Feel like we have to hide ABA like a dirty little secret!

[Migrainefun]

Basically just a rant.

My son is 2.5 and awaiting diagnosis of ASD. We have had an ABA consultant train us how to do ABA with him and she manages a programme for us and sees him monthly. It is going so well! I could cry, he couldn't do a shape sorter, and he's learned to do the whole thing in a week. He's beginning to imitate me. He even asked me for juice!
I want to share this with people but the reactions have been bizarre.
My friend who has a husband with ASD told me that they think what I am doing is cruel, if I'm going to be part of the ASD community then I should know that everyone disapproves of me trying to "fix" my son, that he wouldn't naturally have ever done the shape sorter so why am I forcing this on him etc. I suddenly feel very ashamed and low, I wanted the equip my son with the tools to do what he wanted to do in life but now I am feeling so guilty!
Also I mentioned to his paediatrician about the ABA and they didn't know what it was, thought I was being scammed by this consultant etc
Rant over I just needed to share somewhere safe..

I think the most important thing to remember is parents who have actually done the course are full of praise. They have gone on what they see in their child and their child's improved wellbeing. Very few who have done ABA have said negative things.

Yes I’m with you OP the anti ‘anything that looks like fixing your child’ autistic lobby is horribly dogmatic, misinformed, and most worrying seem to have no concerns about how to help the most severely affected whose lives are often hell. If ABA helps a child stop banging his head, learn to speak, learn to manipulate objects like shape sorters to help gross motor skills and does this without harming the child then what is the problem here? Makes no sense.

There is a fashionable anti view going around which is usually by folk who wouldn't know ABA from a hole in the ground.

It is a great shame as I believe there is a lot of good in

• any lobby trying to raise acceptance of autism
• avoiding harm

However no one Ive talked to about ABA who opposes it has the faintest idea what they are taking about.

We do have a responsibility to give our kids as many opportunities and skills as possible. Then they can choose.

If you had a kid who couldn’t walk and physiotherapy with rewards like stickers would help them to walk, it would be unethical and immoral to deny them this.

I just meant more of the older generation think it’s bad versus the younger I don’t see this. I see young adults mostly newly diagnosed with good functioning and verbal language taking against ABA.

I might be wrong but my all time heroine Temple Grandin has never spoken against it, she says it helped when she was young but then phased out -
‘ When I was very young, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) methods were used to teach me to talk and lots of praise was used. This was required to get my speech started. By age four I had learned to talk and ABA methods were phased out.’
www.templegrandin.com/templegrandinnews.html

Hello can you suggest a reputable place where to find an abs therapist ? I think my son would benefit from it. Thank you