Anonymous
07/07/2025 22:02
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We have an autistic almost four year old who spent last year in prek3 in DCPS with an IEP. She is also receiving floortime method developmental therapy OT and ST privately but it is about six hours per week or less. We think she needs more support - she doesn’t really participate with the class, does a lot of spacing out and lying on the floor, does not speak to peers. Does not have major behavioral issues in classroom like aggression or tantrums. She seems to like school and has good relationships with the teachers but she is so far from K ready. We have her enrolled for prek4 in DCPS next year but wonder now if we need to pull her out for a full time ABA or other specialized program instead.
We have done a lot of reading on these forums and are not opposed to ABA but have not tried it as her diagnosing psychologist suggested floortime first. It seems a lot of parents had success with ABA support in classroom or part time with school. Her school previously said no third party providers - would it be worth asking again or is DCPS very inflexible on this? If we can’t do in gen ed classroom support therapy, is a full time program appropriate for a child with her issues (mostly the spacing out, not attending to class activities, failure to interact socially with peers)? Recommendations for suitable programs that would take BCBS FEP? Appreciate any insights or advice. We are located on the DC silver spring border in DC so Maryland options are feasible for us especially silver spring.
You need to figure out what your child's are.
I agree with the poster who suggested testing.
My first big question for you is how is your child’s receptive language? That's the cornerstone piece.
Ds is 23 now, and I got all thus bad advice on what to do but no real answers until we found out his nonverbal IQ was typical, but he had the receptive language in the bottom percentiles when he was entering K.
We skipped ABA.
What setting was he in for K and what supports did he get?
OP again - so our daughter has had various assessments and evaluations including through DCPS, her Floortime model therapy provider, and the clinical psych who diagnosed and sees her for follow ups. Her last speech evaluation to get speech added to her IEP said her receptive language was good but expressive needed a lot of work. What other assessments should we be asking for? Or is it just these she needs an evaluation specifically on ABA model? Maybe I just do not know the proper nomenclature for what she needs.
We are a little worried that at-home only ABA may not help sufficiently with her social skills and ability to be with a group classroom environment. She currently already has 1:1 Floortime developmental therapy in the home on weekends, though I understand that is not structured like ABA is. I think she would struggle with a 1:1 full time approach and I worry she would miss out on social developments. She did seem to enjoy being around the other kids even if she does not yet understand how to truly engage with them. Hence the interest in center-based preschool/daycare like environment if we cannot get DCPS to agree to a hybrid. We have asked DCPS to add more to her IEP and had a lot of difficulty even getting them to add speech even though it was recommended in her medical clinical report, so it seems it would be an uphill battle to get anything more than what is on her plan if we want her in a gen ed classroom.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 20:27
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:OP, our child has a very similar profile, we just finished up PK3 with DCPS and struggled with the same decision. We chose to stay in DCPS for PK4 with accomodations, because:
1 - The full-time, center-based ABA programs we toured were both depressing, and - practically speaking - too far away to commute every day reasonably with both parents working. Also felt like the RBT's were less qualified than the BCBA our kid works with in DCPS.
2 - The social-emotional aspect. I was homeschooled through high school (without any say in the matter) and dealt with serious feeings of isolation; I don't want my kid to be fully in a home-based ABA program without the ability to interact with other kids in a classroom environment, which is also valuable.
3 - There are other options in DCPS you can explore with higher supports like the 12:6 classroom or CES program, which is ABA based and targeted towards kids with ASD. There's a whole process to get a referral for CES, which can take a long time if you don't have an advocate. General ed is too much for our child, and the pace was too fast and also our child struggled with verbal instructions even with supports.
4 - ABA is still available after school and weekends, if you choose to supplement at home
This is not similar. Your experience was 15+ years ago and op would probably just do it for a year. I absolutely would try it.
Why?
Anonymous
07/07/2025 19:41
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
Go back and read. The BCBA was never the one working with my kid. They oversaw the 22 year old working with my kid. Never, ever was the BCBA with my child more than 1x in a year. Utter, utter waste of time and energy.
That was on you for agreeing to it. We had a bcba working directly with our child.
For 30 hours a week?
Anonymous
07/07/2025 19:18
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:OP, our child has a very similar profile, we just finished up PK3 with DCPS and struggled with the same decision. We chose to stay in DCPS for PK4 with accomodations, because:
1 - The full-time, center-based ABA programs we toured were both depressing, and - practically speaking - too far away to commute every day reasonably with both parents working. Also felt like the RBT's were less qualified than the BCBA our kid works with in DCPS.
2 - The social-emotional aspect. I was homeschooled through high school (without any say in the matter) and dealt with serious feeings of isolation; I don't want my kid to be fully in a home-based ABA program without the ability to interact with other kids in a classroom environment, which is also valuable.
