education can be characterised as cruel and unnecessary.

Thats a lovely story Star.
We have gone from

EP Report "Another child approached DS and took one of his animals, DS grabbed it back and pushed the child in the face, DS showed no other interest in the other children, he did not interact with another child during my visit, he sat at a table for 20 minutes completing a jigsaw and did not move once"

to "DS approached the other child and said 'play with me' and 'he grabbed a girls hand and asked her to sing a song with him'"

Ok so he probably wanted them to play in exactly the way he wanted, but little steps....

I felt quite teary when they said he had asked a child to play and that he has favourite children he seeks out (the girls who are younger than him he must know they will agree with whatever he wants and mother him!) - for 2 years the nursery have referred to peers as DS 'friends' when we all knew he had no interest in any of them, now I can almost believe that he will have a proper friend one day.

Aaargh, Bialy, so I did!!!
Trying, well that is astonishing. I wonder how you resisted pointed this out to her? (The same is true of PECS by the way. I hear people express concerns about 'ABA' whilst embracing PECS but PECS is as 'ABA' as you get!)

Willow, re this
'I think the fear and suspicion about ABA is based on fears of having to raise expectations, and on a general prejudice against any form of teaching that has specific aims that can be measured. Also a lot of special needs 'education' is so heavily steeped in 'caring' and 'accepting' that almost any form of real education can be characterised as cruel and unnecessary.'

You'ver hit the nail on the head there.I think also there is often a more sinister agenda in that wriggling away from measurement and taking responsibility for change /progress (or lack of) is hidden under a gender of a 'social model' of 'acceptance'.

Having said that, in a professional capacity, I find that once people understand the basic principles of a behavioural based educational/therapeutic model, they love it.

Can ABA be used to teach a child not to be so anxious? Or to not be so fearful of new situations / change?

Yes!!!!
You can use it for anything at all, if you have the right person teaching you. By no means limited to table top activities.

I use it to help my dd in many ways like this as well as for more educational stuff.

Indigo, we have used ABA with dd1 to get her form being totally phobic about animals (literally petrified, wettign herself phobic), to now going riding regularly, and she can tolerate a dog (her worst phobia) walking past her, and occasionally coming into the classroom (with an adult, obviously!)

dd1 is a very anxious child generally, and we found that once her needs were being addressed through ABA (ie tasks were broken down sufficiently for her, she was not left feeling uncomfortable or floundering) her general anxiety improved a lot, and her specific anxieties can be addressed.

Very interesting..... Thanks

Agree, Moondog - they don't want their systems to be measured, and fear measurement, because their own ways of educating autistic kids will be found wanting - except for with very high functioning kids (who'd have done well, whatever the intervention).

I think there is also some very muddle-headed, patronising thinking that now pervades our SEN "industry" - along the following rough lines:

"It is wrong to discriminate against disabled children. Who's to say we should try and make autistic kids "normal" - their reality is just as valid as ours. Therefore people who do ABA and try and "normalise" or "socialise" their children are cruel - let the poor wee boy spend his whole day/week/lifetime stimming away, if that's what his autism needs".

I have just one question to ask when people feed me this guff - trying to make out that THEY care more about my boy than me:

What happens when I'm dead?

If I have not attempted to socialise him, such that he is able to take part in mainstream life, then he has no choice but an institutionalised existence when I'm gone.

If I didn't stop him bouncing, hand-flapping and saying "eeeeeee" when he was 2, via ABA techniques, then he would never have been allowed in a mainstream classroom (too disruptive), or a cafe, or a cinema.

Eventually, as he grows too big to control, he would not go out at all.

People would be scared of the 6 ft 5, 36 year old man, screaming an EEEEEEE noise and jumping up and down alarmingly.

No-one would be able to control him (because nothing was done at an early age) so people on the street would fear him, carers would not be able to keep him safe. He would probably be drugged 24/7. Yobs would likely take the piss out of him if he did venture out on the streets, or beat him up.

He would end up staying in his institution all day.

So the very people who call me cruel, would have pretty much put him in a prison for life with their well-meaning, patronising attitude.

They are confused, bless them - it is not discrinatory or cruel to try and get my son as socialised and independent as is possible, given his fairly severe autism - it is best for him, gives him the best chance of a full life. Gives him truly equal opportunity,despite his disability.

Of course it's way HARDER AND MORE EXPENSIVE to do ABA than to do TEACCH, which is the real reason behind the anti-ABA stuff - but they dress it up with the muddle-headed thinking above.

Sorry, one of my pet rants!

Dd had her birthday party today in the village hall. Fifteen children, party games and food. She joined in everything, she needed no extra support, the games weren't rigged she lost in equal measure, she joined in happily in the team games, sat and ate food with her friends coped with the smell of squash and refused politely the food she didn't like.She has a dx of moderate to severe autism.