ABA: do you distinguish between 'bad' behaviour and behaviour resulting from ASD?

[appropriatelyemployed]

I was wondering with ABA, whether a distinction is made when addressing behaviour between behaviour which is just poor or non-compliant or which results from ASD?

I think it is impossible to distinguish with DS as his thought processes, view of the world, flawed reasoning and non-existent problem solving skills are usually what cause the trouble.

It is qualitatively different when DS2 (NT) wants to do something as firm boundaries and a desire to please usually do the trick.

DS1 however can be completely intransigent and utterly unreasonable and I don't feel he would be like this if he did not have ASD.

I was just interested to see whether ABA approaches this on the idea of the behaviour alone or whether it factors in the flawed reasoning etc to the solutions with motivators ets

Oh I know bialy , I was just thinking that some of what I said really only works if your child understands 'do this or no X' or "do that and then we'll get X" iyswim. I was thinking I'd made it sound a bit easy really. It just works well with ds1 now.

We have a thing about shoes as well hothead. I usually let him wear crocs to respite for example, although sometimes it's a bit inappropriate.

Was last week his first one back at school after the Easter holidays? Anything to do with stress/anxiety from school do you think?

I know in our case ds behaves 'perfectly' at school, only for the anxiety to come out in all sorts of ways at home. It was noticable over this last school hols how relaxed and happy he was. Within two days back at school, he came home and started stimming and burying himself under a blanket - something he hasn't done for nearly two years. He holds it together at school, copes really well, and apparently seems to enjoy it, but it must be seriously stressful (in my ds's case because he is still not getting adequate and inconsistent support).

Just wonder whether this is need for control (ie familiarity) due to school anxiety?

appropriately sorry for hijack!

No that is fine!

I feel a bit aggrieved.

I have got the report from the ABA consultant. Very brief and the recommendations were the ones that I knew about. That is ll fine.

But, after I spoke to DS about 'walking out' and told him we would have to discuss any incident with school, it has stopped.

He was in school on Friday and his LSA as off and he coped perfectly well. No walk outs.

He promises the same today.

He says now it is alot clearer to him that he can take breaks, he feels happier.

So I have now paid +£300 for an intervention which was probably not necessary because he needed a chat and to be set straight.

I can't for the life of me see why his LLSA (an experienced teacher) didn't think it appropriate to share this problem with us. The first thing I would have said is 'I'll talk to him'.

I also found out that, in one incident when he ripped up some work and walked out, she promised that she wouldn't tell anyone.

Promised ! I know this was done for the best if intentions but WTF

Of course, she then did reveal this issue to the ABA consultant who then works with her on an elaborate intervention.

I really feel I've paid money to sort the LSA's problems and not DS's.

£300?

THis is why I no longer employ "experts" to work with my son.

But would you have got that outcome if you 'hadn't' have paid the £300?

I'm not asking whether you 'should' have. That's another matter entirely.

I have spent thousands on getting professional to tell the school things I could have quite easily told them myself, and recommend strategies I could have suggested myself

Star you are right. I didn't know what was going on and this gave me the insight and a plan to tackle it.

I don't begrudge the woman £300 as she did a home visit too. It just shows the importance of openess between all parties

£300 for how many hours' work?

Tricky one really. We all know that we shouldn't have to pay for people to provide effective intervention, that it's not (morally?) right. But the sad reality is that sometimes it's the only way that we know what to do, and certainly as star said, the only way that other bodies involved (school, LA etc) will listen to us.

I actually don't regret a single penny that DP has we've paid for our ABA programme perhaps because DP pays for it. Actually I honestly think if it was me writing the cheques I'd feel the same. It has so clearly made a huge difference to ds, and helped us know what to do when we were floundering. No brainer really.

But I also know that we won't continue to pay £££ when it's not necessary.

And there are some charlatans out there.

No, she's completely on the level. She was here at home for two hours and went into school for the morning.

She just wasn't to know that the problems she was witnessing were not problems which had been shared with us.

I think she gets called into schools to 'problem solve' and just approached it like that. It was a problem which needed solving.

I don't think it had entered her head to see what we thought about these issues before devising a plan!