ABA TV documentary - 5 Nov, 9pm, BBC Four

[sickofsocalledexperts]

Just to let anyone interested in ABA know that there is a BBC Four documentary coming up - Tuesday 5 Nov at 9pm. It is called Autism: Challenging Behaviour.

It features partucularly Treetops school, for the at least one mumsnetter on here who I think might be considering that school.

Nb - hope I am not contravening MN rules, but I have no vested interest in the programme, except being a big ABA fan and pleased that the message is finally getting out.

I was too ill to watch last night but will catch it on iplayer today. It makes so much sense to me as a method but I don't really know anything about it, even though I've done some post grad psychology!

Newbluecoat were you a silver version of a green jumpy tu

Sorry - hit post too soon! Were you a silver version of a green jumpy animal? If so I'd been wondering where you were, hope all is going well?

I'm going to watch it on iPlayer today. Too tired to concentrate on it last night.

When I spoke to SickOf 10 months ago, she said to me, ' we all work for rewards. You won't go to your job if you weren't paid. And that is ABA.'. That is the essence of any behaviour intervention. I think people just do t like the term.

If I had a quirky daughter who read, wrote, sang, played the piano, however, had to go and wash her hands every 10 seconds, I would still have to do sowmthing about it. Leaving her 'as she is' isn't going to allow her to lead a happy independent life. I think it's cruel to let a child drink 10 glasses of smoothie a day, instead of working on their food sensitivities. No one subjects my daughter to torture during her program. However, we do work on her controlling behaviour.

Yes Agnes, that SS 'teacher' was sucking the thumb. Intensive interaction at its worst(I have seen some awesome videos of II. As a technique it's a good one I applied well). As with everything else, there is ABA and there is ABA. There is II and there is II.

I agree, the program didn't show the real ABA/vb programs in play. It was all table top. In a 3 hr session, my daughter does 40 minutes at best on a table. The rest is all over the house and garden.

I cried when I saw that boy(James?) hit his mum. My daughter was like that when we were working on controlling behaviours. Still can be. It was amazing to see him eat that sausage at the play center.

Yes DS headbutted me like that too. For those who say there are alternatives that work as well as ABA (and clearly the SS approaches we saw were not working) then perhaps they should go on tv and youtube etc and demonstrate them. Our experience when we asked to see these alternatives to ABA which would meet DS needs so well was to be told it was totally unreasonable for staff to be subjected to observation by a parent. I even asked if they could video themselves working with DS so I could see it was working and successful and even that was considered wholly unreasonable scrutiny of staff.

I watched this last night on iplayer and I too was crying when the little boy ate the sausage.
I think the ABA technique is used in SEN provision generally, without the label and people identifing it as ABA.

My dd has language delay and has SALT as part of her provision. last year she had daily intensive therapy and she could not cope with this, she became anxious and hysterical. Therefore the salt discharged her, remarking that her language delay was part of gdd and she was fullfilling her potential .

It has taken almost a year of fighting to prove that dds lang delay is not due to gdd and that therapy, if tailored to suit the needs of my child, would be beneficial.
currently dd is making great progress with regatds to her speech. the salt is lovely and has taken the time to build up a trusting relationship with my dd. she visited dd at home around 5 times before starting any therapy to assess her and build up a good relationship. dd now has salt twice weekly 30 mins sessions of tabletop drill therapy. she is instantly rewarded with praise and a sticker plus dd is thrilled that her speech clarity is progressing.
The salt has explained to me that the therapy is going to be a long intensive process and not to expect results overnight as progress will be slow. I am thankful for this as my dd is finally making progress with her speech clarity! .
Not once has this technique been refered to as ABA but it is based on the same principles and has wworked for my dd.
when I think how different things could be if I hadnt have fought for this it horrifies me. Dd would have been left unsupported in a ms school, trying to learn a phonics based curriculum that she was unable to understand or articulate the sounds. It breaks my heart .
The school and lea were happy to leave my child failing and unable to access the national curriculum because she had responded negatively to therapy that was not tailored to her individual needs .

I would like to know what they were proposing to do should the boy with the liquid diet refuse tubes.

I know the poor boy. i am surprised that made it on the show got past the lawyers Would be taking my child out that school tomorrow. If he were NT child OFSTED, CAMHS and social care daily mail be up in arms. When NT children starve themselves we diagnose them as anorexic give them CBT, counselling, hospitalise them, medicate them, perhaps even section them. We don't stand back and let them 'choose' to die FFS. Appalling, shocking neglect.

Really disturbed by the intensive interaction stuff too. Leaving children really vulnerable to future abuse. At that age the boy needs to be taught boundaries around personal contact to be kept safe. Just preparing children to grow up and be put in units like Winterbourne with no skills to ask for help or keep themselves safe. You have to think ahead to when adults. Not everyone is safe to cuddle.

My sister has just been talking about this program, I didn't see it but she wasn't too keen on the chap who did the ABA home vists??? and the little girl with the juice reward??? she did try to fill me in. I will have to see if I can find it online.

Totally agree agnes, with both points.

The way that staff member was kind of tickling a 14 (?) yo boy - what benefit was that to him? How was that any kind of teaching/therapy? Such dreadful low expectations of people with autism, like they're just little pets who it's kinder to infantilise and soothe with tickles and sensory toys rather than try and teach. Grr.

Have rambled on about this on the other thread, but while it's a positive step that ABA even gets a mention on mainstream TV, such a massive shame to perpetuate this myth that it's a controversial, extreme, cruel sort of therapy (eg endless clips of unrepesentative extreme DTT from the 60s, which are probably the most extreme examples anywhere in the world).

They should have had more of Carbone explaining what ABA is really about.

