So how does ABA work?

[Firsttimer7259]

I am considering ABA for our daughter (2) GDD. But am confused with how the hours of ABA are done over a week. The thing I dont understand is how ABA fits in with work/child care etc. Would we do this instead of nursery, alongside it? It seems a phenomenal number of hours a week Do parents do this on top of nursery? Do I need to get nursery to implement the techniques?
Have you done it? How was your week structured? How old was your child and how did you find it? Is there any funding for this?

silverfrog

all you have answered is how it fits into you day, you have not provided any information about how the actual program works which is the key question in this thread and all ABA threads, and the question you always avoid answering.
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StarlightDicKenzie

I am not derailing this thread, just asking you to provide the information the OP has asked for in the title of the thread "So how does ABA work?"
If you avoid answering the question on this thread you would certianly ignore any thread I might start on this issue.

tbh, dolfrog, you have no right to tell me how to post.

I will continue to post how I want to (which, as I have explained, is based on how I would want to be answered - we can all only go by our own experiences which shape us, after all)

it is not an oversimplified approach, and I do not avoid answering anything.

I htink Starlight has the best answer - if there is somethign you want to know, start a new thread. don't derail a thread with somehting you want to know, which was never asked by the OP.

Yes, more and more likely.

And Dolfrog I am reporting your bullying PM.

We started just before age 3 and did 15-20 hours a week of say 2-2.5 hours a session but within this were lots of breaks. DS also went to mainstream nursery three half days and they used bits of it but for funding reasons not very much.

Since 4 DS has had a fulltime programme (35 hours). This includes 5 half day sessions at school.

DS would not have managed 35 hours at 2 or 3, he was still having naps (mainly as he got up at 4am)!

We saw good progress with 15-20 hours (we did all the tutoring initially then had a therapist for 5 hours a week after about 4 months).

How much depends on the child, money, other children in the house, nursery etc. Its def possible to get nursery to do bits eg they used to run through his language programmes each day and do some social programmes - mainly just tolerating other children in his space initially.

There is no fixed answer on number of hours, the children who do the best often have the fewest hours as they have the lowest level of need and learn the fastest. DS needs his 35 hours to stop the gap between him and other children getting wider and wider but that is because he is only at the very beginning of learning observationally and therefore everything has to be directly taught and frankly there would never be enough hours in the day to teach him everything other children just absorb. More high functioning children can def get by with a lot less.

We didn't use all the free nursery hours as he didn't benefit that much from nursery. Now he has ABA support in school he is getting a real benefit from school but only because we have pretaught skills in 1:1.

Even if we lost the programme funding tomorrow 10 hours a week of me doing ABA myself would still vastly outweigh what he would gain from mainstream autism provision the LA would like him to do instead.

I really just wanted some general info to help me get started on figuring out if this is something for us. Also needed some idea on how this would fit into our lives. I see the 20-40 hours a week recommendation on websites and I think so...do I have to quit work to do this or take D out of nursery? And if its that disruptive I find it very tempting to think: 'DD probably doesnt have autism so I wont bother checking out ABA cos it is just too complicated, intimidating and costly'.

Dolfrog I am sure you mean well but it is a bit much. I will check out your links etc but, for now, I just want to figure out if to start this, how to start and with whom. And how to reduce the chance I get taken for a ride.
I meant 'how does ABA work' as in how do you fit this in practically rather than the principles of it - which I may need to read up on but I dont want to do lots of reading for something if its just not workable right now.
It does seem like it could offer us something more targeted to try. I am not sure what I think of all these incentive structures etc. I will need to do some reading and some thinking. And also contact the providers and other organisations and parents locally to see if we can do this and with whom.

Getting feed back on here and realising ABA can be approached a bit flexibly and knowing what to watch out for in terms of contracts etc is invaluable. I suspect we will dip a toe in and see...after a bit of checking out who provdes what exactly around here.

Firsttimer I am in exactly the same place as you right now, in terms of being at the beginning of the process, which seems quite daunting, and wanting practical advice about how one actually does this/ how flexible it can be etc. Reading this thread, and the thread I started on ABA providers, has given a lot of food for thought.

The issue about nursery is one which is concerning me a bit. We have just increased DS's nursery days to three a week (from two), because he seems to do better there in terms of behaviour (follows the other children, stands nicely, in a queue, sits and eats nicely with the group instead of throwing his food or screaming, gets social stimulation and activities with other children) than he does at home (where he is the only child in a household of adults). Would I have to cut down/stop nursery (which I really don't want to do) or can I integrate the nursery into an ABA programme? I have spoken to them and they are very very keen to help, would be happy to have a tutor there, are sending staff on PECS courses etc.

Hi, watching this thread closely as I'm currently looking into ABA for my little boy who is 2.5 . He has about 20 words but they are not clear and doesn't use them much. Going through ASD diagnosis process but it is clear he has lots of social/communication problems so I don't want to waste any time as I've read that with ABA the younger the better. I have done lots of searches on this forum about ABA and found the information from posters so invaluable (including many on this thread). I also have an older child with ASD and wish so much that I had known about ABA when he was younger. We have hired an ABA supervisor and are recruiting pyschology students from the uni to do most of tutoring at the start (aiming for 15 hours, 3 hours a day at start). As I learn more about it and feel more confident, I am hoping to do 15 hours a week myself to try to get the programme up to 30 hours. At this stage I've accepted I will have to give up work. I'm not sure how it will all work either and I feel exactly like you, thedudesmummy and firsttimer. I'm anxious about how it will all work out with family life, if the financial sacrifices/probable debt for a while will be worth it. But at least we will be doing something positive and immediate. I just hope I'm not getting my hopes up too much. We hope to get started next week or two so will be clearer then.

