Get Answers to Your Questions About ABA
Monday April 17, 2006
ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) is one of the best-known therapies for children on the autism spectrum. Developed by Dr. Ivar Lovaas, ABA involves intensive behavioral training to help children build communication skills, life skills, and even abstract thinking skills.
But...what exactly is ABA? How should it be administered? Is it right for every autistic child? Can it help support social and emotional skills?
To get the answers to these and other questions, I've contacted the Lovaas Institute. They're willing to answer your questions about ABA therapy, its techniques, its goals and its limits.
What are your burning questions about ABA? Comment here on the blog, or email your questions directly to me at autism.guide@about.com!
Comments
Hello, my name is Amy and I am a mother 2 twin girls age 3. I am very concerned with their behaviour and speech skills. They have a delay which has been determined and were both in speech therapy for about 9 months. They are a little better but no where like I think they should be for their age. They are no longer taking speech because we now must go through our public school system which I am hesitant to do at this point. As you can imagine, there is ALOT of frustration on both ends because we can’t understand their wants and they can’t communicate them with us any better than they are right now. They have absolutely NO social skills with other kids or even with themselves. They constantly throw tantrums and fits and completely have a melt down over even the smallest little thing. Everyday, they cry and whine ALL day. We go outside, they will not play, I put on Dora, Barney, Baby Einstein videos and they refuse to watch even for a second. They have zero attention span. They are both very destructive and like to tear things up. They are also so very mean to each other. I know they love each other, but I have never witnessed twins who act like mine. I am embarassed to say the least to go anywhere with them.
Could they be Autistic to some degree or would you clasify this as NORMAL behaviour and they will out grow it? I am honestly at my wits end. Everyone in my family keeps telling me that something is just not right. There just has to be something wrong for them tobe this way.
Do you have any advice or suggestions. I would love to hear if you do.
I thank you for your time.
Amy
Amy,
I think you would benefit from seeing a neurologist. My daughter was diagnosed at age 2y2m and my son at 2y. They are both autistic. The spectrum is so wide they should be evaluated by a neurologist or developmental pediatrician. At least this would ease your mind and point you in the right direction for treatment.
Alice
Hello alice, i’m a mother of a 2 1/2 years old boy who was recently diagnose with PDD-NOS. He still babling no gesture no pointing. He also has ABA Therapy. I Don’t think its working for him. I don’t really see any improvement. I don’t know how to approach his therapy about it. Hes been doing ABA therapy for 2 months now. I don’t know how long it takes to see improvement. I don’t no what to expect. I don’t think its even helping him.I know my son is capable of doing the exercises but its not getting to him. Iknow every child is will response differently but what can we do to help him. do you think we should change the learning style. I just don’t know what to do or how to help him. thank you
Dear Amy,I am a mother of 4, my last 2 are 5 1/2 yr. twin boys both with ASD. I am lucky, they are mild, both with very different issues. Not yet in typical class nor will they be at least for another year. They have both gotten speech and OT through my awesome public school system, it is out there..you have to question and beg your way there sometimes. We are currently trying to keep them apart as much as possible in the school system, which is hard because a small school can only afford to have one “special, small class”. All along they have been learning from eachother and aggravating eachother. One more so than the other because one is usually stronger, more of a leader and knows how to stir the other. When my “melt down” child is not melting the other has to compensate for the lac of screaming by screaming himself or making the other scream, just because he is happy. Wierd! I’m not too sure they have a clear definition of their own selves, where one brother stops and the other begins. There is not a “single” person there most of the time. I didn’t see it the school has been tracking this all along…soon they will be totally separated in different classes. I am beginning to see that many of the “issues” belong to one boy the other just inherits the behavior because he still..at almost 6 does not see his brother as another person. My melt down child will be getting ABA for the first time next school year …due to his multiple sensory and behavioral problems. my other son will remain where he is a cross categorical Sped Class. Help is there in your public school system you just have to seek it out. Both continue to grow and change moment by moment. What started out as a full year of just studying the Happy face -vs- the sad face pictures (pecs) stuck all over my house…in just 2 years they have enough words to get us by..and keep the break downs to a minimum. The sooner they left the safe-zone of our home…the better they were.
We still don’t do restaurants…grocery stores and many many other things that cause fires. but we will get there, someday I pray.