Too early for ABA?

[MrsRuby]

Hi everyone. Hope I can get some advice here. Have seen quite a few posts about ABA and was wondering if it is worth considering for our DS.

Have previously looked into PRT (a parent led version of ABA) but haven't really been able to instigate it as need more guidance with what to do.

DS is 22 months, no speech, can't walk (cruises around walls and furniture though) has very poor eye contact most of the time so has very few signs, will only occasionally instigate interactions (i.e. Sign language) without prompts, fixated on lights/windows a lot of the time, flaps and stims a lot.

He is having some physio and I'm not overly worried about him physically as think he will walk soon and will 'get there' eventually physically. He has been referred to salt but we haven't heard anything yet. Early years have just started seeing him for play sessions and use hand over hand to get him to engage with some activities i.e. Beating a drum. They aim to use picture exchange rather than focusing on speech sounds which I'm not convinced about.

My question is, do you think it's too early or is DS too severe to get benefit of ABA yet?

Should I wait and see if play and salt will help first?

Thanks for reading - any opinions gratefully received.

Hey ruby. We are starting aba next week with my son who has just turned 2. He is yet to be diagnosed. An ABA therapist is going to pop over and show me how to do it with ds myself - she will obviously keep in touch with us etc to ensure all is going OK. For us we are only doing very basic things intitally and taking it very slow- it's nothing intensive - so I feel it can certainly do no harm but try. We are awaiting assessment and speech therapy etc etc so I feel this is good to do whilst we wait. From what I hear it is amazing, so I imagine I will Continue with it even when we do recieve portage etc help. I don't know enough about aba to advise you with your ds , but thought I'd share our experince in the hope it may help somehow!