ABA Therapy and therapists

[Anonymous]

mamakr wrote:My 16-year-old son waas just recently diagnosed with mild Autism Spectrum Disorder. I have been reading about ABA therapy. Has anyone had a good experience with it and actually seen results/change in their teen child? Any recommendations for good ABA therapists in the area would be greatly appreciated. I'm in Montgomery County and prefer a therapist that will come to our home.
Thank you.

There are NO providers that will work with teens, and believe me, I have looked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son was diagnosed at 11, and ABA was suggested. We ultimately decided against it because it didn’t seem age appropriate.

ABA does NOT have an age limit.

Right but good luck finding a provider that will work with teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I don’t have a teen but ABA was transformative for my HFA child. He had a hard time with social skills to include interrupting, talking about things out of context etc. The therapists were young and energetic and played so many games with him and taught him how to interact. I think if you could find someone who could coach your son in this manner maybe there could be a benefit. We did also have a horrible ABA and I think about that and feel bad I put my 6 yo through that. At 8 though he’s doing great.

That's speech therapy, not ABA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis

It's great that clinics doing speech therapy and calling it ABA for advertising/billing , instead of actual (bad) ABA.
But you can also skip the ABA facade and go directly to a speech therapist.

Since there’s an entire subset of ABA that focuses on verbal behavior you may want to educate yourself more on this subject. Here are some resources to get you started, there are many others available as well.



Here’s a link but you can get free pdf with a quick search.

https://www.amazon.com/Verbal-Behavior-B-F-Skinner/dp/1583900217/ref=asc_df_1583900217?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79920869053526&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583520395720571&psc=1

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior Journal

https://www.abainternational.org/journals/avb.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

mamakr wrote:My 16-year-old son waas just recently diagnosed with mild Autism Spectrum Disorder. I have been reading about ABA therapy. Has anyone had a good experience with it and actually seen results/change in their teen child? Any recommendations for good ABA therapists in the area would be greatly appreciated. I'm in Montgomery County and prefer a therapist that will come to our home.
Thank you.

There are NO providers that will work with teens, and believe me, I have looked.

One option for teens is find BCBA oversight through a company several hours per week. In the meantime hire your own “nannies” ( energetic college students) and then have them try to join the company as RBTs. This ensures you get an RBT that fits you’re child and family. Many parents in teen years age start focusing on functional skills and hire summer therapists to be with the teen most of the day. They work on goals set by the team including home goals as well as community, social, and vocational goals.

[Anonymous]

Stay away from National Therapy Center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stay away from National Therapy Center.

Can I ask why? Did you have a bad experience with a particular therapist or is it something about the practice
in general?