ABA yes or no?

[adrianna22]

Hi

DS if four, has a severe language delay and has autism.

Ever since reading 'Let me hear your voice' by Catherine (forgot her surname), I have always wondered if ABA is something that I should try on DS.

I have looked at the 'more than words book' but not finding it helpful at the moment, except for the bit about play skills, as DS..how can I say it? in terms of his autism, has not got that far yet.

DS does have the basis of communication, e.g.. pointing, joint attention, sharing interests etc. He main strength is his understanding and use of nominal and conventional gestures, he even has his own made-up sign language. .

Though it seems that DS understanding lots of things but for some reason the words are not coming out.

He has been in speech therapy for the past two years, which has helped, but very slow progress. However, to be fair, I did not continuously work on DS with things that the speech therapist assign me to do, due to being in denial, hoping he would catch up, not motivated enough, worrying what DS may have instead of spending my time working on him. Which I do admit is wrong. So guessing I need to work more on DS to see if it is helping him.

As when DS gets into school, I'm thinking of hiring a private therapist, which could be either a speech therapist or ABA. I want to hire a therapist who will help DS expand and develop with his use of natural gestures, joint attention, play skills etc, but at the same time get in to talk.

Obviously with ABA I have heard some bad things about it, but mainly good things as well. Would ABA be appropriate for my DS?

I would like to hear a comparison view of ABA.

JUST TO ADD. I am aware that ABA consists of having 20/week sessions per week?? The issue is, I will not be able to afford that much at all!! When considering hiring a speech therapist, I was going to do three times a month.

What shall I do?

Thanks .

Hi,
I'm in a rush at the moment but just wanted to say that you do not need to do 20 hours per week. When we started ABA with our son we had a tutor doing a 3 hour session once a week and I did two or three sessions myself.
You can apply the principles in everyday life and this will really help.
If money is an issue you may be eligible for a £2000 grant from the Caudwell charity.

I've never fancied Aba for dd2 , for reasons of time and money and instinctively it's never felt right for us

ABA does not require 20 hours a week. The basic rule is that the more you do, the faster you can get through the curriculum and the results are exponential, so the more you do the better.

For example if you are trying to increase the rate of initiations (asking for things) then you want those opportunities to be there as much as possible, rather than have the conditions right for this skill to develop just 3 hour a week iyswim.

Having said that, parents can take over the therapy informally outside of the formal sessions if they are involved and know the targets by heart.

If I had my time again I would take my child to see Nicole here www.thechildrensplaceslt.com She's fantastic.

It's taken me a long time to come around to ABA, because I've always seen it as an intensive programme of 20-40 hours that you pay through the nose for.

I went on Moondog's introduction to ABA on Saturday and had a bit of a 'moment' when I realised, for the first time, that ABA is not EIBI, it's not VB-MAPP, it's not floortime, etc., etc., it's simply:

Applied
Behavioural
Analysis

In other words - observe behaviours, analyse them to work out what you want next (e.g. less of that behaviour, more of that behaviour, or to extend that behaviour), then decide how you can encourage that using motivators.

The other things (EIBI, VB-MAPP, intensive home programmes, etc.) are just vehicles for ABA.

DD2 is 'doing ABA' as we speak - she's using Headsprout, which tracks her responses to the task it sets and modifies the programme accordingly. She thinks she's playing a phonics game.

I think there is a movement to try and change EIBI to 'EBI' at the moment.

EIBI is fine but there is no evidence to support what exactly the 'I' means and I think it is the 'I' that gives ABA a bad name because it is exploited by the less Ethical Consultants.

However, the more you do something, the more you practise, the better the results. For most of what you need to practise, the parent can do it/set it up with a bit of supervision/instruction.

Hi

Thanks everyone, I'm still confused as there are still some conflicting views. I guess I'm still wondering if this is right for DS. I may do a trial- run. Can you do two types of therapies at once?

Also, would I be able to do the ABA informally by myself?
Thanks boobybum for telling me about the grant stuff.

Starlightmckenzie I am very interested about this children's place, how do you know about it? Does the woman have a wide range experience for speech disorders as well?

lougle How are you finding ABA so far?

What are the conflicting views?

It is better to get a supervisor if your doing the home-programme type, or consultant to guide you, but yes you can do it yourself.

It is pretty important imo to have an objective outsider monitor what you are doing to ensure that you are a)being effective and b)not doing anything unethical/detrimental even unknowingly.

AND, it is essential to have a very detailed understanding of exactly where your child is in a number of broken-down skill areas in order to ensure you are pitching the 'programme' at the right place.

I have just had ds' literacy targets. His targets seem to be set according to the fact that he can do 60% of the level below. When I teach him, I will have to go to the level below and make sure he can do 100% of that level, but actually, I will probably have to go to the level below even that as if that also was only 60% achieved he'll only be able to get so far and then stall/plateau.

So I'm expecting to be teaching him at a much lower level than he is on. I am also expecting him to fly through those levels and get back to where he 'is' now quickly. Unfortunately I hold no hopes of the HE 'Inspector' that I am being made to accept into my home understanding this and expecting 'him' to see it as ds having made no progress when he finally gets back to the level he is 'at' having had the holes filled.

