Do even kids with HFA need ABA therapy? What are the options and alternatives?

[Anonymous]

Are my choices 1) 10-20 hours of week for ABA therapy, or 2) nothing?

What are the specific therapy options for a child (a tween) with HFA?

[Anonymous]

Autism itself doesn't need therapy. What are the things he is struggling with? For my child, speech therapy for pragmatic language when younger and psychotherapy for anxiety when older. For others, OT for sensory issues is important.

[Anonymous]

ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

[Anonymous]

I’d say the biggest reason is to make sure they can do activities of daily living: shower, wash hair, fold clothes, make bed, cross street, order and pay for items, request help from customer service, etc etc. Actually seems more relevant now that my kiddo is older than younger. I could teach this all myself but it’s a big list and daunting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Autism itself doesn't need therapy. What are the things he is struggling with? For my child, speech therapy for pragmatic language when younger and psychotherapy for anxiety when older. For others, OT for sensory issues is important.

Agreed. No one can answer your question without knowing details.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

Most companies won't bother with this. Not worth their time or efforts

[Anonymous]

https://thefloortimecenter.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

Most companies won't bother with this. Not worth their time or efforts

And that would be an indicia of a practitioner I did not want to work with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

Most companies won't bother with this. Not worth their time or efforts

And that would be an indicia of a practitioner I did not want to work with.

Agree. I feel like this an annoying consequence of subsuming Aspergers into a broader ASD diagnosis. Not everyone needs 10-20 hours per week! I would like to hear about alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

Most companies won't bother with this. Not worth their time or efforts

And that would be an indicia of a practitioner I did not want to work with.

I had to chuckle at this. What do you mean? ABA companies send therapists out to homes. They can’t be driving all the way to your home just to bill a one hour session, just to drive out to another place to do another 1 hr session. It’s not good business.

Op- a lot of ABA groups/ psych groups/ot clinics have weekly social skills classes, and of course there is individual ot and st.
But I will say, I know a highly intelligent kid with mild asd/severe adhd who started ABA in tween years and it’s been amazing for him. 15 hrs a week.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter has level 1 autism but has significant safety concerns so we are using ABA to address that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Sure you can. If the goals are well defined and the child has good verbal skills and high IQ. 3-4 hours of ABA a week would be max for my kid. Even 1 hour would be helpful (the goals would also be worked on at home.)

Most companies won't bother with this. Not worth their time or efforts

And that would be an indicia of a practitioner I did not want to work with.

I had to chuckle at this. What do you mean? ABA companies send therapists out to homes. They can’t be driving all the way to your home just to bill a one hour session, just to drive out to another place to do another 1 hr session. It’s not good business.

Op- a lot of ABA groups/ psych groups/ot clinics have weekly social skills classes, and of course there is individual ot and st.
But I will say, I know a highly intelligent kid with mild asd/severe adhd who started ABA in tween years and it’s been amazing for him. 15 hrs a week.

15 hrs a week would be complete overkill for my kid. All other types of therapy are done an hour or two a week (OT, ST, psychological). The idea that you have to do 15 hrs/week of ABA comes from the business model, not anything inherent to the therapy. Luckily there are independent BCBAs that are more flexible and also OTs that use similar behavioral approaches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ABA is discrete trial training, hence the repetition and the need for a lot of hours.

You can't do it in a couple hours a week.

Discrete trial simply means a behavior has an antecedent, behavior, consequence, and that it is close ended. So if I say touch your nose (the antecedent), you touch your nose (the behavior), and then i say great job touching your nose (the consequence). This is only one minuscule part of ABA as it merely is a definition not a methodology as you seem to think.

You really have no idea what you’re talking about.

[Anonymous]

No