Your Opinion Requested: Is There a Gold Standard for Autism Education?
There is a clear and overwhelming consensus on the efficacy of ABA and that it is indeed the “gold standard” of educational interventions for autism. Contrary to what you have stated.My personal feeling is that Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), which is among the oldest and best-studied therapies for autism, is only one in a wide range of appropriate tools for reaching and teaching children on the autism spectrum.
As it happens, ABA is relatively easy to study - because outcomes are very concrete, and benchmarks for success have been clearly delineated. Other educational and therapeutic approaches, such as Floortime, RDI, and so forth, are less absolute in their goals - and thus it's relatively tougher to evaluate their success on a large scale.
At present, very little work has gone into comparing and contrasting therapeutic and educational approaches for children with autism. What's more, there is real disagreement on the actual goals of education for children with autism - especially given the wide range of the autism spectrum.
So, at least in my opinion, the jury is still out. Would children do BETTER with one approach than with another? Which children would flourish with a developmental program - or would all children be better served with a behavioral program? What should the goals be - and why?
While Harold has a good point - ABA has been thoroughly studied and found to be very useful - I think we still have a long row to hoe before we can point to any approach as a gold standard.
So what's your opinion? Have we come to the point where we can truly point to Applied Behavioral Analysis as a gold standard for autism education? Or are we still in search on an educational ideal for our children on the autism spectrum?
Comments
I don’t think we even have a bronze standard yet in my area, or at least when it comes to an implemented standard with the schools systems. Do you have any information on good autism schools? I have been looking at some and would love to see a concise artcile on some specific school and what they are doing.
PS – I love your blog.
Thanks so much!
There are a great many autism schools out there – and almost as many different approaches to private autism education.
Were you thinking of an overview of what’s out there? Descriptions of individual schools and what they offer? (of course, they’re all over the world!)
Best,
Lisa
My concern is that if we don’t hone in on one approach that’s proven to be effective, we’ll completely miss out. School districts tend to take the eclectic approach, many times just to take the easy, least expensive way out.
(Unfortunately, in Texas we experienced this first-hand.) And this flies in the face of IDEA, which clearly requires an evidence-based approach.
We DO need a gold standard. ABA is a good one for now. It doesn’t always have to be the only one. There’s always room for evolution in the process.
School districts and health insurance providers only benefit from the fickle nature of the autism community…
I would be interested to know how many of the adults who had ABA are now working and living regular lives. To me this is very relevant when you start handing out ‘gold standard’. What is the long term outcome from this intervention? How do you measure success?
In the UK we don’t have ABA as the norm most parents have to fight tooth and nail for the intervention if they wish to use it on their children. So when you count the fact that only 12% of adults here in the UK are in some kind of employment you can not add ABA into that pot.
Neither of my sons was subjected to ABA and although the eldest does not at the moment work this is more down to his visual impairment than his autism. Socially he is now flying high socially, has friends, goes out with them and does many of the regular things that young people his age do. The youngest is also making good progress. I would never want ABA set as a ‘gold standard’ because ABA would never be for me. As with everything there has to be a menu of interventions and therapies,as well as provision. One size does not fit all – ever!
Carole
I am not going to reargue the ABA as gold standard argument I made yesterday. My argument was based on some of the most well known and accepted reviews of the research literatre on autism all of which support ABA as the only evidence based intervention whether viewed as a health or as an education intervention. Maine, New York and California. Recently the UK. You might also wish to visit the web site of the Association for Science in Autism Treatment for a review of the literature by an organization with a professional advisory board of dozens of professional experts in autism.
There is a difference between saying that one size does not fit all and determining, amongst the various approaches, which qualifies as the gold standard. You are essentially offering your belief that no one method is good for all not whether there is one best or gold standard for most autistic children.
On the ABA it does not sound like you have actual experience with ABA. I do, my son does. He is not “subjected” to ABA. If you visit my blog site and do a search on Conor and ABA you will find pictures of Conor waiting anxiously for the arrival of his ABA therapist at home. He also receives ABA at home and misses it when he does not. THe literature does show permanet gains for autistic persons “subjected” to ABA. In my son’s case it has allowed him to commnicate with us and vice versa. It has allowed him to be toilet trained by the age of 3 1/2 a worthy goals for many children but especially for autistic children. It has allowed him to learn the alphabet and some rudimentary reading skill, math etc.
ABA? Conor LOVES it. And the literature shows that it works. That is why it is the golds standard.
Harold you can not say that ABA is the golds standard because it works for you and your son, if I can not say that one size does not fit all. ABA is an emotive subject I am fully aware of that and I rarely join in conversations about it if I can help it. I have friends who still do ABA and I respect their choice but it is not for us.
