ABA - How did you get around the earlier defiance/avoidance behaviour?

[dev9aug]

Hi all,

Following on from my DW Lovelyboys thread What can I do

We started the program almost two months ago for DS(2.8) ASD GDD. In those two months we have seen almost no progress... zilch, if anything his anxieties and stims have increased. It was of enough concern for us to halt the program in its current state and almost start again.

We have a very good consultant on board and have full confidence in him so we focused on the tutors and reviewed their sessions and it turns out they are doing the best they can. The consultant spent almost three hours just with us and some 1-1 time with him this week. At the end of the session, his observations which I agree with were that DS is the most stubborn child he has ever seen. He spent about 30mins trying to make him laugh and got there in the end, but his comments were" I have never had to work so hard in the 16 years of practice to make a child laugh". It turns out that DS is actively going out of his way to not have fun. because he breaks into a smile then instantly composes himself to regain control of his emotions. He has a very unusual avoidance pattern as he forces his smiles and would not let himself be reinforced if you see what I mean. It is possible that he is very anxious around unfamiliar people which is another aspect which I am struggling with as he used to be a vvv social child.

Now I ask all of you who have been through this, Have you any experience of this? Did it get better in time for you and what did you do to make it better?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

P.S. I should mention that we are following VB program which is very much play based and centred around him.

Hi Dev,

My DS, (ASD 4yrs) also has not made as much progress as we would have liked - but that may be due to my own expectations after reading 'let me hear your voice' . Tbh I think ABA works best when the main areas of concern are behaviours. Your ds is still quite young...could it be that he has a lack of understanding or is not clear of the expectation so the anxiety is greater than the enjoyment??. My ds finds novelty difficult too, but slowly gains more enjoyment with familiarity. We have been doing ABA now for 10 months and he has suddenly made progress very recently.

Thanks for replying bee169. It is good to hear that your ds is making progress gives us great hope.
We started with absolutely no targets for the tutors bar one which was to be as much fun as possible around DS, so there were no expectations to start with from us re improving his skills, but I fear that the tutors may have started placing demands on him which has made him more anxious.

Its funny you should mention Lack of understanding, we had a report done privately by an EP to monitor baseline before we started the program and he is so far behind she did not even bother scoring him to spare us the heartbreak. overall he is behind in most areas by about 12-18months.

I can completely see your point about the anxiety being greater than fun and we are hoping to break that down by providing burst of rough and tumble play which is what he likes interspersed with periods of just being around him so he is less anxious.

oh, your consultant has met another child nearly as stubborn - my dd1

can you start to unpick why your ds is not allowing himself to relax and have fun? are the responses of others around him when fun is being had too much? too loud? too unpredictable?

does he prefer being so very much in control (very familiar with this, in this household!) that to relax seems alien to him?

is he trying so very hard not to comply that he won't let himself have fun (seeing it as 'giving in' and 'losing'?)

we had huge difficulty in reinforcing dd1 when we first started. she was ok with the easy stuff, but as soon as any real demands were placed - nothing was reinforcing enough. which was fine, up to a point - scale back the demands, emphasise the fun once more - but then, at some point (for dd1) the learning had to start - she was capable of it, but not allowing it to happen, as she needed to be in control at all times. her avoidance, even now after 4 years of ABA and 2 full time ABA schools, is still very high, and her reinforcement very variable.

we used the same consultant as SF - ds showed massive avoidant behaviours (PDA was suggested!) & would be passive in his avoidance he'd simply stare out of the window or at the wall. It was very difficult for inexperienced tutors to deal with & tbh we didn't make a huge amount of progress until we found a tutor that he really clicked with (after about 4 months). In the early days ds would refuse to accept/participate in the reinforcer - as a way of staying in control.

The new tutor was all about big silly games, rough & tumble, chucking ds in the air etc & ds simple couldn't help himself & would join in. So really it is all about finding the best reinforcer ever. ds was (is?) an extremely anxious child & we had to be careful to keep demands low & achievable - any failure would be a disaster for him & a lot of the programme was making him confident to be willing to try (... try to speak, play, dress, draw etc). Most of our sessions were out of the house - any trip out (even ride on the bus) would be motivating enough to overcome that anxiety.

We did not see the immediate gains that people talk about with ABA - certainly they were minimal in the first three months, it took a good 6 months before he started progressing in leaps. It is a very anxious & frustrating time. I the early days I despaired - I honestly never thought we'd get the compliance & instructional control we needed to allow him to learn but 2.5 years later he is an absolute dream.

