ABA Question?

[Jamies Mommy]

Hey all,
It looks like e maybe putting Jamie in a school that does ABA. Just wondering if anyones started their older child on ABA and how they did. I know its pretty effective with the little ones.

[JungleWoman]

You know, I dont know that much about ABA since Aaron's never been in it, but I would go for it if I were you.

I think ABA and RDI are super valuable tools for our kiddos.

[peglem]

I think it depends alot on the individual child and the instructor. ABA worked great with Allie at first. She was younger. It helped her learn to imitate and respond to requests. But, a little further down the road she became very "prompt" dependent-as though the prompt were actually part of the task. She got over this- I guess its a part of the process, gradually withdrawing the prompt. But after about a year, maybe less, she became very resistant and would not cooperate. It seemed like she resented having to do a task to get the reinforcer and she started refusing the things used as reinforcers, even when they were removed from the ABA setting. So, my advice would be to observe and see if its the kind of thing you think your child would respond well to.

[Carly'sMa]

We are doing ABA with our 15 year old. No one has said yet that it won't work with her.

Right now we are doing one simple step "Hands down." But, it only works if there is a reinforcer.

We are now working with a behaviorist, but need to get on track with her. I hope she is coming to see us next Friday.

They have used trials with Carly for several years now, but with academic work. We didn't do it with behavior. Now we are going to take a step back and do it with behavior.

[Isabelle]

My son was never on ABA, but some people liked it so much that they sued the Canadian Government to cover the cost of ABA for their autistic children and even to continue past the age of 6. Not all children respond to ABA, but should be a choice. I found it a bit cold and demanding but it also depends of the instructor.

For my son making a game of learning was very productive, of course at the beginning there was a reward and he still remembers to answer the thousand long questions he was taught. We noticed that he was a visual learner, he could read and follow a "list to do" and benefitted from indirect teaching. As one behaviour therapist noticed, he was a "monkey".

About "monkey" behaviour I believe if you or anybody, NT or not, try to "fit in" in any circumstance and you can't understand the language, for whatever reason, you would look around and repeat what the next person is doing right or wrong, but in many instances he followed the instructions correctly.

One adult autistic described to me as mental retarded showed me by shaking or nodding his head how much he understood of what I was talking about and at one point he used his folded wrist, eyes, head and a grunt to point to something.

[Mom2Ava]

I have done ABA with both children and adults.
Yes, there are probably optimum results with the younger children, but anyone can benefit from ABA.

Here is a link where you can purchase the Lovaas video. It is a video doc of the actual Lovaas study.

It is an amazing thing to watch. Also is a link to tons of ABA resources.

Good luck

http://store.ccbsstore.com/searching.asp

http://www.neurodiversity.com/lovaas.html