hi thedudesmummey I had a look at your ABA provider thread. I expect I will be asking around too in RL but find I am uncomfortable about discussing named professionals on an anonymous forum. There is just no context or accountability - and little opportunity for redress where someone is unfavourably reviewed. For all we know someones scathing criticism is totally unfair and a glowing review comes from the professional themselves.
I do rely on word of mouth recommendations, but often what I know of that person, their judgment and their situation, will affect how much weight I put on their opinion. So... how will we find someone good?
I think I will give some points to someone who clicks with my D. She's easy with people but I can tell who she really really likes.
Someone I can see eye to eye with, who I feel I can work with
Someone who has experience with children similar to D - age and types of difficulties or who uses a method that seems suited to what we are tackling. If there is no one with direct experience then someone who will talk through with me how they are developing their approach and how they are evaluating progress.
I will stay away from anyone who uses sharp practice in terms of contracts etc, altho I might see if they will amend things first. But must must must remember to run for the hills and not get roped into shiny promises.
Hmm off to buy books on this on amazon

I think it has to fit into your life as stressing you out / making you broke is not going to help. You could do 5 x 2 hours a day after nursery / school and still see benefit, I know children who only do ABA after school. If you can afford to put training or staff into a welcoming nursery then obviously you can then double your hours straightway. The key for us has been consistency so if we, nursery and ABA staff are all approaching the same problem in the same way then DS behaviour and learning improves.

Go and see some ABA locally and talk to families doing it, thats the best.

If you cannot fit ABA into your life either for financial or practical reasons then also consider specialist nurseries. DS got refused a place as our LA gatekeep these so intensively, but there are some good ones out there and 3 days at a good nursery with ASD specialists can take alot of pressure off a family.

We probably would have wanted to try ABA anyway but would have taken the SS nursery place as well as it would have meant work / other kids etc would not have had to suffer as much as they ended up doing. The SS nursery knew we were interested in ABA and said they would incorporate bits of it too.

Once you know some ABA techniques you also just naturally change your parenting - mainly you become super consistent so life at home improves - then you kick yourself you didn't impose such clear boundaries on your other kids!

Hi

It can work in whatever way you want it to really. Personally I have a consultant and do all the tutoring myself - I spend very little time sitting across a table with DS focussing on targets but do incorporate the principles of ABA into everyday life which means I interact with DS in a very different way to the way that I did previously. I also try to ensure that the other people who spend a lot of time with DS do what I do or at the very least don't undo what I do.

I am being trained by my consultant and also read a couple of manuals eg Motivation towards Recovery which were really helpful.

The biggest improvements have been in speech, eye contact, seeking the company of others instead of playing alone. He used to have obsessions that changed every month or so - now that I don't allow him to have so much unstructured time and try to keep him engaged he doesn't seem to have obsessions in the same way. At one time his obsessions were all consuming and you couldn't break through them. He answers us now when we ask him questions most of the time.

I think ABA is great but I do think there are a lot of sharks around who will persuade you that you have to spend 35-40 hours a week to see progress and you have to engage tutors. I just don't think this is true. Of course if both parents work 10 hours a day 5 days a week then tutors will be necessary. In my case I work 3 days a week so have some free time. I don't stick rigidly to trials. I have in mind the targets/goals and try to achieve them by incorporating them into everyday life eg if we are categorising then I will take him to the supermarket and ask him to choose his fruit or vegetables for the week.

The main thing about ABA is keeping your child engaged and making him/her feel that it is more worthwhile to be with other people than it is to be alone and that life is easier when you ask for things instead of tantrumming/shouting/crying and having people guess what's wrong.

Dolfrog wants facts and stats. I don't have them - all I can say is that the general principles of ABA have fitted into our budget, our lifestyle and our parenting ethos very well. Maybe strictly speaking what we are doing is VBA - so what, who cares. Whatever it is, it's working and it's wonderful to see a disconnected child become connected with the world, to say of his own accord "I'm happy" and "I love you".

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Please don't be scared off by the 40 hours a week stuff - a provider told me that to begin with - if you need consultant recommendations there are plenty of us that can help if you want to PM us.

Excellent advicet from Soutty. I think your comment about 'keeping your child engaged and making him/her feel it is more worthwhile to be with other people than be alone' is spot on with what I really aim to achieve with my child. I feel he is not learning anything at the moment because he wants to be on his own just watching t.v. all day if I allowed him - this is when he is happiest. I think I'm going to order that manual and consider doing more hours tutoring myself on my days off. I'm now dreaming of the day my DS says 'I love you'!

Firsttimer, I have heard of ABA superisors/tutors working alongside nurseries to help train staff in techniques, explain what you are doing at home. It probably depends on the flexibilty of your nursery. I know one family where the little boy (3.5 years) goes to nursery in morning and has ABA for 2-3 hours (from tutors) 4 afternoons and his mum as tutor on 1 afternoon. This seems to be working quite well for them and they have had great progress in past 6-7 months.

CalinRua, it is amazing to think that back in November all he wanted to do was count and/or continuously ask me to add up huge numbers. I remember sitting in a cafe with him shouting "4000 plus 34000 EQUALS?" and thinking, oh god. That phase really woke me up to believing him to have autism despite being told by the paed that he didn't.

Today we were round at my mother's house and my 5 year old DD was talking about the TV programmes she liked best and asked DS what his favourite was. A few months ago he would have either blanked her or repeated the question. Today he said "the Baby Looney Tunes" and then said "I like Mr Tumble too".

Do get the book, it's really helpful.