3 - There are other options in DCPS you can explore with higher supports like the 12:6 classroom or CES program, which is ABA based and targeted towards kids with ASD. There's a whole process to get a referral for CES, which can take a long time if you don't have an advocate. General ed is too much for our child, and the pace was too fast and also our child struggled with verbal instructions even with supports.
4 - ABA is still available after school and weekends, if you choose to supplement at home
This is not similar. Your experience was 15+ years ago and op would probably just do it for a year. I absolutely would try it.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 19:17
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
Go back and read. The BCBA was never the one working with my kid. They oversaw the 22 year old working with my kid. Never, ever was the BCBA with my child more than 1x in a year. Utter, utter waste of time and energy.
That was on you for agreeing to it. We had a bcba working directly with our child.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 19:13
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We have an autistic almost four year old who spent last year in prek3 in DCPS with an IEP. She is also receiving floortime method developmental therapy OT and ST privately but it is about six hours per week or less. We think she needs more support - she doesn’t really participate with the class, does a lot of spacing out and lying on the floor, does not speak to peers. Does not have major behavioral issues in classroom like aggression or tantrums. She seems to like school and has good relationships with the teachers but she is so far from K ready. We have her enrolled for prek4 in DCPS next year but wonder now if we need to pull her out for a full time ABA or other specialized program instead.
We have done a lot of reading on these forums and are not opposed to ABA but have not tried it as her diagnosing psychologist suggested floortime first. It seems a lot of parents had success with ABA support in classroom or part time with school. Her school previously said no third party providers - would it be worth asking again or is DCPS very inflexible on this? If we can’t do in gen ed classroom support therapy, is a full time program appropriate for a child with her issues (mostly the spacing out, not attending to class activities, failure to interact socially with peers)? Recommendations for suitable programs that would take BCBS FEP? Appreciate any insights or advice. We are located on the DC silver spring border in DC so Maryland options are feasible for us especially silver spring.
You need to figure out what your child's are.
I agree with the poster who suggested testing.
My first big question for you is how is your child’s receptive language? That's the cornerstone piece.
Ds is 23 now, and I got all thus bad advice on what to do but no real answers until we found out his nonverbal IQ was typical, but he had the receptive language in the bottom percentiles when he was entering K.
We skipped ABA.
What setting was he in for K and what supports did he get?
He ended up going K-5 in general ed with a parapro. In Junior High he was in a center program for reading and math and out for history, science and specials with a student aide. His receptive language still lags, but he's conversational now, out of school and in a jobs program.
School wanted an ASD label, but the adult diagnosis ended up being Mild Intellectual Disorder.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 18:42
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
OP, our child has a very similar profile, we just finished up PK3 with DCPS and struggled with the same decision. We chose to stay in DCPS for PK4 with accomodations, because:
1 - The full-time, center-based ABA programs we toured were both depressing, and - practically speaking - too far away to commute every day reasonably with both parents working. Also felt like the RBT's were less qualified than the BCBA our kid works with in DCPS.
2 - The social-emotional aspect. I was homeschooled through high school (without any say in the matter) and dealt with serious feeings of isolation; I don't want my kid to be fully in a home-based ABA program without the ability to interact with other kids in a classroom environment, which is also valuable.
3 - There are other options in DCPS you can explore with higher supports like the 12:6 classroom or CES program, which is ABA based and targeted towards kids with ASD. There's a whole process to get a referral for CES, which can take a long time if you don't have an advocate. General ed is too much for our child, and the pace was too fast and also our child struggled with verbal instructions even with supports.
4 - ABA is still available after school and weekends, if you choose to supplement at home
1 - The full-time, center-based ABA programs we toured were both depressing, and - practically speaking - too far away to commute every day reasonably with both parents working. Also felt like the RBT's were less qualified than the BCBA our kid works with in DCPS.
2 - The social-emotional aspect. I was homeschooled through high school (without any say in the matter) and dealt with serious feeings of isolation; I don't want my kid to be fully in a home-based ABA program without the ability to interact with other kids in a classroom environment, which is also valuable.
3 - There are other options in DCPS you can explore with higher supports like the 12:6 classroom or CES program, which is ABA based and targeted towards kids with ASD. There's a whole process to get a referral for CES, which can take a long time if you don't have an advocate. General ed is too much for our child, and the pace was too fast and also our child struggled with verbal instructions even with supports.
4 - ABA is still available after school and weekends, if you choose to supplement at home
Anonymous
07/07/2025 18:23
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
What your child's needs^^^ are
Anonymous
07/07/2025 17:54
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We have an autistic almost four year old who spent last year in prek3 in DCPS with an IEP. She is also receiving floortime method developmental therapy OT and ST privately but it is about six hours per week or less. We think she needs more support - she doesn’t really participate with the class, does a lot of spacing out and lying on the floor, does not speak to peers. Does not have major behavioral issues in classroom like aggression or tantrums. She seems to like school and has good relationships with the teachers but she is so far from K ready. We have her enrolled for prek4 in DCPS next year but wonder now if we need to pull her out for a full time ABA or other specialized program instead.