I have no wish to enter into an argument about this intervention but I personally find it questionable to say the least. Autistic children often thrive on routine so just because a child waits anxiously for something or someone, could well be down to the fact that he knows what the routine is and what happens next. I did not want my son to be bound by routine which he very much was as a younger child. I wrote an article about just how routine bound he was when he was when he was four years old. Life was hell. He only craves a routine or sameness now when he is anxious or stressed.
I may not have tried ABA on my son but I do have a very good friend who did and paid many visits to the States to be trained by the so called ABA experts. Her son did not gain from the intervention what his mother wanted for him. She came home and wrote a book of which I am the proud owner. It is called ‘Autism the 8th Colour of the Rainbow’. Like my friend I did not want my son to be programmed, which many apologies, is how I view ABA. I wanted to connect with my son and to have shared meanings and understandings with my son. I did not wish to train him like a dog. He is a child. I wanted my son to understand why he was doing something and not just do it because it was programmed into him.
My belief is based upon seeing others who have also not gone the ABA route but are also having success and seeing progress with their children. We do not have ABA in abundance here but our children do make progress.
I ask again, and not because I am being bloody minded here, but what percentage of your adult autistic population in the US is actively employed and living pretty regular lives? I ask because I do think that the answer is important.
I find it strange that ABA is talked about as if it was a commercial package, something to be compared with other commercial packages. Now, there are commercial packages out there, but ABA is the applied branch of a science. If you don’t want science to inform you in decision making, what do you want instead? That is the question to be asked. I think the answer is obvious. If it is not obvious, then something has gone wrong with the teaching of what ABA is all about.
Thanks for your comment Mickey!
While I agree that, in theory, ABA is simply the application of behavioral analysis, in fact I’d say that it is, at this point, pretty well commercially packaged (relative to autism). That may be a good thing or a bad thing – but it’s gone way past the point of simple applied research.
Take a look, if you’re interested, at http://www.lovaas.com – the Lovaas Institute which teaches and certifies ABA practitioners – and you’ll see that its products are clearly priced and packaged. The same, I’d say, goes for many of the other ABA training programs: they are not teaching “science,” but instead are training individuals in a very specific “packaged” system.
To be honest, if you want the system to be available to a wide range of people with a wide range of backgrounds, packaging is probably the best way to do it. But I do think that, in systematizing and packaging, you lose something in translation.
At this point, ABA is the MOST packaged system out there – but I’d say that others are getting close. The people behind RDI, Son-Rise, Social Stories, and so forth are all finding that it makes financial and philosophical sense to package their systems and sell them through a sophisticated marketing program. By so doing you kill two birds with one stone: you expand the reach of a therapy you believe in – and you make it financially possible to expand your program, continue research, publish, and so on…
Lisa
I believe there is NO Gold Standard and it is VERY risky saying that there is. It’s risky because for those of us who have children for who that “Gold Standard” doesn’t work, we are hooped, often heavily criticized because we “are not doing the best for our kids” and “how dare we say that this “‘proven’” therapy doesn’t work.”
I am getting sick and tired of people fitting what is best for our kids with autism into a generic mold with a “cure-all” method of therapy. All of our kids are different, and just like the fact that any other therapy out there for typcial human beings have dramaticly different results, so it is for people with Autism.
I truly do know my son best, tried ABA with him and the therapy program as a whole didn’t work. I do believe that ABA works for a lot of kids with Autism, however, many different aspects of many different therapies combined together did work and are currently working best for my son. We use parts of Son-Rise, Social Stories, ABA, and life in general and use all of it and more for therapy. Information I recieved about Son-Rise is what got us into our sons’ world so we could start understanding where he is coming from, then get him to approach our ideas. ABA couldn’t do that no matter how hard we tried. Yet still I am thought of as a bad parent by too many ABA believers in my area because I dare to stand up and say that it the whole ABA approach didn’t work for my son. According to them, we didn’t do it properly, and must try again. Apparently me and people like me are destroying the credibility they are working so hard to build up. From where I am sitting, it looks like people feel credibility needs to be supported only by favourable documentation and anything that doesn’t fit into that is hogwash and needs to be shut up.
I am thrilled ABA works for so many, but so do many other approaches. I have found with my son and the children I work with that for a lot of the ones born with Autism, the ABA Therapy does not work. With some it does, but the vast majority it doesn’t. For the kids with later onset of Autism, ABA is much more successful. No big deal really, it’s just what it is.
I just wish we could live in a more accepting world where our various success stories are truly celebrated despite of how we got there. We need support and acceptance for everyone, and I don’t believe that any parent who is giving their kids everything they can is doing a bad job. ABA is good, but it’s not “THE Gold Standard” of therapies.
