<<PP -- i appreciate the ideas. One problem is my child seems to have zero ability to carry over an understanding of the "rules and consequences" to the situation in front of him. So we go over the rules, he repeats them back to me, he answers my questions in a way that conveys he understands it -- and then boom, he does it again. And he seems just fine with us removing him from the situation. Its like he can't control himself when he is in the situation.


OP, this was not my HFA child's issue, but I've seen this behavior in plenty of ADD kids or kids with other impulse control issues with no other spectrum diagnosis. Have you explored any comorbidities going on at the same time>>

Hi -- I'm a pp who posted the above, not the op. My child does not have a ASD dx but does have other dxes.

Anonymous wrote:PP -- i appreciate the ideas. One problem is my child seems to have zero ability to carry over an understanding of the "rules and consequences" to the situation in front of him. So we go over the rules, he repeats them back to me, he answers my questions in a way that conveys he understands it -- and then boom, he does it again. And he seems just fine with us removing him from the situation. Its like he can't control himself when he is in the situation.

OP, this was not my HFA child's issue, but I've seen this behavior in plenty of ADD kids or kids with other impulse control issues with no other spectrum diagnosis. Have you explored any comorbidities going on at the same time?

Anonymous wrote:With any behavior modification program you have to hang on through the extinction burst. If you give up now, you have taught the child that throwing a tantrum will let him get his way. That's dangerous. Just hang in there.

I spent a lot of time holding my tantruming 5/6/7 year old between my legs and singing. The singing was for me, because the tantrums were so nerve-racking.

Hang in there. The extinction burst will end when he figures out that throwing a tantrum will not get him what we wants.

I'm this PP and I just wanted to add that my child is currently a happy 12 year old who is in his first year of junior high. He is completely mainstreamed. He has friends. He has hobbies. He has excellent grades. We haven't had a tantrum in two years. They really died out out by the time he was 7 and then made the occasional reappearance until age 10.

With any behavior modification program you have to hang on through the extinction burst. If you give up now, you have taught the child that throwing a tantrum will let him get his way. That's dangerous. Just hang in there.

I spent a lot of time holding my tantruming 5/6/7 year old between my legs and singing. The singing was for me, because the tantrums were so nerve-racking.

Hang in there. The extinction burst will end when he figures out that throwing a tantrum will not get him what we wants.

For rules and consequences, do the following steps within a couple of hours:
- Explain (go over rules)
- Practice (recreate the scenarios, remind him about the rules and consequences) 3x
- Contrived (create situation where he might break the rule, but if he breaks the rule, remind him again about the consequences, don't punish him).
Use visual (pictures, words) on the wall to remind him about the rules.

As for ABA … depends on the therapists and programs (they range from bad to awesome). In general, there should be a good rapport and trust between the therapist and child before they can move on to more challenging tasks. Occasional tantrums happen but shouldn't be on every single ABA session.

PP -- i appreciate the ideas. One problem is my child seems to have zero ability to carry over an understanding of the "rules and consequences" to the situation in front of him. So we go over the rules, he repeats them back to me, he answers my questions in a way that conveys he understands it -- and then boom, he does it again. And he seems just fine with us removing him from the situation. Its like he can't control himself when he is in the situation.

Op again didn't mean to press send.

It also really depends on your child and the age. For expose
What may work for one child may not work for another.

With that said, one principle that can be helpful to any parent, is making sure you are consistent and clear with your child about your expectation. For example, if may son tantrums when he has to give back iPad he looses electronic for the week. If doesn't give us a problem s, we give him a lot of praise for following directionS. That's not really ABA because there is negative reinforcer.