We have done a lot of reading on these forums and are not opposed to ABA but have not tried it as her diagnosing psychologist suggested floortime first. It seems a lot of parents had success with ABA support in classroom or part time with school. Her school previously said no third party providers - would it be worth asking again or is DCPS very inflexible on this? If we can’t do in gen ed classroom support therapy, is a full time program appropriate for a child with her issues (mostly the spacing out, not attending to class activities, failure to interact socially with peers)? Recommendations for suitable programs that would take BCBS FEP? Appreciate any insights or advice. We are located on the DC silver spring border in DC so Maryland options are feasible for us especially silver spring.
You need to figure out what your child's are.
I agree with the poster who suggested testing.
My first big question for you is how is your child’s receptive language? That's the cornerstone piece.
Ds is 23 now, and I got all thus bad advice on what to do but no real answers until we found out his nonverbal IQ was typical, but he had the receptive language in the bottom percentiles when he was entering K.
We skipped ABA.
What setting was he in for K and what supports did he get?
Anonymous
07/07/2025 17:52
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
The RBTs deliver the actual services and they have very very minimal training.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 17:46
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:We have an autistic almost four year old who spent last year in prek3 in DCPS with an IEP. She is also receiving floortime method developmental therapy OT and ST privately but it is about six hours per week or less. We think she needs more support - she doesn’t really participate with the class, does a lot of spacing out and lying on the floor, does not speak to peers. Does not have major behavioral issues in classroom like aggression or tantrums. She seems to like school and has good relationships with the teachers but she is so far from K ready. We have her enrolled for prek4 in DCPS next year but wonder now if we need to pull her out for a full time ABA or other specialized program instead.
We have done a lot of reading on these forums and are not opposed to ABA but have not tried it as her diagnosing psychologist suggested floortime first. It seems a lot of parents had success with ABA support in classroom or part time with school. Her school previously said no third party providers - would it be worth asking again or is DCPS very inflexible on this? If we can’t do in gen ed classroom support therapy, is a full time program appropriate for a child with her issues (mostly the spacing out, not attending to class activities, failure to interact socially with peers)? Recommendations for suitable programs that would take BCBS FEP? Appreciate any insights or advice. We are located on the DC silver spring border in DC so Maryland options are feasible for us especially silver spring.
You need to figure out what your child's are.
I agree with the poster who suggested testing.
My first big question for you is how is your child’s receptive language? That's the cornerstone piece.
Ds is 23 now, and I got all thus bad advice on what to do but no real answers until we found out his nonverbal IQ was typical, but he had the receptive language in the bottom percentiles when he was entering K.
We skipped ABA.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 16:59
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
Go back and read. The BCBA was never the one working with my kid. They oversaw the 22 year old working with my kid. Never, ever was the BCBA with my child more than 1x in a year. Utter, utter waste of time and energy.
Respectfully, you as a parent have a responsibility to do your due diligence and vet the people that are responsible for the care and oversight of your child. I doubt this 22 year old showed up unannounced, if they did why would you let them through the front door without question? I’m assuming you sought out a professional, you signed consent forms, you reviewed information, you knew who was going to work with your child, you met them first, you had access to their resume and background, etc. So these are choices you actively made, and when you saw it wasn’t working you likely said nothing. Perhaps could provide useful info instead of profession bashing- you could say hey don’t make the same mistakes that I did, be sure you vet your 1:1, here are some questions I’d ask….
Anonymous
07/07/2025 16:26
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
Go back and read. The BCBA was never the one working with my kid. They oversaw the 22 year old working with my kid. Never, ever was the BCBA with my child more than 1x in a year. Utter, utter waste of time and energy.
Anonymous
07/07/2025 16:18
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Here you can find the educational and experience requirements of the person creating ABA programs. These are not “22 year old kids with 6 weeks of training” as your suss opinion suggests.
https://www.bacb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BCBAHandbook_250304-3.pdf
Anonymous
07/07/2025 16:00
Subject: Stay in DCPS or ABA full time for 4 year old?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would choose DCPS where the teachers have masters degrees and not an ABA center where we got kids barely out of undergrad lightly 'supervised' by BCBAs who had entirely too many cases to know my kid.
For a THREE YEAR OLD? You’d be hard pressed to find a clinic that would even take a 3 year old, this is a home based age. Please name the clinic, I need to investigate.
Yikes, calm down, I missed the age. But my answer is the same. I'd definitely choose DCPS with experienced special ed teachers over a 22 year old kid with 6 weeks of training coming in to my home to try and 'help' my kid.
+1. a full time ABA program with no actual teachers for a kid approaching 4 is very “suss” as the kids say.
Please name the ABA program that is operating this way, it’s absurd & I’d really love to investigate it.