Is all ABA therapy bad?

[maddy]

First of all, I am on the spectrum, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult, so I have no personal experience with this. I have a 5 year old who is autistic. He is in kindergarten and he gets very overwhelmed in school environments. He could not tolerate a class of 9 children with 5 teachers last year. Due to this, I am attempting to homeschool him and expose him to social environments in smaller increments. He attends a couple of homeschool classes at our local YMCA with a 1:1 aide. This is working out alright for him. He's able to focus and learn at home, and his self care skills seem to be naturally improving as well as he becomes less overwhelmed. I, on the other hand, am totally burnt out and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this going. I also have a two year old with autism and apraxia who is receiving home based therapies, and I'm in over my head between the two of them. I don't feel that putting my 5 year old in any kind of a school setting is much of an option, but we might have the option to relocate to Ohio, where they have an autism scholarship program. If we did that, I could use it to hire an ABA therapist to support me in homeschooling him (I do not believe there are any other kinds of therapists available through the scholarship in the area we would be living.) From what I understand, I would be able to customize his program as I wish - he could spend a small amount of time in a center, some time at home, and probably some time in the community as well.

He has a lot of behaviors that are just plain unacceptable. He licks people, kisses complete strangers, wanders away from his classes - he just spit toothpaste all over his brother, etc. I have no idea how to deal with these things. I can't make sense of them any more than the next person can, nor can I live with them day in and day out without some kind of major help.

So, given our situation, and given the fact that I *need* help one way or another - if we move to Ohio, do you think that ABA is doomed to do him more harm than good? I would have control over the program. I would be able to say that I don't care whether he makes eye contact or not, or whatever it may be - and if they have a problem with it I could fire them and hire a different agency. Our only other option is school. I can send him to the local elementary school, in a class of 23 children with no support and pull outs for about an hour a day total or I could fight the battle of a lifetime to try to get him into an autism class - which I have doubts about anyway. I could battle for a 1:1 aide, but in the end, he would be in the most overwhelming environment that he's ever known for the majority of every day. I just cannot picture that benefiting him in any way.

Anyway, what do you think? Do you think that I could make an ABA program work, or even work well? I would be the first to put my foot down and pull him out of it if it wasn't benefiting him - but I'd hate to go through all of the effort of relocating just to find myself in the same position I'm in now.

If you have any thoughts on a more ideal idea, please share them, I am totally open to suggestions here!

 

[Warmheart]

You need support right now, and so does he. There has been a paradigm shift in how autism is viewed, how it is managed. "ABA" is not always ABA anymore, but they need to term it that, so that insurance will cover it.

Contact the chapter of The Arc nearest you. You'll be very glad you did.

Nowadays, they determine what is stressing or confusing the autistic to make our more dangerous behaviors (wandering, self-injurious fits, etc.) happen, then we are better supported through our challenges both at hone and at school. This is a positive thing.
Yes, they still do need to term it "ABA," so it can be paid for, but our differences today are more often respected, and appreciated!

I'm 51, and am just stunned when my support staff encourage me to stim in overwhelming situations!

Best of luck to you and your boy!

 

[Kristyn]

I don't get ABA myself but go to an autism clinic for therapy where most of the kids are getting "ABA." I think at this point it's such a broad umbrella term for so many different approaches that there's no way to say it's always bad. I would optimistically say that most of it is positive. It really just depends on the individual therapist I think. There are good ones and bad ones so as a parent you really just need to be aware and attentive.

Maybe get in touch with other autism parents in your area and ask for referrals to good BCBAs? If your child has specific behaviors you would like to work on, I think ABA would be a good fit.

 

[dragonwolf]

I can't speak to the ABA part, but wanted to say a couple of things about some other parts of your situation.

First, does your son have an IEP? If not, that's going to be a good start. The "no support in a large classroom" or "autism classroom" is rather a false dichotomy. He can have more supports without being in a dedicated classroom, but an IEP is necessary. The IEP gets you the recognition from the district that you need, and codifies not only the things he struggles with, but the support and intervention methods and goals the staff will use.

Also, regarding his other classroom. Five adults? I know it's probably intervention specialists, but for a little kid, 5 adults is like a forest. My son's been handling school and am after school program with dozens of kids, but that many adults still overwhelms him.

It's possible that he just needs some more time to mature, emotionally, to be able to handle more active social situations. We held my son back and gave him an extra year of preschool, giving him the opportunity to have more coping mechanisms in kindergarten and a little more maturity going in. It and his support team have done wonders. He went from multiple incident reports per day at his worst (in a daycare with a horrible environment for him; and these weren't little things, they were hitting, kicking, biting, and total, violent meltdowns) to now over a month of good days, with only minor incidents that are likely caused by another child not respecting his boundaries (as opposed to the seemingly random hitting he had been doing).

