Thanks jakbrown - this site is such a lifeline, I've had so much help and info here.
DS is nearly 3. We have tentative dx of ASD (probably more at HFA end) but full dx happening in January. He's currently getting SALT - well, after a fashion, we see her once a month for half an hour and she gives me exercises to do with him at home. He also has someone from Early Education going into his nursery for a couple of hours once a week, although this seems to be more for observation than input at this stage.
He's been GF/CF for 4 months, and we've seen big improvement with this. He's pretty verbal - talking in 3-4 word sentences, although at times they're fairly muddled or veer off into repeated dialogue from TV etc. Generally he seems to be making good progress - he plays and relates well to us, but eye contact/interaction with strangers isn't good.
I've had some great information from Jimjams and Davros on ABA, and having digested all that we've decided to go for it. What we're thinking is that we'll start off with something like 2 hours every afternoon and see how it goes.
We've joined peach, but not sure what next step should be. Is it better to recruit own therapists or use people already working in local area? And what's the average hourly rate? Have you been doing aba for long? With good results hopefully?
Also, I suppose there's a slim possibility that dx will be something else, like dyspraxia or ADD, although I doubt it. But I'm guessing that if this turns out to be the case, aba still won't do any harm? Just a flicker of doubt in my mind that we should be spending our money on eg.private SALT instead.