ABA gurus: if a dev ped is associated with a private practice and indep SN nursery that services ASD kids but does not do ABA, should I even bother taking ds to him?

[Mamax4]

I know that ABA is the best for ASD, or just delayed dcs who don't learn "incidentally". And it is the best method of delivery of speech and other therapies, which are far less successful otherwise. Am I right to have this uncomfortable feeling that any ASD "specialist" who does not support ABA 100% is behind the times?

Jimjams, when you say "PECS is about the only thing that will work ime if your child can't imitate" do you mean vocal imitation (in some way) or general imitaion (motor, etc)

dd1 can verbally imitate anyhting. say it once, and it's there. Meaning is not bad, in her own way, and she is regularly producing phrases at a 3word level. She can request anything she wants form me, most things from her dad, and again most things form her nanny (with soem prompting, nanny is new to us). she has no motor imitation skills whatsoever.

she cannot manage this at preschool. she is overwhelmed by the noise and busy-ness, and tbh, she does not function well if she does not have the full attention of her helper (a difficult thing to achieve in a busy pre-school). SALT goes in to pre-school, and says, straight away, she needs PECS to help her communicate.

this, quite frankly is a load of b. She has tried using PECS with dd1 before. dd1 gets the concept, but does not see why she should use it when she can just ask for somehting/tell somebody what she wants. I do agree that she would benefit from the sentence build-up aspect, but if she won't comply, she won't comply.

The problem is, for successful PECS, you still need an exchange to take place, and without dd1 feeling she has the full undivided attention of the assistant (in which case she would just ask for what she wants -I suspect she is asking, just very quietly and not always directly) then she is not going to ask, whether by PECS or verbally. This is why I am so frustrated by the SALT's insistance on PECS. If they used half the time and energy in getting dd1 comfortable enough to ask (by whatever method) then they would have a child who can communicate.

I mean any imitation. DS1 still can't imitate any sounds at all but has many other ways of learning now. If your dd is imitating verbally then she understands imitation even if she can't do it in all areas.

If you can't imitate then when you see someone doing something- eg drinking out of a cup - then you have no understanding that you could pick up that cup in front of you and drink from it. You have to be taught to drink out of a cup hand over hand. You have to be taught everything hand over hand, or in a way that does not reply on demonstration (so much learning comes from the child copying something someone else has done).

If a child can't imitate then they cannot learn by demonstration at all.

Using PECS you can teach all sorts of things (colours, shapes, numbers, letters and of course communication) without any need for demonstration. That's why it was so powerful for ds1 for so many years.

Phase 2 of PECS should teach asking for stuff when you don't have someone's attention. They could adapt that aspect even if the actual request comes in a spoken rather than picture form.

That's what i htought (re the imitaation). As you say, dd1 can imitate, just not in all areas. we are using hand over hand to demonstrate motor imitation at the moment, and it's a slow road. we used it for drinking, and eating independently too, but she is yet to generalise it.

Where I start having a problem is the one size fits all approach. Dd1 is autistic, and seemingly having trouble communicating at pre-school (I say seemingly because on the mornings when I have spent time there, I have noticed she does ask for things very quietly (eg for a drink) but she is overlooked. I suspect this is because a)she is being quiet, and b)bloody SALT has told htem she has trouble communicating so they are not expecting to hear stuff from her. They are not on the lookout for any word at all, really). so SALT decides to break out the PECS. They spend a good hour getting dd to complete an exchange fo rsomething (eg request more bubbles (they are obsessed) or a story. imo, if they spent the same hour getting dd to verbalise the request then they would be better off. Dd1 can do it, she just doesn't at the moment. She won't with PECS either.

We are concentrating on her using names at the moment, as if she does use a name, then it is at least the beginnings of gaining attention. she is doing well, and in fact, last week at theplayground interrupted a conversation I was having with "mummy" pause while I look round "I want raisins". I could not ask for more, really.

Are they using stuff she's really motivated by? IME the main reason for failure of PECS is that they use something they think the child 'should' want (eg bubbles/story) rather than something they really really really want.

It's the problem with SALTs implementing PECS without having a good ABA grounding.

For example NHS SALT told us ds1 was unteachable as he wasn't interested in anything . He certainly wasn't interested in the standard SALT staples like bubbles and teddies.

Private SALT when told this said 'rubbish' and proceeded to make up games based on washing machines.

He performed very well when given something he was interested in.

that is part of the problem - they don't always use highly motivating stuff (hence my "obsessed with bubbles" comment)

BUT, they have, at our house (remove all other potential factors) tried it with a flashing/light up ball (verbally, she can say ball/more ball; bounce it; more flashes; mummy bounce please .with PECS she walked away); also tried with blueberries (prob her most motivating food - would eat til the cows come home) but again, she walked away (again verbally, she manages (I) want berries, more berries, mummy get some berries, etc)

her issue really is with having a decent relationship with whoever is working with her. She is an all or nothing girl (which does need to be adressed, but only after she is complying with them) and her confidence is actually so low (despite appearing quite good) that if you deviate attention for even a second then she wanders away dejected. None of this is solvable by PECS - she just needs her assistant to spend a LOT of time with her, and her only, and pay attention to all the tiny cues and requests that dd is making.

Have you looked at Floortime? It seems that it would do exactly what you want (and the thing I like about Floortime is that Stanley Greenspan encourages the use of things like ABA when it's being used to do specific things that Floortime can't teach).

Sorry if you did the online course and I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

yes, did the online course, and a lot of it is how we have got dd to respond previously/how we play with her anyway and have recently set up home VB programme.

Dd is doing excellently - just wish we could get pre-school and SALT to listen to us a bit more!

SALT was very anti-ABA at first, but she came round a week after w estarted, and commented that she'd never seen dd so calm, settled,and on task. And then proceeded to break out the bubbles and PECS cards! grrr.

Spoke to her yesterday, though, and she seems to have found a way of believing that what we want ABA wise is what she would tell the pre-school anyway, and so fingers crossed... (not holding my breath though)

My DS uses PECs and Makaton well, together with pointing, uhing, anything to get attention etc. He "got" imiation quite quickly and quite early on. But he always HATED verbal imitation. In the end we stopped flogging a dead horse and trying to make him speak, he communicates as well as he probably can without speech. Understand so well about true reinforcement, DS was almost unreinforceable to the naked eye but actually has lots of things he wants, just not the things we expect. Hence ongoing and systematic reinforcement assessment using data, forms, probing etc.