ABA

[wendihouse22]

Can someone enlighten me about?

My son is 10. Has ASD, OCD, Tourrettes. Is he too old for ABA? Has had CBT but discontinued presently, as too ill.

ABA can help people of any age, as it's basically a therapy that seeks to change/influence any behaviours (even speech counts as a behaviour) by understanding what leads to those behaviours. My old supervisor works with several teenagers with ASD.

I'm just wondering why no one has suggested it, maybe Senco or psychiatrist who referred ds for OCD counselling. Will look into it. I'll contact the NAS.

Thanks.

No-one will suggest it, I'm afraid, because there is a lot of institutionalised prejudice against ABA as something "American" or "manipulative". In fact it's no more manipulative than any decent education system, or than CBT. Local authority-paid SENCOs or Ed Psychs very rarely refer to ABA, as they see it as the devil's work! The NAS have actually on their site some good research into the effectiveness of ABA, but they sit on the fence about it otherwise. The best way in is to try PEACCH or ABAtutorfinder, and then refer back to the SENCO or Ed Psych and try and get them to fund it?

Oh, thanks for that sockofsocalled.... Younsound like you have personal experience of it.

Oh yes Wendihouse...my experience has been a bit like Alice's when she went through the looking glass. I found something that worked to improve my ASD son's behaviours, speech, academic skills - well, everything really - and yet all the so-called experts kept telling me it didn't work, or it was cruel, or it was "tough on family life". What that all translated as was: don't expect any help from us, you'll have to pay for it yourself, and then later fight us every step of the way to get it paid for on the grounds that it works! In the US ABA is the absolute norm, sadly over here we lag behind in the dark ages on autism education!

Have a look at
Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
from the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS, this may help explain how ABA fits in.

Thanks Dolfrog, you always provide useful references.

Will do, thanks