ABA therapy questions

[scribellesam]

Hello! This is my first post on this board. My 6yo DS was officially diagnosed with level 2 (moderate) autism and ADHD this week. He already has an IEP, and the school has been amazing to work with, so I don’t need help with the school piece. But I’m starting to do research on ABA therapy now, and was hoping there were some parents here with experience.

1. How old was your child when they started ABA? What frequency?
2. If they were in ABA at school age, how did you fit in the sessions? He’s gone from the house 7:30-4:00 on school days, so I’m flummoxed as to how 10+ hours of therapy would fit.
3. Did you feel the ABA was helpful? I know it’s a bit controversial among adults with autism. I’m trying to find out if you felt the ABA was more focused on teaching skills, or on normalizing and repressing autistic behaviors (like stimming).

Any information you’d like to share about what to do in the early days of diagnosis would be most helpful! Also any advice about what to do for an ADHD diagnosis, I’m totally out of my depth there. We weren’t surprised by the diagnosis, and I’m not upset, just feeling a little overwhelmed!

[sahara78]

Hi & welcome. My DD is 6, and was diagnosed with ASD last summer. She’s going to start FT K in the fall.


1. How old was your child when they started ABA? What frequency?
**She was 5. My insurance approved 30 hours/week, so we get as close to that as possible.

2. If they were in ABA at school age, how did you fit in the sessions? He’s gone from the house 7:30-4:00 on school days, so I’m flummoxed as to how 10+ hours of therapy would fit.
**We just received an email asking for our fall availability for ABA. Not sure what we’ll do yet. I have seen other kids arriving when I pick up DD at 4pm. They also have weekend options.

3. Did you feel the ABA was helpful? I know it’s a bit controversial among adults with autism. I’m trying to find out if you felt the ABA was more focused on teaching skills, or on normalizing and repressing autistic behaviors (like stimming).
** Yes. DD is pretty verbal, but refused to talk to peers. I tried to get her to engage on my own prior to the diagnosis & it never worked. ABA has definitely helped. She’ll now usually talk to other kids in 1-on-1 situations. They’ve also worked on describing emotions, taking turns, memorizing address & phone number just to give some assorted goals.

DD does engage in destructive/stigmatizing self-soothing behavior (sucks fingers leading to sores on fingers, twirls & sometimes pulls hair) that the ABA center is helping us fade. No adversives, just ideas like chewing gum, reviewing with DD other options for her hands, starting a token board for time not spent sucking fingers.

[freezorburn]

Welcome!

1. How old was your child when they started ABA? What frequency?
My son was a little over 4 years old when he started. He started twice a week, 2 hours per session.

2. If they were in ABA at school age, how did you fit in the sessions? He’s gone from the house 7:30-4:00 on school days, so I’m flummoxed as to how 10+ hours of therapy would fit.

My son is now 6 and going in to first grade. For kindergarten the school day ran from 7:55am - 2:30pm. He had therapy from 3:30-5:30 Mondays and Wednesdays. We will probably be reducing his hours in the next year or transitioning to some other kind of support.

3. Did you feel the ABA was helpful? I know it’s a bit controversial among adults with autism. I’m trying to find out if you felt the ABA was more focused on teaching skills, or on normalizing and repressing autistic behaviors (like stimming).

It has been very helpful. Early on he worked more on transitions, conversation, self-advocacy, initiating and suggesting activities. After some progress they added in some exercises to work on developing theory of mind. This last year we've been working a lot on emotional regulation. Stimming hasn't been a huge concern for him ... although this past year he has adopted his dad's habit of chewing on his cuticles. I don't know yet if it is at the level of a stim, but I would like to see if we can address it. So that is TBD. I would say overall it has been more empowering for him than it has been about compliance or suppression of behaviors. Because he has been building skills.

I know there is some controversy about ABA but I don't know if I'm qualified to address it, as I don't feel like I can speak to the experiences of people whom I've never met. And I don't know if the ABA they experienced was anything like what my son has been doing. I do wonder whether ABA has evolved over time, as many things do.

My son mostly enjoys his ABA work, but there are things he doesn't love. He tells me he doesn't love practicing conversation, for example. For my part, I'm grateful that he now has the ability to use words to tell me how he feels about things, even if it isn't easy for him. We all have to do things in life that we find difficult or unenjoyable. That's reality. And I think much of parenting is just reading where your child is in a given moment, and knowing when they need support vs. when to give them room to grow. And I can't cater to his preferences when I know he is capable of learning and growing. Because if I did that, then I may as well give up on having a life of my own. My long-term goal is for DS to be able to live and work independently. That will mean making choices about how he wants to be in the world and what he wants to do, and he will need to develop the self-awareness and social skills needed to do those things.