That’s my opinion anyways, I am sure I’ll get attacked for that too, but I had to say it.
Caroline
By the way, I do work in a school district with special needs kids, most of which have Autism. The district (the same one my children are in) do take the ABA approach in working with students with Autism because of its’ successfull track record.
Despite the best experts in the district, including those who work at Childrens’ Hospital and are also contracted by the school district to help schools with ABA, my son and many like him absolutely puzzle them because it doesn’t work for them…so they accept that and take another approach.
This school district is FAR from perfect, but it is one of the best ones in the province to have a special needs child in as it is one of the more pro-active ones. It’s because of this that I work in this district and not in any of the other school districts in the province. The message I was trying to convey with my earlier posting was thatI’ve truly seen ABA work, but I’ve also seen it not work…my son is living proof of the latter.
Caroline
“Harold you can not say that ABA is the golds standard because it works for you and your son, if I can not say that one size does not fit all.”
Carole – that is not what I said. I cited numerous well known reviews of the professional literature in support of my argument that ABA is the gold standard in educating autistic children.
I referenced my son’s ACTUAL experience with ABA (I have also received instruction in ABA methodology) in rebuttal to your characterization that children are “subjected” to ABA as though it was some type of punitive or negative process. With no experience with ABA and no research on the literature about ABA, its effectiveness, or the positive way it is ABA is used today, you are erroneously mischaracterizing ABA.
BTW I don’t live in the United States. I live in Canada, where most provinces have moved toward use of ABA in the pre-school years and in my province in the school system. The government of Ontrario has also promised to accommodate ABA instruction in the schools.
I also know from reviewing the literature that many parents in the UK are fighting for ABA services for their children. I wish them every success in their efforts.
“Harold you can not say that ABA is the golds standard because it works for you and your son, if I can not say that one size does not fit all.”
Carole – that is not what I said. I cited numerous well known reviews of the professional literature in support of my argument that ABA is the gold standard in educating autistic children.
I referenced my son’s ACTUAL experience with ABA (I have also received instruction in ABA methodology) in rebuttal to your characterization that children are “subjected” to ABA as though it was some type of punitive or negative process.
BTW I don’t live in the United States. I live in Canada, where most provinces have moved toward use of ABA in the pre-school years and in my province in the school system. The government of Ontario has also promised to accommodate ABA instruction in the schools.
I also know from reviewing the literature that many parents in the UK are fighting for ABA services for their children. I wish them every success in their efforts.
Lisa
Can you cite any literature reviews that describe any of the approaches you mention as being evidence based effective methods for educating autistic children? The MADSEC review stated that some of them showed promise but lacked any empirical support.
There is quite an activist movement in Canada amongest the autistic adults is there not? ‘No Autistics Allowed’ springs to mind. It appears that Canada is trying to rid itself of it’s autistic population and has adopted a national normalisation programme.
One of the things that I dislike most about ABA is the way it appears to programme the parents just as much as the children. Apologies but parents applying ABA all to often come across as having seen the light. Like Caroline we dip in and out of therapies and interventions and adapt and personalise them for our sons. I also want my sons to know that it is OK to be autistic it is a way of being. Sorry if that ofends but it is what I believe.
I will ask again for the third time what is the overall success rate with ABA in those who are now adults. How many have jobs and live a regular kind of life?
many sites state 47% success rate without stating where that number actually comes from-
this TIMES article (May. 07, 2006) may help a question
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191852,00.html
I don’t know if there is a movement in Canada to get rid of the Autism population and I can’t speak for all provinices, but here in BC we do get funding from the government to put towards paying for therapies. Although the funding falls way short of what most therapists charge, it is a huge help.
We (my family) too believe that we need to let our son know that we love him with his autism…it makes him who he is, and that is a great and wonderful person. Now that he is breaking out of the social isolation so typical of Autism, we are following his lead in what he wants to do to better himself, such as communication. Not all therapies are his choice, for example, he would much rather not have to learn the life skills that are typical for his age, and that is our insistence. However, he expressed a strong desire to talk, so we got him cognitive-based speech therapy…he learns to talk while also learning other basic concepts through playing games.
I know some provinces are a little more hard core with their autism population, but Canada is a vast and mighty country. Please don’t lump us all with the one ideal. We are not all like that, and although I do have my beefs with the local ABA community, I also believe we are all doing the best we can in our various different ways. ABA does work for some people, and has huge success stories. However, the unsuccessful stories I feel are not being allowed to be aired because parents/caregivers are so hungry for an answer to helping their child.
