ABA Advice Needed - any positive experiences?

[Lil115]

Hi,
My dd is 2years old and asd diagnosed. Our paediatrician who I do trust has recommended we do some ABA therapy. I wondered if anyone has positive experiences with this?
I am aware of the controversy of the therapy and I do not want my daughter to have to not appear autistic, I want her to be herself. However, I do think that possibly this therapy could be helpful in helping reach her potential in some areas.
I wondered if anyone could tell me how they found the therapy and how did you cope with how it seems quite invasive in your life amongst having to work etc.

We did a bit of "distance ABA" (i.e. we did it under the guidance of BCBA) early on. It wasn't very invasive but we didn't do that many hours.

I found some of what we learned useful, but I can also completely see that it could be harmful and probably often is. A lot of what we found useful I suspect wasn't really ABA (e.g. acting out situations for DD so she could see them "visually", breaking down tasks into smaller elements, backward chaining, keeping a diary, talking a lot about feelings and helping her identify them, etc.)

I feel in a hard spot to judge as DD does pretty well (she's now just 7. We did some ABA sporadically between about ages 3-5). She's always been highly verbal and not had too many sensory challenges. Her issues are more around social and anxiety.

I really don't like the "tricks for rewards" aspect of ABA and think it can create lots of problems. On the other hand, there was no other guidance or handholding really available to us, so I was glad we had some structure and were able to feel we were "doing something". How much of it was helpful and how much was harmful I find very hard to say. I'm glad we didn't have anybody else working with her - at least we were in control of everything that was happening and making those judgements for ourselves. So I didn't have to worry that anybody else might be trying to suppress stims or anything like that. We both work so we probably weren't spending more than 20-40 minutes a day doing ABA-ey things with her (probably less most days).

I think most of the positive things we got from ABA we probably could have found out for ourselves and done for ourselves but we just had no idea where to look. Things I think might be helpful in terms of practical suggestions include:

• The Nurturing Neurodiversity YouTube channel and Facebook group weren't around when DD was little but I think are excellent. She has some videos on activities that she has found work well with interacting with her son and encouraging his communication.
• The Chirp Special Needs YouTube channel can be a bit long winded but has lots of good stuff on encouraging interactions, supporting sensory needs, etc.
• We got a book from the library called "101 Games and Activities for Children With Autism, Asperger's and Sensory Processing Disorders" and it had some good ideas on fun games etc. to encourage interaction, turn taking, and other communication skills.

I remember being so, so upset when the ABA controversy broke and thinking 'but we did that with DS'. In truth (if you are in the UK) there is a huuuuge difference between using some ABA techniques for 20 minutes a day and embarking on a full ABA 'programme' which goes all day and night and requires three 'tutors' working in shifts to implement it.

Like anything, it may or may not work for your DC but there are elements of the thinking that we found sound. Using rewards can be something as simple as turn taking in a game (we certainly never did 'behaviours in exchange for food'). Stimming - I know this is controversial but given the way education is organised in our area, DS was always heading for a mainstream secondary and I felt it was important that he understood when it was a good place to stim and when it wasn't. But then we did that very gently too - letting him have breaks, talking about appropriateness etc. Now I'm writing this I'm not sure if we even did ABA at all!

The best thing we did at that age was Hanen More than Words and it's based loosely on ABA principles. Like do something the child likes (blow a bubble) then wait till they 'ask' you to do it again. The 'ask' can be almost anything though, it's just encouraging communication on the child's level.

I don't have anything helpful to add but we are in a similar position. We've moved from the UK to the USA and here it's all ABA. I have asked the psychologist about it and he basically said that it's needed to proactively teach DS to be in school, because if his behaviour remains very disruptive then his learning will suffer. It's hard to know what to do though, as I think ABA is used to mean very diffierent things - from extreme behaviour modification techniques to just some routines to help them learn specific things.

Well I can only speak from the perspective of my own family. I honestly believe that it was the best thing we ever did. We did VB Mapp which is a modern version when my son was 3/4. He is now in mainstream without support (we live abroad so there is no option of TA support, if the kids can’t cope in mainstream they have to go to a specialist school). Our programme was only 3 hours a day/15 hours a week and predominantly focused on communication skills, joint attention, understanding classroom routines, social skills and being part of a group. My son probably isn’t on the same level socially as many of his peers, but he does have good friends and loves seeing them and is a happy boy who can easily talk about lots of things. I don’t really know if he would be I the same place if we hadn’t done ABA, but I am sooo glad we did.

Hi @LightTripper thanks very much for sharing your experience and suggestions. I am
on the nurturing neurodiversity group and I agree, it’s great. Will definitely look at your other recommendations too

Hi @HoldontoOneMoreDay thanks for sharing. I will definitely look into the Hanen More than Words it sounds very good.

Hi @nestlestealswater yes it’s difficult to know what is best for our own children when health professionals do seem to push certain therapies. I have heard that ABA is very big in the USA. Good luck with it all.

Hi @Bigcitylights Thanks for sharing your positive experience. It’s great to hear from someone who ABA has worked well for and great that your son is doing so well.

We have implemented a home ABA programme for my 33 month old, which has been running about 5 months. We now do 10-12 hours / week with tutors. He is definitely making progress, though obviously hard to know how much he world have made without ABA. He's also in nursery 3 days a week and we try to do a lot of speech and interaction work ourselves. Like others I'd recommend more than words plus look up Laura mize and salt by the sea for tips.
I can honestly say I have seen nothing that in any way resembles abuse. ABA has changed a lot and the uk version is very different to the old us 40 hours / week punishments based model. My son absolutely adores his tutors and sees them as great play buddies, loves it when they arrive. I would recommend you look in to it, visit some ABA sessions and make an informed decision based on what is right for your family.
I'm also a member of nurturing neuro diversity and think it's a great group, but I'm also very realistic about the challenges my son faces and really don't consider his autism a superpower at all so want to do anything I can possibly do to help him.

Ps I would say it is invasive in our lives. In a way I'm fortunate to be on maternity leave so it's actually helped me a lot I having the tutors play with my toddler while I'm with my baby. I'm really not sure how I'd cope with him plus my baby all day tbh!!
I do get fed up of 'strangers' always being in our house, plus we need to work out how it's going to work when I go back to work in the summer.

Hi. I wanted to come from the other end of the ABA spectrum really. I am an ABA tutor and have been for the last 4 years. I've worked in an ABA based school and as a self-employed tutor.

Well done ABA isn't abusive but badly done I would see how it could be. I think that the really important thing is finding a consultant and tutors who fit you as a family.

ABA is regulated by the BCBA here is the link to their website www.bacb.com/

Make sure your consultant is a registered BCBA Board Certified Behavior Analyst. A good consultant will taylor the programme for your little one and will support you and the tutors who work with your child.

I have to say that I have seen ABA change the lives of some of the families that I have worked with.

We’ve been using ABA for my son for 5 years. It’s been fantastic for him, teaching him skills and working out how to teach him. ABA isn’t necessarily the right approach for every child and there are bad practitioners out there so make sure you get a decent BCBA to run the programme.
My son is a total little character - all the language work we have done via his ABA programme (and input from speech therapists) has actually given him the ability to explain and express what he wants.

@Sausagepickle123 that's wonderful news, I'm hoping my son can make good progress like this too x