ABA for HFA 4.5-year-old
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Anonymous
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My four-year-old son got an ASD diagnosis this spring, and we promptly started ABA a few hours a week with a BCBA who came highly recommended. After five and a half months, I still cannot tell if what she does is helpful. Do others with a highly functioning child with an ASD diagnosis find ABA helpful? For what in particular? My son is what would formerly have been labeled Aspergers (very verbal, self-taught reading since before 3, somewhat hyperlexic...), and I feel like he finds the ABA a game to outsmart. I do not want to be in denial if this is something my son needs - we definitely struggle with rigidity and other behavior challenges - but I would be very grateful for any thoughts from parents with similar sounding children on what they have found to be helpful. Thanks!
More broadly, who do you ask these types of questions? His preschool has a developmental specialist who has been amazing resource, but I sometimes feel like we are beyond the scope of her expertise. Do you consult regularly with the psychologist who diagnosed your child? Or somebody else? Thank you!! |
Anonymous
| I found it a waste of time. |
Anonymous
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ABA was never recommended for DS with Asperger's. Our dev ped recommended stuff related to Floortime (don't remember the exact name) ... which was a complete waste of time. DS gets along great with adults so he and the therapists got along great but it did not do anything for his peer interactions which is the main issue.
The most useful for us has been getting an IEP which provides speech therapy for pragmatics, social skills groups (at school with his classmates), and OT (for fine motor issues). |
Anonymous
| We didn't do ABA for our HFA child. We did Floortime which teaches how to play and be more imaginative (I think). We are just starting CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety. |
Anonymous
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OP,
What behaviors are you focusing on? Have you seen improvement. Is the therapist coming to your home? Are you implementing the same practices? What were the initial goals that you set with the therapist? |
Anonymous
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No one has ever suggested ABA for our HFA kid, diagnosed at 5 -- and like yours great with adults, precocious self-taught reader, etc.. Honestly his patience for the therapy he clearly needs, like OT for handwriting and PT to learn to run and catch, is limited. And for the social stuff, his deficits are too subtle to be addressed in any one-on-one therapy with an adult, or even a highly structured social skills group. He needs active coaching on and before the playground, in contexts he actually cares about.
My view, which I've expressed here before, is that behaviorism has its place--in the correcting of behavior. So if your kid is hurting himself or others, do what you have to do. But I am very skeptical that these techniques have anything really to offer a smart HFA kid, who is not acting in some intolerably dangerous way. You cannot change someone's neurology with a reward mechanism. You can certainly get them to display certain behaviors. Hell, you can make a killer whale jump over a pole if you are persistent about it. But that is not a good use of the whale's time. And it certainly is not a good use of your time and your bright, somewhat unusual, child's time. If you want to use rewards to encourage him to try new foods or whatever, you don't need some expensive therapist. Just my 2 cents. |
Anonymous
| My son who is 4 and has ASD gets ABA in school...or more specifically, for the first hour of school there is a therapist in class with him who knows ABA techniques. I'm pretty new to special needs as my son was recently diagnosed but ABA in school to help him follow instructions in school makes sense; without the special help his tendency is to withdraw from the group and try to roam around the class. I'm not sure what ABA would do as a standalone hour of private therapy unless you were trying to teach a child something very specific. |
Anonymous
| We started ABA at age 3.5 and now at 4.5 I'm seeing him age out of the process a bit. I think if we started now it wouldn't have been as effective. For us our son wasn't as verbal and the ABA helped him work though labeling emotions and expressing what he needed instead of hitting and biting. Lots of teaching him how to interact with peers, that sort of thing. Our BCBA told us at the beginning that somewhere around 5 our style of ABA would be outgrown. |
Anonymous
| OP here, thank you all very much for taking the time to reply! You have confirmed what I have been feeling. I think the "intervention" we have found most useful has been gymnastics lessons that I also read somebody here recommend. Full body exercise, including core strengthening, a controlled social environment with a small class size, and just enough turn-taking has made it both fun and helpful. |
Anonymous
| OP again, we have also found OT for motor skills (including bike riding!) and pragmatic speech to be very helpful. Thanks again. |
Anonymous
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We found it very useful for rigidity and for behaviors related to anxiety but these behaviors did not occur until DD was in a larger public school setting in 1st grade.
The gen ed classroom was loud, crowded and the kids were unpredictable so DD was overwhelmed and would shut down and not participate. Through ABA she learned to use strategies to calm down and participate appropriately in class. |
Anonymous
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My son has ASD and when we started ABA he was only speaking in basically 3 word phrases (he was just about to turn 4 years old). In addition to speech and play skills (which your son does not struggle with) the ABA has tremendously helped my son adapt to new environments, loosen up/not be so rigid and other behavior issues.
His ABA is a natural environment approach. His ABA therapist has also worked with his teachers, nanny and us to make sure we are all working and approaching issue in the same manner. He is now much more flexible, the negative behaviors have gone away and we know how to work through and stop bad behaviors and/or meltdowns before they even happen (hope that makes sense). It may be that the ABA approach that is being taken is not appropriate for your son. Speak with the provider and discuss what goals and task they are working on. |
Anonymous
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23:01 again. My son got a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and a behavioral intervention plan (BIP) in 2nd grade due to behavioral issues - he was shutting down and refusing to do work. It is my understanding that a FBA is ABA.
DS no longer has any behavioral issues but he has asked for and is back on his BIP for 3rd grade. It is basically a schedule checklist with points and he gets 100% plus all bonus points. He likes it a lot, I think, because it makes school expectations very clear and he is very successful following it: having it is empowering and builds upon success. Also, this year his teachers have gotten really cool prizes 
So while ABA was not recommended for DS with Asperger's, a FBA/BIP really cuts down on the anxiety and makes school much better for my DS. |
Anonymous
We found something similar. Our kid was diagnosed with ADHD, and behavioral therapy was recommend in the developmental pediatric report. So we were doing this when he was 4, but at the time it was more useful for me in terms of learning parenting strategies. As he got older and behavior was more of an issue, we went back to it when he was 6. The first time around, I was simply trying to follow all the recommendations. I hadn't formulated clear goals going into it the first time, but I probably go more out of it than my kid. The second time around, we had clear behavior goals going in and really got a lot out of it. I also suspect the quality of the therapist makes a big difference. I have had friends do ABA and some had great experiences; others not so much. For ABA/behavioral therapy, it's not an intervention for just the kid, but teachers and parents as well. Some therapists seem better able to convey this than others. |