One thing you can do is reward you DC to (on a chart) for every 5 minutes that he has nice hands on the playground. If he is able to sustain is positive behavior for 20 (or more you pick the number he gets a prize. The prize does not have to something you need buy. It can something as small as 5 minutes extra playtime before). Most importantly, make sure child understand the "rules of the game." Also ask him what he would like for a reward. Have him 3-6 tHings. Once he earns a prize he can pick from the list which he wants

[quote=Anonymous]I'm sorry to piggyback on your thread. We have explored ABA for our child. Our child is not diagnosed with ASD, but has other diagnoses.
One behavior that has been ``flaring'' lately is that he gets physically aggressive with younger, littler kids on playground equipment. So if he is on a playground equipment by himself and another littler kid comes on he will start kicking and hurt the kid.
Similar to a backyard trampoline. If he is on the trampline with siblings and neighbors come on, he will immediately be physically aggressive with them.
Other than immediately removing my child from this situation, how would you use an ABA approach to extinguish this behavior.[/quote]


OP here

I'm sorry to here about your situation. So to be clear one of the main Cornerstones of ABA is determining the cause of the behavior or determining how the behavior serves the child's objective. The clinician breaks it down in to simple categories like escape, attention, autonomic response, etc. Based on those results they determine the exercise that are most appropriate m

I'm sorry to piggyback on your thread. We have explored ABA for our child. Our child is not diagnosed with ASD, but has other diagnoses.
One behavior that has been ``flaring'' lately is that he gets physically aggressive with younger, littler kids on playground equipment. So if he is on a playground equipment by himself and another littler kid comes on he will start kicking and hurt the kid.
Similar to a backyard trampoline. If he is on the trampline with siblings and neighbors come on, he will immediately be physically aggressive with them.
Other than immediately removing my child from this situation, how would you use an ABA approach to extinguish this behavior.

OP here

Thank you for your stories. We really hope DC can be mainstreamed. He will Be in the Asperger program in MoCo. We are trying everything we can to help him. I put off ABA until we tried 4 other methods Of addressing his behaviors.

He has HFA and is extremely bright, and loves to learn, but hates school. He's tried to leave the buidling multiple times and violent with his teachers and other children when gets frustrated or he perceives he's not good at something he's being asked to do.

Since we started doing ABA at school things got so much worse at home. It's really hard to see how things are going to improve. It's nice to know it can happen.

Um, sometimes extinction bursts are needed but all day? I don't know. I would ask about antecedent strategies and more scaffolding. Additionally, the more he practices the wrong behaviors, the more ingrained they become. I love ABA but this doesn't sound right. What's the replacement behavior? There should be a 4 to 1 positive feedback to 1 correction.

3 months? He should have been loving it for a while before asking him to do things that cause such great meltdowns.

When I did ABA though, we first started with medication.

My kiddo is 6, adhd/asd/and depending on clinician ODD, but when he's with ABA his ODD behaviors don't show up

Dear OP, What you are experiencing is one of the toughest times on this journey. It has been over a dozen years since we conducted an ABA home program hiring /training therapist.to work with our DC. I recall a couple of times therapists took him beyond what we thought was the brink and we finally stepped in and stopped it. I will say that only happened a couple of times in our case, and that our brief intervention had no negative long term impact and things thereafter got better. It seemed like a day or two later it was possible to regroup. In our case, I think some of the therapists used better judgment to avoid the problems from arising. Granted, DC was very HFA even that time. Post-script, our child moved from an ABA Home program to a special education school in K and 1st grade,, and then mainstreamed in a small private by 2d and is now in college. You know every child is different, but it should get better.

Yes and it was a miracle. It was also a nightmare while we were doing it, but it made a huge difference. We are starting another round of ABA and this time I'll know what to expect. It will also help that DC will be a lot older. We have extenuating circumstances and lack of trust of adults also, in addition to ASD and aggressive behavior. It works! Come back and update us with your good news.

big hug to you, OP. I don't have any words of advice just sympathy.

[flash]
My 5 year old son with ASD and ODD (depends on the clinician), has been going Kennedy Kreiger NBU outpatient for 3 months. We are At the point they call "an extinction burst". Basically this mean he is tantruming non stop because we are no longer letting him out of doing things he doesn't want to. I was pretty suspect of ABA and no it feels like all my nightmare are coming. All his behaviors are much worse, he's even more anxious, and we are scared that if keep this Up he will loose trust in us. He has had a great deal of medical trauma and has difficulty trust adults.

Our other fear is that if this doesn't work, we have no other recourse but medication, which I'm strongly against at this age. His behavior is at times frightening. He tried to choke last week which was a new one. He now refusing to do pretty muchmeverything we ask and at school he is worse.

Has anyone had ABA for their child and have it get better in a lasting way after an extinction burst? I'm having a really hard time Seeing the light at the end of tunnel.