Why is everyone against ABA: Council, Schools, SENCOs...headteachers..etc

[Soumia]

Hi mums

I understand that ABA is quite expensive and costy...but Special.schools are very expensive too.

I understanf that ABA might not be well understood...especially in the UK...

But,

Why is everyone against ABA: Council, Schools, SENCOs...headteachers..etc

If the parent can proove that ABA helped his son...and there is an evidence...

Why all this looong.process :(

is it because schools are run by Local authority? Or just the head teacher + school.SENCO works in favor of the locsl authority...

Please help by any info...advice

ABA is not widely used in the UK therefore people are going to struggle to get ABA treatment for their child paid for by the local authority. I am sure I have read on these boards that people have been successful but not without a fight.

NICE’s position seems to be a lack of evidence. I’ve not read it in detail but this paper states that studies into the effectiveness of ABA therapies are unreliable due to bias concerns and small sample sizes of the studies: ‘However, the quality of this evidence was downgraded to low due to risk of bias concerns (non-blind outcome assessment or unclear blinding of outcome assessors) and small sample size.’

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg170/evidence/autism-management-of-autism-in-children-and-young-people-full-guideline-248641453#page353

Autistic people themselves tend to be very anti-ABA, this article details why, there will be many others:

autisticuk.org/does-aba-harm-autistic-people/

As the parent to an autistic child I can fully understand the desire to help your child learn new skills and that this is what many parents are seeking rather than simply to prevent stimming or to make their child seem more ‘normal’ but there are probably many ways that this can be achieved without ABA. All ABA is really is breaking down the behaviours into small steps and using positive reinforcement to help the child achieve them but I feel that doing this intensively for many hours per day would be exhausting for the child?

You say that you have evidence that ABA has worked for your child. Could you give an example of that? How are you sure that it is a result of the ABA and not other factors or simply natural development and maturation? I am sure these are the sorts of questions that they will ask.

Regarding your other thread, I’m not sure how (intensive) ABA would work in a mainstream school. How do you see it working?

My 4.5 son who was diagnosed with high functioning a year ago has been attending an ABA Centre since. He started off with 15 hours of 1 on 1 tuition and now he is part of their pre-school programme (run along ABA lines). It all works a bit differently as we don’t live in the UK. The programme that they follow is VB Mapp (which is a more modern type of ABA), all about improving language and communication skills.
My son has made really good progress with the programme and so have others although not all, in the class. He had lost a lot of eye contact, it came back within a couple of weeks (although probably still isn’t quite the same as an NT kid). His general communication and social skills are also much improved although he still needs work with maintaining conversation and staying on topic.
Above all, the best thing it has improved in him is compliance which kids absolutely need for success (unaided) in a mainstream classroom.
I really don’t understand why it isn’t popular in the UK. And I genuinely do think kids are missing out, which is really sad.
My understanding Is that there is a LOT of evidence backing up the success of ABA (and they can prove it as it’s all about taking data). So much so that parents in the USA took the matter all the way up the legal system and it is now provided for free for many with or without medical insurance.
Sorry for the long post but having seen the change in my son using VB Mapp I really would recommend it. Here is their website www.avbpress.com/aboutvbmapp.html

It isn’t very helpful, and sorry I can’t offer more advice about how to implement it in the UK.

People are against ABA because there has been a lack of understanding of how it works today. Many people look back to the approach in the 70s and judge it by this. It is also expensive because it is not available in our special schools. In the US it is much more commonly used as a standard intervention. Personally I have had two dc with asd. Child 1 received standard salt, ot and special school. Child 2 received ABA light of around 18 hours a week ABA plus nursery and made huge progress. It is in my opinion a huge shame that we do not invest in an aba approach in the early years as we could be teaching our dc some of the early learning skills that our dc need.

Sencos don't understand it as it is not widely used and LAs hate it as it is intense and much more expensive than a generic low paid TA. Money talks. That's the main issue. It still comes in much more expensive than many special schools.

Hi ...thanks for your messages :)

You say that you have evidence that ABA has worked for your child. Could you give an example of that? How are you sure that it is a result of the ABA and not other factors or simply natural development and maturation? I am sure these are the sorts of questions that they will ask.

He is out of nappies and can go to thd toilet independently...thanks to ABA...we have data...

He can put his ttousers on...socks...shoes...etc.. wash..dry his hands...do the zipp...

We have data...

Is this not enough?

Recently we started PECS in ABA as he cannot talk... he is doibg great with pecs...

Is this enough as a proof???

Soumia I really don’t know, I was just being devil’s advocate. You asked why and I think those are some of the reasons as well as the substantial cost, obviously.

My son is 5, has autism and has learned to do all of those things without ABA. Repetition and reinforcement is just a natural way to teach all children new tasks. Our children often just take a while longer and need more patience.

As I said, I have read about posters who have got ABA provision through an EHCP so you might be successful. Good luck.

From your other thread
My son is 4 has bern out of nursary since 10 months and only home educated by myself using ABA...i am his ABA tutor + mum

Are you trying to tout for business here? If so, it's against MNs T+Cs.

You think ABA has worked for your son, other people achieve the same for their autistic children without it.

Evidence that will be listened to in this country has to be in the form of probably several controlled clinical double-blinded peer-reviewed studies with a very large number of participants.

