ABA - looking to educate myself ....

[freezorburn]

... and not sure how trustworthy Google is, as a curator. So I would love recommendations for resources, articles, etc. Also, if there are unreliable/low-quality resources, I would like to know so that I can be aware, and possibly read with appropriate grain of salt.

In a local moms group, a woman shared about a positive experience her family was having with ABA, in spite of her initial skepticism. Now, I've seen skepticism and criticism of ABA so I know that it is not unique, and that there are people (in particular, adults on the spectrum) who have had negative experiences with ABA.

Someone responded to the OP that she was glad the OP was having a positive experience, but what she was describing was not ABA, and more like OT. She further went on to say that ABA was operant conditioning (paraphrasing) and anything else was not ABA. At this point a moderator stepped in basically said, understand the point you are trying to make, but let's not detract from the celebratory nature of the OP's post.

Well apparently it didn't stop there and things got ugly -- I missed the worst of it and the thread got deleted. But I'm feeling motivated to educate myself beyond my own family's experience with ABA. IS there a strict definition of ABA? Are there different types? Has it evolved over time? Are practitioners doing a combination of things and just having it coded at ABA for insurance purposes?

[auntie]

The book I like on ABA is the one written by this lady. It's specific to ABA as a teaching strategy for those who are higher functioning.

I know it's kind of popular to trash ABA as dog training in some quarters. But hey, sometimes you need to train someone before they can access lessons to help them learn to think more abstractly.

www.pattyrbashe.com/works.htm

[freezorburn]

Thank you auntie!