Good Point Agnes. A mum had posted this issue not too long ago on this board. The SS Staff were giving a 17 yr old hugs (as reinforcers/ways to calm her down).

I think the girl with the juice was a 3 second clip of 'extreme' ABA in the 60s when first developed. Again, edited for the most shocking images to show a child screaming apparently in major distress. In reality probably yelling to escape the demand placed on her, but of course it makes for good doc to try and prove a point by a shocking image.

The Danish consultant was great, I thought, would have loved to have him! I guess he could come across as rather dispassionate and cold if you didn't understand his point, eg when saying that a child having a tantrum didn't bother him (the kind of thing my consultant says too).

Such a shame they didn't show, as Agnes said, that 95% of ABA is done through play.

The casual attitude to the boy who would end up needing a feeding tube horrified me. Poor boy looked skinny and severely anaemic. How the hell would he ever learn anything in such poor physical shape?

The Mail TV critic has written a really prejudiced review, if anyone wants to join me on his comments thread and post comment making clear ABA isn't cruel or "disrespectful of the autism" (boak) (I've used a different nickname)

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2488013/The-Escape-Artist-review-nights-TV.html

is the Mail TV critic the same Christopher Stevens, author of "A Real Boy"?

I read the book a while ago, and so much of it resonated with me (especially communicating through songs). I can't remember if they tried ABA at all. to dismiss it as 'working for a minority of children' is a bit rich though.

Good spot - bet he never even saw ABA, just swallowed the usual old anti propaganda!

I watched this last night. My DD doesn't have autism, but does have SN and certainly some of the behaviour that the parents were dealing with rang bells for me and my DH.

I thought it was interesting and can understand see the difference ABA makes.

My DH and I did both find some of the scenes distressing. In particular the Scandinavian families. I was wondering if other people found the same?

I hope that doesn't come across as judgy - it's not meant to and as I don't have a child with Autism I am not going to judge what parents do to help their kids. I just wondered if people who have done ABA found it hard when their children were distressed or can you see the difference it makes and therefore keep going?

This is good
theconversation.com/behavioural-method-is-not-an-attempt-to-cure-autism-19782

all good, thanks. although have an apprehensive eye on the approaching winter - dd historically does not do well in winter, and her behaviour is a bit loopy already, so that doesn't bode well. still, onwards and upwards.

how is ds? he had a big op in the last year, didn't he? how is he doing?

princes in our case, I did find it quite hard at the very beginning. I was in the common old trap, though, of doing everything to try and placate ds to avoid a big tantrum, so eg he would 'ask' for yet another juice, I would say no, he would scream and shout, so I would give him what he wanted. When we began the programme, and we were teaching him appropriate communication (ie asking appropriately, or accepting no) he had a massive tantrum after I'd said no. The tutor just told me to totally ignore it - it was hard to see him flailing and yelling, and my reaction would have been to just give him the juice to stop the tantrum, so it went against the grain at first. But of course, within a few days, I realised if I continued, I would just be perpetuating the message to him that he could scream and hit and get what he wanted that way, and he very quickly changed his behaviour, and realised if I said no, there was no point him continuing as my behaviour was consistent, and I wouldn't give in. One of our tutors told us not to negotiate with terrorists, and it was true! We realised that actually a tantrum is nothing to be feared. If there is self-harm (eg headbanging) involved then you have to use different methods though.

The main thing is though, that the 'punishment' side is not punishment at all - there are no aversive techniques, no punishment is actually used - just that the reinforcer ('reward') is not given if the behaviour is unacceptable. And the fact is that, in our case, ds was learning so quickly that most of the time he would actually get the reward, which was always fun (eg tickling, throwing) or what he wanted (food, game, attention).

loved this programme. a really good documentary. the little blond boy was seemed very sociable but his autism was clear when he started hitting his mum. totally amazing when he started eating food.

patience and matthew were heartbreaking.

Obviously ABA came out really well, mainly because of the stark contrast in the two food refusing boys. the route to medication and tube feeding is really tragic, but I can see how it happens. If he has been surviving off smoothies for 11 years I don't see why that wouldn't continue though? Surely he would refuse a nose tube?

I did find the Scandinavian ABA man a bit sinister. However, i'm always pleased to see men working in this field as there are so few and so many autistic children are boys. I do also wonder if too many (low paid) women feel they are 'doing good' just by virtue of working with disabled kids. And men are more inclined to be outcome focused? Mr ABA in this case certainly was. Didn't see much of his 'success story' Richard talking though.

Mum with aspergers was very moving but I agreed with her when she said she couldn't speak for severely autistic people.

Woman who ran Tree tops was a total star though and I loved her criteria for employing people!

Found this programming interesting too and expect the LA's had lots of phone calls this morning demanding ABA. If I am being cynical dh and I thought it was a shame they couldn't have followed more children who had had ABA for longer. It would also have been interesting to know if the severity of the children entering the two schools was the same. My science background means I need a proper controlled study before I believe anything !

I've just watched this - I am really glad to see something which shows what a modern ABA program looks like.

I felt so sad for Patience - it is so unfair that she and her son are in this position. I remember when my dd was diagnosed with autism feeling that I would cut my arms off if it meant that she could do ABA because I believed (and still believe) that it was the thing that she most needed.

My dd's original program had lots of DTT because she had no skills at all. Watching this took me back to when she was little, finding it hard not being allowed to stim all day and crying when she didn't want to do something! But it reminded me of how much she has learned and that although she's still very disabled, it is now possible to teach her things and her receptive language is very good. She had an eating issues too - at 4 she would only eat weetabix, yoghurt, chocolate cake and ice cream and would only drink out of a syringe but now, aged nearly 12 she eats most things and drinks normally.