I want to start a home ABA prog...................

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Hi everyone,
I am new to mumsnet and discovered this forum through searches on the internet about how to start a home ABA program.

My ds is 2.10 y old and is non-verbal,has limited play skills ,and basically does not really communicate properly. He does not have any diagnosis yet(still in the process), but i just know ABA will definitely help him.

Please can anyone tell me about a good ABA consultant who can help me start a home prog. I hear ABA is very expensive, but I am think of getting trained and also getting his nan trained and maybe hiring a therapist as well.

Please can you point me towards a good consultant/therapist? I saw some an old thread talking about a Duncan fennmore who is a consultant. Does anyone know how I can get in touch ?

Thank you very much for reading and for your advice

Just thought i would say hi,
I have 2 dd's on the spectrum, dd2 was non verbal at the age of 3 but now (aged 4) is talking. We have not used ABA yet with dd2 so i can't really comment on it. Music therapy really helped my dd2 (gave her the confidence to use her voice) also using PEC's and signing.

I wish ABA was more widely available.

Good luck, i hope you manage to get trained for ABA.

We do some ABA/VB but not at intensive level. Don't feel you have to do a huge program if you can't afford it - any amount that you can do will help.

Duncan Fennemore is a big name, but because of this is highly over-subscribed and takes on a huge amount of children. There are many other consultants out there who are more low key but who are excellent and will be able to devote a lot of time and attention to your child. If you contact one of the big providers they will be able to make recommndations. Or if you contact Treehouse they will have some names

thanks everone for your replies.

Just checked the UK YAP website and they seem to be veeeery expensive! smallwhitecat and Pipinjo,pls how did you find your tutors? did you find tutors before contacting UKYAP for the workshop prog or do they help you find tutors?

Dongetmad, pls can you recommend any of the other consultants you referred to in your posts? By the way I live in the Surrey area.

I hear one can recruit from universities, any ideas how much I would be expected to pay a tutor ?

Thank you all so very much for all the help

We are in the north and use Autism Partnership - it says on their website they have some cover for London but I only know about my local outfit which we've been very happy with.

Indep tutors here are around £12 an hour. But we have a volunteer who works for free 2 afternoons and have had a student who wanted to train in ABA who offered to come for £7 / hr whilst training. We also put some training into nursery - they can't do a full ABA prog but can use aspects of it as part of DS 1:1.

In my view the supervision is the crucial bit. We have supervision 6-8 hours a month and this is where I would put the money. Every 3 months would not be any good in my opinion. Esp at the beginning we needed supervision every week as DS was moving through the early prog very quickly.

We use our DLA and direct payments towards the costs but it still works out alot.

Apply for a statement for ABA as soon as poss - the process will take so long that you will have the ABA evidence by the time you get to the end even if you are only just starting ABA now. Don't feel you have to do 6 months before you apply for funding - it will have taken us 16 months to get funding due to appeals etc

I'd work out a programme you can afford to fund for 18 months while you get the funding / statementing sorted out as unless you have a very cooperative LA it takes about that long.

Hi
I have links with a couple of families in your area that might be able to advise you/ share experiences (partic regarding LEA funding issues)- they are using 2 different providers
feel free to email me on [email protected] and would be happy to put you in touch.

We use PEACH and have psychology students as tutors for £10 per hour. I've had "qualified" ABA tutors but they are hard to find where we live - expect to pay £15-£20 an hour for those with relevant quals.

Good luck!

I'm not sure about giving out consultants' names without being sure that they are free to take on new families, but a couple of friends have phoned Treehouse school in London and have obtained details that way.

Our consultant comes once a month and has phone contact with the supervisor once a week. Plus she is always available for me to email/ text her with any questions/ concerns. I personally think this is the very least you should expect, so that they are really involved with the child rather than paying a royal visit every few months to some child they would have trouble identifying in a crowd! It should be about passion and vocation, not money. Please choose carefully!

We live very close to Surrey and obtained a statement after self-funding 3 months of ABA. From me writing the letter requesting assessment to the final statement it was exactly 6 months, but then I was lucky enough not to have to go to tribunal. That might be my destiny very soon, but that's another story

I have heard it is very difficult to get ABA funding in Surrey as they have set up a lot of their own provision, which naturally they consider adequate. I don't want to scare you though, as from my experience if you ate determined enough, and find an SEN advocate (not necessarily a lawyer) to help you present evidence in the right way, you still have a good chance of success

Dear smallwhitecat & PipinJo,
My son, who is 2 years 9 months is undergoing diagnosis for Autism :(. We're considering UK YAP, just wanted to know how is your experience coming along with them? What do you like most about them? Is there anything you don't like? Thank you so much.

We had ukyap as our providers but didn't find them very good. They didn't concentrate on behaviour at all and a lot of training sessions were cancelled on the day. The supervisor didn't have a clue how to train the tutors.
Now we have started with Autism partnership who have their program specialist to do sessions and also train new staff. We had initial workshop with the supervisor and she come every two weeks for the team meetings. They are working on behaviours and stims and also teaching play skills.

Dear sweetmum4 & smallwhitecat, thank you so much for your feedback. We?ll checkout Autism Partnership as well. If we go with them we?ll try that they commit to 35 hours right from the very onset.