ABA Advice needed

[user1467117083]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone who has used ABA therapy could help me out.

I am looking at starting an ABA program for my 3.5-year-old son. He has just begun to say a few words. However, he does not actually communicate with us. He has recently been diagnosed with ASD.

I have advertised for a tutor and shortlisted 3 possible candidates. However, the strongest candidate is only available until Sept 2017.

What I want to know is as the tutor is experienced in ABA do I still need to pay for a consultant to train the tutor and oversee the program. The cost of the consultant is very expensive! Can I not just employ the tutor directly without using a consultant?

If the training is necessary how can I protect myself from the tutor just not sticking around and then having to pay out again to train someone new?

Also my son get 15 hours 1-1 support at preschool and I was thinking about approaching them to see if they could release his support worker to attend the training (the more people trained that work with him the better) But I have read on another forum that training the preschool worker may backfire when I apply for funding for ABA via an EHCP?

Another option I was thinking about was to split the 15-20 hours per week ABA tutoring between 2 different tutors that way I have more security if one was to leave.

I would love to hear from anyone who has experience of ABA and can possible help me clarify what my best options would be.

Thanks
Max

Yes you would be best to get the program overseen by a consultant yes, as the tutor is not the high level expert needed to set targets, though good at then doing the programs. And yes you could certainly try and get the state money towards ABA, though it can be a fight. There is lots of info on this website:

www.abaa4all.com

Agree you need a consultant as these are highly qualified people who can set targets for your son and this is a very different skill set to delivering the programme i.e. the tutor. We reduce costs by seeing the consultant only every six weeks or so. I would say the 'training' is quite basic and really only helps the tutor deliver the immediate goals and is very specific to your child. So even an experienced tutor may need some 'training' to deliver a programme for a specific child's issues. I may be wrong though. Have you thought about doing some of the tutoring yourself to reduce costs? If the programme is quite complex then yes more than one tutor could be a good option particularly if they have some flexibility about hours and can potentially cover each other's absences etc. Good luck

Definitely get more than one tutor. This will also mean that your son is less likely to get bored of them. I had three tutors. It also meant that if one was ill or left or whatever the whole programme didn't just grind to a halt. Yes you do need a consultant. Initially you need the consultant often but you can scale this back after you get things established. We used to see ours monthly after the initial set up. I do know someone who used to be a tutor who is now working as a consultant who is excellent and not too expensive if you are in East Anglia, Essex or this side of London.

Yes to a consultant. We met ours mo they after the intial training day. And yes to more than one tutor. This is recommended actually to help children generalise their learning across different people eg so they don't just do things for one person.

Have you applied for DLA? We used that to pay for ours.

We started with a very experienced tutor a month before the first workshop with our consultant, DS was only 2.2 and he needed to pair with her for a while. It was actually very useful starting with the tutor first as by the workshop she understood DS and his personality and it helped the consultant loads.
My lead tutor said most people won't work more than 3 sessions a week with a child as it's easy to burn out and lose enthusiasm. Also like PP's say it means if one leaves things don't stop altogether (we had one tutor who just stopped coming or answering calls/emails!).
We also have workshops only every 6 weeks and have a WhatsApp group to keep her up to date with progress.

My lead tutor did go into another clients school and trained the 1:1 but it took a while to get the school to agree. I'm not sure how it would affect funding in future?

We also get DLA and that goes towards the sessions.

We are in west London if you are nearby I can ask around for tutors