ABA therapy and PEACH

[Toni27]

Hi I have been researching ABA therapy for months since first hearing about it on this board, it seems many parents on here thinks as done wonders for their children and I wonder if it could help our son reach his full potential in life. I found a website alled PEACH, it sounded like the sort of organisation I had been looking for, what had put me off ABA was that it appears you have to kind of go underground for your child's therapy, you invest a lot of money in people you trust are doing ABA correctly. I wouldn't know if they were getting it right or not! I also dont just want any random person working with my child i want to know they are safe to be with him and for them to really know what they are doing! Anyway the PEACH sounded good because it sounds like they would really guide me in the correct way through sorting out therapy for our son. Has anybody used PEACH, what did you think of them? Are they trustworthy? Many thanks x

PEACH do very good introductory seminars to help you understand the world of ABA, which we attended. But we did not use them as a provider partly because of cost and partly because we wanted to retain control of the programme ourselves.

Just went to join and they wanted £30 for my PEACH membership, i thought that it was quite a lot of money, is anyone here a member, is the info you receive worth the money? X

I thought it was worth it, yes, especially in the early days for the info.

(But if you think £30 is a lot of money, just checking that you realise a full ABA programme runs into thousands of pounds a month? Do not mean to try and put you off, and maybe you are not planning to run anything like a full programme, but this route is potentially very expensive and you need to figure that in to your planning from the outset).

Hi thanks for replying! Yes I know it's really expensive to do aba I just didn't know if £30 was going to give me much information I'm glad you found their seminars good. You know you said you wanted to retain control of the programme yourselves, does that mean if you go through peach you are not in control of what they do with your child? I wish aba was more regulated by the government/NHS etc, sometimes I feel it's a bit shady because its not recognised over here, but everyone whose tried it on mumsnet seems to think its amazing for their kids, what has your experience been like? If you didn't go through peach what did you do, did you just find a consultant yourself? How do you know they are doing the aba correctly? Sorry to sound so uneducated and suspicious about it all, I really do find it so hopeful for our son but would need to be so confident in the therapists to pay thousands of pounds to them. My husband does not like the idea of aba at all but I keep looking into it because I can't ignore that there is this therapy that lots of parents say is helping their children.

Hi, our DS in on an ABA program. We have a consultant who is board certified - I would suggest you look at the BCBA website where you can search for consultants. A consultant should be able to provide references so that you can speak to other families.
In terms of being in control of the program - the consultant should be working with you and your family to see what your priorities are and whether there are any particular issues you have. Although they will also do an assessment to see where your child is and what areas need to be worked on.
With ABA lots of data is taken so you should be able to track whether your child is making progress and more importantly you should be able to see whether your child is making progress and is happy and enjoying the sessions. Our son loves his tutors and really does seem to thrive during sessions so we are happy.
There is an ABA yahoo group and you can also post on here to speak to parents who have experience of any provider you may use. Also there is a charity called Caudwell who provide funding to eligible families which you may want to look into.
Good luck.

Many thanks xx

When I said we wanted to retain control, I wanted to be the one to choose the consultant, all the tutors, decide on the amount of hours etc etc. And wanted everyone to be answerable to me and not anyone else, which works well with the way I have managed it.

But, you must get a BCBA for a start. Tutors: well, there is no precise way to define who is right, but expect to possibly change staff a few times for various reasons (we had to get rid of three for various reasons, and one, very good, one got a fullltime job so she left).

PS PEACH intrduction seminar is good, as I have mentioned. Also speak to IPSEA, who are supportive, amd look at their website. And if you are anywhere near London have a look at the two-day courses at Ambitious About Autism (Treehouse School, a specialist ABA school).

I second the idea about Ambitious About Autism course. I attended one recently and it was very informative.

We even sent our school LSA and our nanny on the course! You can't substitute for real qualifications and experience in ABA but at least you can try to make sure that everyone gets the principles.