If you don't mind me asking, where at in Ohio are you considering moving? I, or someone else might be able to give you some more info about what's available (I live in Columbus).

 

[maddy]

I can't speak to the ABA part, but wanted to say a couple of things about some other parts of your situation.

First, does your son have an IEP? If not, that's going to be a good start. The "no support in a large classroom" or "autism classroom" is rather a false dichotomy. He can have more supports without being in a dedicated classroom, but an IEP is necessary. The IEP gets you the recognition from the district that you need, and codifies not only the things he struggles with, but the support and intervention methods and goals the staff will use.

Thank you - He does have an IEP. They placed in in a gen ed kindergarten class with pull outs 1x per day for 30 minutes of resource and 6 - 30 minute therapy sessions per week. I have never heard of a child in our area not being in a classroom of some sort. The closest thing that I have heard is that the kids in the autism classroom are brought into gen ed rooms for periods of time as they can handle it.

Also, regarding his other classroom. Five adults? I know it's probably intervention specialists, but for a little kid, 5 adults is like a forest. My son's been handling school and am after school program with dozens of kids, but that many adults still overwhelms him.

I know what you mean, but he is really like this everywhere we take him. He can tolerate about a half hour of an activity before he starts becoming overwhelmed, and then the behaviors start. If it is a very familiar activity or a very quiet and empty place (library, etc.) he might last slightly longer, depending on the day.

It's possible that he just needs some more time to mature, emotionally, to be able to handle more active social situations.

I hope you're right. Honestly, it's not even that I mind homeschooling him. In a lot of ways, I like doing it, and I don't have a problem with the idea of homeschooling him through high school - **IF** it wasn't so completely exhausting for me to keep up with. It would also help immensely if I could drop him off for activities without having to line up aide support first. That severely limits his social opportunities.

If you don't mind me asking, where at in Ohio are you considering moving? I, or someone else might be able to give you some more info about what's available (I live in Columbus).

We would be living in Dayton. I've been checking the provider list in the surrounding counties to see which ones have the most providers to choose from. I think we would probably position ourselves on the Cincinnati side, because I have been told that there is a speech therapy center down there that is very good for children with apraxia (my 2 year old.) I believe they're called Smiles. We would not buy a house, so we would be able to move around if we needed to. I have heard that Columbus has very good private school options, but I think it might be a little too far of a commute for us to handle every day, and my husband doesn't really want to commute a ton to work. It is nice to know that the option would be there if we needed to do it though. I have also come across a school called "Summit Academy", which is in Dayton, but I haven't been able to find a lot of information on it. It seems like it could be a potential back up plan as well.

Thanks again!

 

[toothless]

i personally dont agree with ABA,i see it as trying to change a persons neurology,as that is why we are the way we are and that is why we act the way we act.
i have suffered terrible ABA,as a child i had had it [although ive never heard my mum mention the name perhaps they understood the theory back then but not the name] at school along with brutal speech therapy,and i believe both the ABA and the speech therapy held me back in my development,i have terrible flashbacks to the times i was being approached by people and made to do things by them i was being brought out of my own world in a noisy physical way,i would kick off and go back into my own world where they would restart the process again and again.

i also have had ABA whilst living in institutional/residential care and i suffered a brutal form of ABA on a daily basis for four months while living in a hospital for people with intellectual disability,i have flashbacks of it every day for the past 4/5 or so years.

the therapies that have strongly helped me have been intensive autism specialised speech and language therapy, sensory integration therapy, occupational therapy [they helped me with functioning and giving me weighted blankets many years ago],horse riding therapy, and spending a lot of time around animals.
these have all progressed me,i wasnt functioning at all and i was acutely challenging until i had these therapies,and now i live in my own apartment,i dont have two support staff at the same time anymore-i just have one,and i dont have much challenging behavior at the moment,plus my functioning has improved a lot.

 

[MarylandABAtherapy]

A lot of it is sadly just for the owners trying to make money and beat their ABA therapy competitors in their county/state/region. Most start-up ABA companies offer poor training, low salaries and are struggling to cover up any HIPAA violations they might be making. So I'm pretty sure it's very illegal for a company like Verbal Beginnings to threaten to sue someone for claiming that their company may have violated HIPAA. http://i68.tinypic.com/wk24iv.jpg[/IMG]