ABA/VB therapy

[Anonymous]

Please tell me your experience with ABA therapy. Is it good for kids with high functioning autism? From what I read online it says they teach them functional/life skills, breaking down tasks, social skill etc. Seems really good.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on where on the spectrum you child falls. ABA/VB was never recommended for my kid with HFA/Asperger's because his language skills are excellent even compared to NT kids. He learned a lot of life skills/fine motor from OT and social skills from a SLP. DS does best with direct, explicit verbal instructions in general but does not need ABA per se.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please tell me your experience with ABA therapy. Is it good for kids with high functioning autism? From what I read online it says they teach them functional/life skills, breaking down tasks, social skill etc. Seems really good.

How old is your kid, and what concerns do you have?
Our experience has been great.

[Anonymous]

He is 3 years old. I am concerned about him being able to talk with peers and social skills. I want him to be able to have expressive/receptive/social skills.

[Anonymous]

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

What is child-let language therapy? Who is the specialist who provides this. Thanks for this infor!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

Good ABA/VB therapy, emphasis on the VB, actually can increase naturalistic language, and focus on pragmatic/functional use of language. We've had some decent success with it with a kid whose primary issue (on the language side) is communication with peers and language use in a social setting. Contrasted with speech and language therapy, that was child led and in context (in addition to 1:1), from which we saw zero progress no doubt in part because generalization was a big issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

Good ABA/VB therapy, emphasis on the VB, actually can increase naturalistic language, and focus on pragmatic/functional use of language. We've had some decent success with it with a kid whose primary issue (on the language side) is communication with peers and language use in a social setting. Contrasted with speech and language therapy, that was child led and in context (in addition to 1:1), from which we saw zero progress no doubt in part because generalization was a big issue.

20:18 and I agree.
OP, ABA helped DS (almost 3 y.o.) a ton with social and play skills, too. We also do facilitated ABA play dates so that he generalizes the skills. I'd recommend a naturalistic ABA, like ESDM, Floortime, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

Good ABA/VB therapy, emphasis on the VB, actually can increase naturalistic language, and focus on pragmatic/functional use of language. We've had some decent success with it with a kid whose primary issue (on the language side) is communication with peers and language use in a social setting. Contrasted with speech and language therapy, that was child led and in context (in addition to 1:1), from which we saw zero progress no doubt in part because generalization was a big issue.

20:18 and I agree.
OP, ABA helped DS (almost 3 y.o.) a ton with social and play skills, too. We also do facilitated ABA play dates so that he generalizes the skills. I'd recommend a naturalistic ABA, like ESDM, Floortime, etc.

People are using the wrong terms and calling them ABA. Floortime and ABA are on opposite ends of the therapy spectrum. True ABA is discrete trial training, like dog training. It makes kids compliant and can teach specific skills, like shoe tying or some academics.

It is not naturalistic.

[Anonymous]

OP, a good piece on the promise and pitfalls of ABA.

http://www.latimes.com/local/autism/la-me-autism-day-three-html-htmlstory.html

[Anonymous]

ABA was amazing for my child without a HFA diagnosis but with many similar needs. We would have kept it up had it not been for the high cost (insurance would no longer cover it without the diagnosis and doc wouldn't give one). At age 3-4 I could see it being extremely useful for social pragmatic skills.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, there are some kids who experienced bad ABA or the parents have a misconception about ABA, but there are also kids who greatly benefit from ABA (like mine). ABA can be done not just in "discrete trial training" but also in natural environment setting, depends on what's appropriate for the kids.
PP who mentioned ABA is like dog training … a lot of the repetitive things we are doing to master a task are similar to dog training too, i.e. parents sing the ABC song to babies millions of time and give babies a social reward whenever the babies make a sound. PP, sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with ABA but hopefully you found another treatment that works best for you DC.

[Anonymous]

OP here, the ABA I was looking at does the therapy in natural setting with peers and our at home so I will get to watch and see if its good or now for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ABA therapy won't increase your child's receptive language. That's hard-wired in the brain. It will allow your child to parrot back appropriate scripts at appropriate times and get some of his needs met. But it doesn't increase naturalistic language. For that, you want a child-led language therapy.

Good ABA/VB therapy, emphasis on the VB, actually can increase naturalistic language, and focus on pragmatic/functional use of language. We've had some decent success with it with a kid whose primary issue (on the language side) is communication with peers and language use in a social setting. Contrasted with speech and language therapy, that was child led and in context (in addition to 1:1), from which we saw zero progress no doubt in part because generalization was a big issue.

20:18 and I agree.
OP, ABA helped DS (almost 3 y.o.) a ton with social and play skills, too. We also do facilitated ABA play dates so that he generalizes the skills. I'd recommend a naturalistic ABA, like ESDM, Floortime, etc.

People are using the wrong terms and calling them ABA. Floortime and ABA are on opposite ends of the therapy spectrum. True ABA is discrete trial training, like dog training. It makes kids compliant and can teach specific skills, like shoe tying or some academics.

It is not naturalistic.

You're referring to DTT, the “traditional ABA”, first ABA used. PRT, VBI, ESDM etc, are different techniques, more naturalistic, but follow the same ABC (antecedent, behavior, consequence) method. They're listed under ABA on the CDC website - http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/treatment.html
I don't know of any expert in the field that recommends or does only DTT with HFA kids.