Can ABA Cure Autism?
Monday May 22, 2006
Books like "Let Me Hear Your Voice" by Catherine Maurice suggest that ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) can actually cure autism. But most scientists agree that, to date, there is no true cure for autism. So...can ABA "recover" an autistic child? Researchers at the Lovaas Institute, one of the leading institutions providing and researching ABA, answer the question.
Comments
No. Nothing cures autism. ABA can teach some valuable rote skills through the behavioral approach, but it doesn’t foster creativity. I’m partial to Floortime myself. http://www.floortime.org
I also agree nothing cures autism. I am also partial to using floortime and incorporating lots of social and activities. No better way to learn than try it in actual situations. Autism is something our kids learn to live with, it becomes part of them but never goes away. I was told once, that it could be refered to like alcoholism, “it never goes away but you can learn to live with it.”
You may be wrong. Steve Gutstein’s RDI has taken kids rated as “autistic” or “autistic spectrum disorder” on the gold standard ADOS/ADIR, and made them score as “not autistic.” To my knowledge, there are no other therapies about which that can be said. The paper is accepted for publication in JADD. Check out the website: http://www.RDIconnect.com
We need to understand that there is no Autism as it was defined early, but a spectrum that conglomerates hundreds of problems in communciation, socialization and basically behavior. Many of them can be treated in different ways, ABA is the best one for behavior but it can not be used in every single case, so it is restringed to each patient… Do not be confused by mixed results, probably the problem is in the diagnosys and not in the prognosys, but be careful, many procedures and places are only for ripping off people.
Floortime very good for infants non-verbal.
ABA extraordinary with full-functional PDD-NOS. Chelation works with Aspergers very well… but again, it is the diagnosys -the real one- what is needed to have, if not, you are providing the wrong procedure to the wrong illness.