ABA programme for delayed child?

[Lary27]

My DS is 26 months (corrected 23 months) and is speech delayed. He has about 10 words but is not really a spontaneous speaker. For example, he knows how to say milk but would rather bring his empty bottle of milk to me to ask for some.

Due to his prematurity, we were lucky that he had a referral to a development paediatrician at 1 year old as we were worried that he was not walking (he was pretty much on time/ahead with all other milestones). He apparently had a resistance in his ankle and eventually walked at 17 months.

Long story short, he started pre-school a month ago and I was so sad to compare him to other 2 year old who seem much more advanced in their speech. (I know I shouldn’t compare but oh well). I found an intensive 5 week ABA summer programme and was wondering if it worth a shot. I was immediately keen when I learned that the programme involved spending 3 hours at the facility every day with the help of many professionals including a speech therapist.

My main concern is that a typical day would not just involve speech but also OT for example, teaching the kids to parallel play, feeding therapy, as children signed up to the programme usually have delays in multiple areas etc.

The paedietrician evaluates DS every 6 months and so far has only flagged a speech delay for which he has been referred to a speech therapist. Do you think ABA can help is progress and expressive skills?

Hi Lary27. ABA Therapy is something that you should consider beyond carefully. It is abhorred and shunned by the majority of the adult autistic community. It centres around making the child mask and wanting them to please adults (increasing the risk of future grooming). Many autistic adults have PTSD as a result of childhood ABA. It is for the benefit of the neurological adults in getting children to tick boxes to be more ‘normal’. It is not for the benefit of the autistic child. There is a wealth of online information and support. Autism inclusivity is an excellent Facebook group where you can ask questions of autistic adults to help gain insight into your child’s behaviour. You can ask the ABA question there, although it’s better to just search the group for past posts because it provokes a strong response.

I can feel through your post that you’re desperate for your son to be more like his peers in his ability. Every autistic person is an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses. As the saying goes ‘when you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person’. Your son will have many strengths that may already be apparent, or may become clear with time. There may be some things that it takes him longer to grasp and some things that he may never get to grips with. As a parent, this is hard to come to terms with, but with gentle encouragement and the confidence to be his authentic self at home, he will flourish in his own time.

Comparison is the thief of joy, please don’t fall into that trap. Or, perhaps go to some groups/organisations that enable you to socialise within the autistic community. Having friends who ‘get where I’m coming from’ and who can genuinely empathise has been a God send for me.

I have the alternative view. ABA rescued my child from being a non-verbal severe self-harmer. We spend 7 years immersed in intensive ABA. I don't regret a minute of it. DS is happy and successful and I thank ABA every day.

I started at-home ABA with my DS at almost the exact same age, also to help with a speech delay (as yet, at 3.5 still not even managed to get an assessment, let alone a diagnosis, so we don't know yet). I'd definitely recommend it as one way to encourage expressive language skills, and a host of other things. My son is still behind on his language but he's catching up and I think the ABA approaches really helped get the ball rolling in terms of creating games that encouraged him to copy speech, which was the initial hurdle. Every child is different, but it's certainly worth a shot.

As for the horror stories about ABA - I don't doubt these, but I disagree that ABA's sole purpose these days is to force autistic people to adopt behaviours to make them appear "normal", or force them to be anything other than themselves. It's an approach to teaching, not a conversion programme (though I completely understand it would have been like that back in the day when it was first implemented). But ABA techniques can be used to teach anything, and aren't even used solely with autistic people (in which case, is it no longer abuse?) In our experience, for a very little one, it's not about getting them to mask or appear normal, it's about finding strategies that make things that are really important to their health and wellbeing - like communicating their needs, brushing their teeth or crossing a road safely - less stressful or even fun for them. I do find it a bit funny when tips I get from my ABA consultant also pop up on the Nurturing Neurodiversity FB group, where any mention of ABA is roundly condemned. There's a lot more overlap than they realise and I think it's unfortunate this fear of ABA means well meaning parents dismiss an actually quite useful approach to supporting their child's learning without really understanding what they're actually dismissing.

By all means scout out the programme first, but if I had that on my doorstep - even if your LO "only" has a speech delay - I'd be very excited to give it a try! If you are allowed to be there with your LO then even better, you can keep an eye on proceedings and may pick up some really useful tips!

Hi Lary27. I have heard really good results with ABA, I also want to start but not come across summer intensive program. Can you tell me where your one is based?

thank you

Thank you all for your responses. Interestingly, my DS has gained 20 words in the past few days and is now using functional language. ‘Milk, water, car, good morning…’ Now comtemplating whether the summer camp may still be useful…
Really grateful for all the input.

@Smileybab the programme is in Central London.

Hi

Good to hear your DS is gaining words. My child was also premature and mainly labelling.

Is this the childrens place? @Lary27

Hi where is the programme for intensive ABA. I really need something for my 3 year old