We have done ABA for 4 years. Many people would call it intensive but it doesn't feel like that. DS only learns from direct teaching and repetition and by an adult motivating him. It actually wouldn't matter what approach we used there is so much to teach him he would always have needed far more teaching than another child. At start we could only afford 3 hours a week supervision and did all of it ourselves, this is entirely possible esp if you are only targeting language - we were working on everything eg behaviour, speech, eating, toileting etc.
I think the key for getting children who are reluctant to speak (where there is no physical reason why they can't make the sounds like verbal dyspraxia) is lack of motivation.
ABA based approaches are the only ones that target and create motivation that I know of. Other approaches rely on the child having some desire to do it, DS just doesn't have this. His social deficit is very severe.
DS can talk, he has difficulties with learning language and processing it but even though he now has lots of words he doesn't use them often to communicate spontaneously. He will use language to request things he wants and occasionally he will comment on things. He doesn't yet have conversational speech but he's not far off and I am confident it will come. He can sustain long question / answer back and forth. For us speech is def a long term project!
ABA uses communication temptations which means linking something a child really wants with speech so they only get it if they attempt to ask for it. There is an Episode of Supernanny USA tackles autism part 5 (sorry can't link it) with Lynn Koegal who does PRT (a brand of ABA) on YouTube. It shows her using a swing and tickles to get a child to say their first words. For DS speaking is something he finds hard and he prefers to write and type which give him more time to put the words together. Even though he can use sentences he will often only use 1 or 2 words and so we wait and don't give him what he wants until he says a full sentence because that's the only way we can get him to practise. He will immediately say a sentence he just always tries to see if he can get away without having to.
The reason I jump is a book by a child with autism who explains why children with autism avoid speaking.
I didn't find books or manuals useful either, DS is so passive and so difficult to engage I had to have someone in my living room showing me. Paying someone to train you is worth it. There are online ABA training / DVDs etc but I haven't used one. I know there is one called simple steps.
DS uses much more language in ABA sessions than he does outside it, and more with parents / carers who have been taught ABA methods than those who haven't. It is improving but still relies on adults around him motivating him to use language much of the time.
A good ABA SLT or ABA supervisor would be able to show you what to do, you wouldn't need to pay for therapists for 20 hours.

We have been 'doing' ABA for nearly 7 years now., both as a home programme, and now dd1 attends an ABA school (has done for over 4 years now).

The thing to get past, as lougle says is the 'doing' ABA bit. It doesn't mean anything, of itself. ABA means observing, getting to the root cause of a behaviour, and then setting about (in an ordered manner, taking data as you go) shaping that behaviour towards what you want to be happening. And that's all.

Dd1 has severe ASD, with a severe language disorder. The only way she learns is through 1:1, with an emphasis on errorless learning.

Dd2 has AS. she is advanced, academically speaking. I would love for her to be able to attend a (suitable) ABA school too, because quite frankly, what is there not to like about observing exactly where your child is at now, working out the next steps for thema s an individual, and then getting on with achieving those goals?

That's all there is to it. It's not rocket science. But it is effective.

Star I'm doing just as you describe with DD2 and reading. Her decoding is pretty good. Her comprehension less so. But I'm starting her from episode 1 of Headsprout, knowing she'll fly through it at first, because I want to make sure every single hole is crammed.

That way, when her wall is finished, the wall we get at the end could possibly have been built quicker, but it's going to be a damn good wall.

I did if for ds' maths Lougle It's amazing how NOT SLOW he is when he is taught systematically and thoroughly. He just can't pick up the 'incidentals' and compensate for what the teacher might mean if he/she doesn't say it.

He is in Year 2 and was only fluent in half of the Reception Maths curriculum in February (on the old NC levels) and he is now fluent in half the Year 3 maths curriculum. As far as his school is concerned he was between a Year 1 (level lc) and p levels level depending on the topic area at the beginning of the year and he is now level lb and p levels depending on topic area.

School don't believe me so I created an independent assessment book (i.e. questions from the curriculum in sets of 10, timed, and I was mean and even added in a whole load of flowery language so they couldn't blame the difference on perceived simpler language at home). I haven't shown them yet and probably won't now as it won't make any difference to him.

He's managed this just averaging at 10mins a day of home-study in maths, because I KNOW how to ensure he learns and generalises. Maths is so concrete it is so simple to get the clear results.

I'm struggling a bit with literacy and finding a clear curriculum. RWI looks fab but I don't know how to access it for a price I can afford.

Can he read? I think you've done HeadSprout, haven't you? RWI is really doing exactly the same as HeadSprout, just with an additional focus on spelling.

Ds can read, but he can't spell. It's very inconsistent in his errors. I think the most likely cause of this is really not caring.

Sqeebles spelling is amazing as a tool once you have a curriculum, but I need a curriculum iyswim.

Is there something he could work towards that motivates him, then do spellings with SAFMEDS?

Dd1 has used headsprout, and then RWI at school. I am about to start her using squeebles spelling (because she wants to practice spellings when dd2 does hers) using the high frequency words list for ks1. The first 100 are pretty basic, but the next 200 are quite varied.

Dd1 also found a letter board app (which reads out what she spells) very rewarding, and she would spend ages typo in whole stories for it to read back to her (not spelling as such, but all good practice!)

Squeebles apps in general are v good - dd2 uses them a lot across te board for maths reinforcement.

Yes. He'll do it for iPad minutes, though I'd like him to be reinforced by just having good literacy skills . The trouble for me is that I don't have good literacy skills. I have no idea how words are broken down and/or what order to teach them in. I don't know how to identify gaps in his learning either. I don't know the components of a sentence, or the parts of a paragraph. I can't find out where to find out.

High frequency words lists available here

Otherwise work through the key stage workbooks - eg lets etc? They will at least how which bits need teaching...

I'll look up which one dd1 used, Star. I've had a quick glance at her iPad and can't see it - will check on my laptop late as might have remove it from her iPad.

I guess work ooks could help. DS can learn spellings fluently but the. Never use them and then comeety lose them and we're back to square 1. :(

Ahh I see.

English National Curriculum programme of study for year 1 is here It lists all the stuff a child will be taught in year 1.

Does that help?