Dev and Lovely, you are saying that he craves touch and movement. Can you concentrate on giving him that? Massage, cuddles, co sleeping, wearing him in a sling on your back when you go for long walks, rough tumble, a swing and slide at home.
Also, do you both feel comfortable around the tutors? If not he may pick up on that. Do you have any extended family members who would like to work as tutors, eg adult cousins?
Some books that I have found useful include, Julia Moor Playing laughing learning, Carol Kranowitz Out of Sync Child. Am currently reading Sue Palmer 21st Century Boys
I haven't read Steve Gutstien but bet would be helpful.
He's still so young and you are both so determined that I know he will make good progress.

The Floortime/Greenspan website might be worht a look too - lots of ideas (and there certainly used to be video clips too) on how to engage and direct play - very useful for us.

Are you SURE about this consultant?

It's just that someone who is supposedly an ABA expert blaming the ineffective ess of the provision on the child would ring alarm bells for me.

I don't read the OP as saying the cons is blaming the child for non-progression at all.

It does sometimes happen that progression is minimal because of particular characteristics of the child (we have had several periods of this ourselves) but this is not the same as blaming the child.

I believe the OP is using the same consultant that I did. Of course, I have not had cause to consult them for a good 18 months or so now, but I would be very surprised if there was any blame placed on the child; the outlook when we were running our programme was very much there the onus was on the tutors to find a way through some (at times) extraordinary resistance which almost defied belief.

Silverfrog I wish we knew what were causing his anxieties. He is generally a happy content child when its just the both of us spending time with him. When we started I made a big list of items/things he was interested in and handed it over to the tutors to help them pair. Now he won't even look at the items as he has associated them with the tutors. We are at a loss to what causes his anxieties as there is always someone with him either myself or his mum. Will have a look at the website as well. thanks.

Hyperotreti DS can be very passive when the tutors are around, completely different person. We are trying out new tutors to see how he responds to them, we have given existing tutors another two weeks to do what we asked of them and if still no response then we will change, but its certainly good to hear about your positive experiences.

Oodlesofdoodles We are trying all the things you listed, with myself he is very happy and it does feel like I wear him at times as he never lets go of me if I am around. We are not at all comfortable around tutors simply because we have very little faith in them, I am giving them a chance because our consultant recommended but I have a feeling they are the weakest link. Unfortunately we have no family around so it is just us he is comfortable with. will have a look at the books, but not sure when I will get round to reading them as there is a pile at home which has already started to gather dust...

Starlight we have faith in the consultant, his ethos align with what we believe in and what we want for our ds. From what little I have seen of him, He comes across as extremely knowledgeable and cares about ds and us as a family. The only reason I say this is because I see the avoidance behaviour on a daily basis, its just that I have managed to find a way through, its hard work but extremely rewarding. As I mentioned earlier, I have very little faith in the tutors and they do seem to be the weakest link so I think a change is absolutely necessary. The tutors are experienced but they have experiences with different providers so there is an element of their previous training during the sessions which seems to be putting ds off. unfortunately where we are, there is not a great supply of them, we went for the first available experienced tutors who at the time seemed like a good fit for us, but in hindsight maybe going with candidates starting fresh would have been a better idea.

it does sound as thoguh your ds is uncomfortable with his tutors. this may or may not settle.

dd1 at just under 3 (when we started ABA with her) would not settle with anyone other than me. dh occasionally, especially for fun things, but in general it was me. she attended a local pre-school for a couple of sessions a week, and accepted being there, but totally shut down during her time there.

we went for having one tutor (almost like a part time nanny really) as could not see dd1 being able to settle happily with more people. it had it's pros and cons.

for the whole time we did a home programme, we only ever had one tutor at a time (and I don't mean per session! ) - so 12-16 hours per week with one other person. I really don't htink dd1 could have coped with more than that.

even when she went to ABA school, we chose a tiny little one, as that meant she would have less change of tutors - there were 3 tutors there, and by that time (dd1 was 5.6 ish) she was able to adapt to that.

now she is at a bigger ABA school, and is taking staff changes and tutor swaps truly in her stride (she is 7.6 now), but it has been a long road to get ehr here.

hoping...

I was going to say what silver frog said about just having one tutor at a time. Or you could try hiring a mother's help for domestic stuff and do some tutoring yourselves.