Do I continue ABA?

[needaname19]

Hi all,
First post here, so hello! I'm just looking for some advice for anyone who may have run an ABA programme with their child. We are currently six months in to a programme for our son who is currently in mainstream reception. We have seen some good progress in his ability to sit and attend to a task, and to follow instructions, which is really positive. However, in some ways I feel that his speech has actually regressed and his play skills are still really limited. Would I be better moving from ABA to speech and a more play based therapy such as Floortime? But I also don't want to reverse the progress he has made with ABA - so confused! Any thoughts would be really appreciated, thank you!

Have you had a conversation with the ABA consultant and tutors about this? I’m guessing there may be data to support your concerns and the consultant should absolutely be taking your views on board.
In terms of play skills is this something that is being specifically worked on as if not, it sounds as though you may need some play programs to be included. And also remember that what we would consider fun/playing may be different for your child although the consultant/tutors should be using whatever your child considers fun as reinforcement.

Thank you, I think I maybe need to have a chat with our supervisor, I just don't want to come across as being negative. The reinforcer they often use is tv, and sometimes I feel this is just isolating him from us even more if that makes sense at all? Also, I've recently learned about Gestalt Language Processing, which sounds very much like my son but the suggested approach to that is very different to ABA. Has anyone used ABA with a GLP and had success with speech at all?

Yes TV doesn’t sound like a very good reinforcer to use because as you say that isolates him further and he’d need a decent amount of time for it to be a reward 🤔 Maybe at the next team meeting (we had these every month) you could discuss reviewing reinforcers (although this should be done regularly anyway) as well as introducing some specific play programs.
Our child would usually prefer to ‘play’ alone but activities that can only be done with someone else are worth looking at - piggy backs, bouncing on someone’s knee, getting pushed on a swing, bouncing higher on a trampoline, someone blowing bubbles for your child to pop, taking turns putting blocks to build a tower for your child to knock down (when you get to a certain number to encourage counting maybe).
I don’t really know anything about GLP but your ABA consultant should absolutely be using teaching techniques that work best for YOUR child. It shouldn’t be the case that they have one teaching method for all children.

ABA is quite a divisive subject.

What are you trying to achieve with therapy?

Hi, our main aims are to develop our DS's expressive language - he currently has a number of words but rarely uses them, unless it's single words to request things. We also really want to help him engage with the world around him, as he is very much isolated in his own world a lot of the time, and to develop his focus and attention as he has difficulty remaining on task - not too much of a problem yet, as he's just started reception, but I'm concerned about how this will affect him school life. He's been in his ABA program since the Spring, and I would say the main progress we have seen so far is his ability to attend to a task for a longer period. Is there anything else you could suggest that could support him? We really want to do our best for him.

I think that aba is very good for teaching skills and for receptive vocab. Teaching social skills and a desire to communicate in a natural way not so much. I think the issue is that these are so fundamentally part of a person with asd. I think progress in these areas comes more slowly and more with in person trial and error learning.

I can only speak for my experience. We did ABA and it did help my child progress. Things like attention and generalisation improved. Speech also improved but my child was receiving regular SALT together with ABA so it was probably the combination that worked. Like a PP said, I don't know if it would teach other things desire to communicate but it did teach some age appropriate skills

Thank you @cansu and @NowAndBefore that’s really helpful - would you both overall say that you are happy that you did ABA? We are happy to continue, but obviously it’s so expensive that we want to make sure it’s the best option.
Were either of your DC’s Gestalt Language Processors by any chance? We think our DS is likely to be. We are also thinking of adding in regular SALT - do you think having a combo of SALT and ABA worked well @NowAndBefore ?
Really grateful for all of your advice!

We did aba and I am very glad we did. It taught out dd some skills that I do t believe she would have learnt otherwise. I think though you have to have a realistic view of how the autism will continue to impact your dc. Dd had no language at all aged 3. Through aba she gained an understanding of what words were and it provided her with tye ability then to learn loads of nouns. She also became v interested in writing and now will type words when her speech is not clear enough for someone to understand her.

We did a less intensive version than many and stopped when she was around 5 or 6 as she was them in school. I do not regret it but I would be aware if its limitations.

Thanks so much @cansu thats given me lots to think about. I definitely think that, similar to your DD, ABA has given my DS skills that I think he would have really struggled to pick up naturally otherwise - but as his primary issues now really are around language and communication, maybe we need to start thinking about alternative approaches. Similar to you, our programme isn’t intensive, DS has maximum 6 hours a week with a tutor and I try and work with him at home as much as I can. I think it’s tricky because I want to try everything to give him the best chance, but also have to accept that I don’t have endless pots of money to do it all either haha!

Similar to @cansu I'm very happy we did it. My child definitely picked up skills that weren't present before. Simple things like choosing a red ball from 6 different balls. While able to tell that colour and object is, that ability to implement that knowledge if you like, was missing. Ours was a bit more intense, about 16/17 hours a week for just over a year. Of course children will progress at different rates.

Similar to you, speech and language is the major challenge so we also have very regular speech therapy, and have done so for the past 2 years.

And yes, my child is a gestalt processor. Now largely in stage 4, perhaps some stage 5. Getting a SALT that was experienced in GLP was very helpful for us

Agree. I think it almost came to a natural end with my dd. I also did some myself. I think it was the best thing I have done for my dd. She is now 19 and the aba set her up to be able to sit and listen and attend enough to access some more formal learning. I also remember vividly the moment when she finally understood that things have names. It was like a light bulb moment and really opened up the world to her. I spent hours teaching her this with aba and it was worth it x100!

Could you please share with me your speech therapist's contact? We are looking for a good speech therapist. Many thanks.