One mother saying 'This worked for my child and he would not have made any progress without it' will not be considered as any form of clinical evidence or proof. It will be treated as a belief, not a fact.

I think there is evidence that ABA works. Otherwise insurance companies in the USA would not have to pay out for it, at enormous cost to themselves.

But I agree that you can’t always tell what is doing what. For example, if a kid is doing ABA in the mornings, weekly speech and weekly OT with lots of play based activities with care givers in the afternoon, then no, you may not know exactly. But ABA can be tracked and monitored very rigorously and you will be able to see that you are embedding skills as deeply as possible.

Also many of the most important skills that ABA can build are ‘foundation skills’ - things like joint attention and compliance. That kids will need for speech therapy and OT to be successful anyway.

Ok so maybe a child would learn these skills naturally and maybe they wouldn’t, but my son (and I appreciate that he is only one kid) wasn’t, so in his case I do believe that it has been very beneficial.

Bigcitylights I don’t doubt ABA teaches children skills, I think what is doubtful is that only ABA can teach those skills.

maybe a child would learn these skills naturally and maybe they wouldn’t

If you’re comparing ABA with no push to teach new skills at all, I’m sure the ABA results would be favourable but it’s not the only option and most parents don’t do nothing.

Fwiw I am not passionately for or against ABA. I was just trying to answer OP’s question as they’ve posted several threads recently and many were unanswered.

I can see there’s a huge benefit to someone else telling you what to work on and breaking down the steps to get there, if that’s what you’re looking for, but I still don’t think it’s the only approach.

I agree, I almost think it’s worth trying several of the approaches at the same time (just so that you are covering all your bases). One great piece of advice I was given was that there is no ‘right’ programme, just the ‘right programme at the right time.’

The Educational Psycologist that we work with thought for example that ABA would be really important for my son at first, as it would build compliance, and rewire his brain somewhat. I really didn’t want to do it at the beginning as, yes, it did feel a bit like dog training but I am really glad we did.

It's such an emotive topic. And yes, compliance is important, but so is knowing when to say "no", and knowing you have autonomy over your own body (to avoid abuse when/if they are more independent later and out of your care for periods of time), so I can see why people have concerns. 40 hours (or even 20 hours) a week also seems a lot of anything for a young child to do: I can easily see why people worry about mental health implications.

We did hire an ABA consultant and we did find it helpful, mainly in helping break down tricky things into smaller steps and come up with games and activities to practice some core underlying skills. In that respect I found it a bit like physio (when DD couldn't pull to stand I had no idea all the muscle groups and other skills she needed to have as a basis for standing up. Similarly when DD would run up to other kids but not know what to say I didn't know how to get her there "one step at a time" and our ABA person helped us with appropriate modelling, and setting up some "toy" situations at home to practice with.

At the same time I was pretty sceptical of the "data" that our ABA person wanted us to collect (so much of it seemed fundamentally unmeasurable, or things that would clearly change over time as DD developed with or without interventions, so I didn't really see how it could be evidence of anything). And most of the time we didn't collect it!

I also didn't find it very helpful in understanding why certain things were a struggle: that I mainly got from other parents or autistic people online, and later from an autism course our local authority ran (though that was about a year after Dx so it was a bit late really). I would love it if more ABA practitioners had some OT or sensory awareness/skills.

So in the end I'm not sure what we did was really "ABA". But whatever you call it we did find it helpful to have somebody help us with parenting approach who understood some of the developmental steps leading up to things DD was trying to do but struggling with, and some games to play/things to do to build those skills.

I think as much as anything as parents we just need somebody with experience of kids like ours who can guide us on helping our kids with the things they struggle with based on their experience, and understand what skills they need as a "base" so we aren't pushing them to do things they literally can't do. We are starting from such a low base of support and understanding in this country that almost any form of support would be helpful compared to where we are starting from (which for many families is basically "find parent groups or go online and work it out for yourself" and if you're lucky "wait 18 months and we'll send you on a course").

it did feel a bit like dog training

and this is why people are generally opposed to it in principle.

We are starting from such a low base of support and understanding in this country that almost any form of support would be helpful compared to where we are starting from (which for many families is basically "find parent groups or go online and work it out for yourself" and if you're lucky "wait 18 months and we'll send you on a course")

Agreed. It’s both a postcode lottery, some areas offering portage and some not for instance, and dependant on the ‘severity’ of symptoms at the time. Verbal children often don’t qualify for speech therapy even though their social communication is not at the level of their peers. The state led early intervention just isn’t there except for a generic parenting course in many instances.

Unless you’re in London or another big city, even private quality support can be hard to find. For most families it’s just unaffordable too at £75+ per hour.

I do understand why people are put off ABA because it feels a bit like dog training, I felt the same when we signed our son up a year ago. But I am sooo pleased I listened to the advice of the Educational Psychologist and not my gut.

Yes, it might not be as much fun as something more play based for the kid. But I think would see it as a something that is a sacrifice now for a better life in the future.

Also I am not sure that you would ever really get to a point with ABA that you have built so much compliance that the kid is open to abuse etc. Kids are still able to say when they don’t like something or want to do it. Although to be fair ASD individuals are always vulnerable.