ABA wobble - talk to me ABA people!

[redshoesnoknickers]

My son just turned 5 and has been doing ABA for 2 years with PEACH. He is in mainstream school mornings only and the TAs have been trained in ABA to use to support him while there.

My fabulous lead tutor left for a year in Australia after xmas and I replaced her with another who has just told me she is moving to Thailand. My two other tutors are both 3rd year students and will be leaving in May and August respectively.

My son seems to be having increased behaviour - tantrums, lying on the floor to resist instructions etc since all the upheaval and faced with having no tutors and having to start all again finding and training them I am having a wobble.

I know ABA has helped immensely and I don't think he would be able to be in mainstream school had we not started the programme when we did, but i'm not sure whether it's the way forward.

DS's issues are social and language based he does not have learning difficulties.

I know nobody can give me the answer but if anyone has any wisdom to share I would be so grateful.

We are LEA funded but the only family doing ABA for 50miles around so very hard to get good part time staff or anyone with any experience. This means I cannot run the programme myself or suspend it for a while because if I don't spend the money we have been allocated we will not get funded next year.

Help

I feel for both of you - and the only thing I can think to say is this: if you have one ABA tutor, you can make more.

By which I mean, find someone who's good with kids (I found 2 via a nanny/au pair website) and offer to train them up in a new technique for their CV, by shadowing existing tutors and learning ABA. Pay them as you do it, to gain loyalty.

I have had many ups and downs with tutors, but still think some ABA is better than none, in terms of behaviour and speech.

Kids go through difficult stages , it could be nothing to do with the tutor changes. My son has been acting up but I think it's because he's had some long, underlying bug -he has just thrown up all his ddinner in the bath for the 3rd time in 3 weeks - lovely!!.

The other thing to do if your funding depends on getting ABA tutors on board, is be economical with the truth. Hire childminders on the money, give them a few simple ABA tasks - bingo.

Ad the person trying to sue you Pip will get laughed out of court, if the tribunal even agree to hear the case!

wuold agree with sosce - I have had most success with home ABA tutors when advertising for a SN nanny/mother's help.

you need someone who is good with children, with a thick skin (esp if ever going out and about) to deal with the onlookers.

whereabouts in the country are you both? people on here might know of someone, you never know.

The 2 best tutors I got for dd1 were both found on gumtree, but we also saw a few more really good candidates when we were looking for a nanny last year (didn't really want a nanny, but it seemed like possibly the best way to go was to get a live in nanny, and then use her partly for ABA too)

I feel for you both. when we moved house last year we had to halt dd1's programme for 7 months while we found someone. we were self-funding, so didn't have that extra hassle, but it was hard seeing dd1 go backwards in skill terms. dd1 is now in an ABA school, and the relief at not having to find tutors is more than I thought it would be...

thank you both...I will look on nanny sites in July for Sept! Sounds really great fingers crossed!

The one I used was called nannyselect.co.uk. Local childminders could also be good - after all, at this age it is not exactly rocket science doing the ABA tasks, it just needs patience, a good work ethic and a nice nature with kids.

we used SNAP to find one (but very expensive way to do it, really. she was excellent though!)

and then we advertised for a SN nanny on nannyjob and got loads fo replies, most of which were suitable, and so it came down to preferences.

as sosce says, it's not exactly rocket science, and with an established programme you've got ongoing trainig sorted, and consultant involvement etc.

good luck!

Thanks everyone...I am fine with finding tutors - lots of lovely students that are keen to learn etc I just struggle to think how we could do it without a qualified/experienced lead tutor to train the others and support the school TAs...how do you train your new tutors? I have a good understanding but not good enough to train someone especially not a school TA...so difficult i'm in poole dorset.

Have you tried advertising on aba/vb community website?
Regards
Jane