I just wish that we all practiced more acceptance as well, both of special needs and our individual ways to deal with it. I guess hard core ABAers are tired of feeling attacked too, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to attack those who find it doesn’t work for their child either. If there was one proven way to treat ALL people with autism, and one proven way to help ALL people with Learning Disabilities, and one proven way to treat ALL people with whatever illness/disorder they have, what a perfect world this would be…and how robot-like we all would be as well. We would no longer have a doctors’ shortage either because less doctors would be needed. However, back to reality, we are all individual, with individual needs that need to be met and we respond individually to methods out there that are designed to help.
It’s just my opinion, and I am just plain tired of hearing how ABA is Gods’ gift to the Autism Community. I believe Gods’ gift is my kids, unique packaging and all, and whatever I can do to help them grow into healthy productive individuals who will make a difference in this world I will do it, but don’t tell me that the only way I can do it is by using this “Gold Standard” of Autism treatment.
Caroline
In my opinion, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the “gold standard” for education — not only for people with autism, but for everyone. Whether you realize it or not, every teacher uses the principles of ABA to positively or negatively condition the behaviors of their students. Why do schools use a grading system? Not only do educators use grades as a metric to guage academic progress, but also as a form of reinforcement or punishment to condition their students to learn. And why do children go to school, listen in class, do their homework, and allow “uncool” adults to educate them? It sure isn’t because they don’t want to stay at home and play video games, watch TV, or talk to friends on the telephone. No, they go to school and learn because either the reinforcement of what an education can bring them (e.g., a good job, freedom, money, power, pleasure) is more desirable or the fear of positive or negative punishment (e.g., getting grounded, rotting in juvenile hall, losing the respect of their parents) is more aversive.
Aren’t you the same? Why do you work (or your partner if you don’t)? Is it because “ya just gotta” or is it because the reinforcement (e.g., a paycheck, shelter, food, health protection, safety) is more desirable or the fear of positive or negative punishment (e.g., losing your job, being homeless, starving to death, destroying self-esteem) is more aversive?
Maybe you’re wondering how this applies to a child with autism? After all, don’t children with autism and typical children learn in a different way? Let me be the first person, to my knowledge, to dispel this age-old myth. No! We ALL learn the same way. As I said in a previous comment, every voluntary action, thought, or feeling is the effect of some conscious or unconscious desire for reinforcement. We, as human beings, never do or think anything unless it benefits us in some way (sometimes when the benefit costs us everything). Sure, the application, method, speed, and retention of learning differs from individual to individual (e.g., some of us are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners; some of us learn faster or slower; and some of us are able to retain what we learn easier than other people); but that desire for reinforcement — the catalyst that causes learning to occur — is the same for everybody. However, don’t forget, just because that desire for reinforcement is the same for everyone doesn’t mean everyone desires the same reinforcement.
So, to those who say, “ABA doesn’t work for everyone,” I won’t admonish you not doing it the right way, I’ll just say, “ABA is working for you, you just aren’t getting the results you want.”
And to those who think ABA means “drilling” someone for hours at a table with index cards or “training” someone to roll over and play dead for a cookie, look at OT, ST, DIR/Floortime, Son-Rise, RDI, and many biomedical interventions to find the principles of ABA at work.
Which leads me to a final question…
When are the principles of Behavior Analysis not used to educate and teach children with autism?
In the previous comment, I said…
So, to those who say, “ABA doesn’t work for everyone,” I won’t admonish you not doing it the right way, I’ll just say, “ABA is working for you, you just aren’t getting the results you want.”
But I left out the “for”…
So, to those who say, “ABA doesn’t work for everyone,” I won’t admonish you for not doing it the right way, I’ll just say, “ABA is working for you, you just aren’t getting the results you want.”
Small typo. Big change in meaning.
Sorry.
life is made up of consequences, and I think that’s hardly comparable to ABA. most of us do not need repetitive teaching in order for us to maintain simple concepts. ABA is not what we all do in general life- these things come natural to us. they do not with a child with autism.
I myself also do not believe in a reward system of M&M’s or stickers. I believe a child should learn to do these things without the concept of something is given if they perform a simple task. I myself am trying to teach the ‘want’ to do it without those rewards ABA is based on.
in any intervention choices, there is always pro’s and con’s and those who speak out about how it was for them. plenty of these such stories on the web. it could be the intervention was good in general, but the therapist wasn’t. there simply cannot be one standard if we’re talking about an individualized education program.
Actually Chris I agree with you society in general and globally is programmed and mostly we allow ourselves to become so. Since having my two autistic sons I have however questioned this programming right across the board and realised that I do have a mind and I can think for myself. I do not need conditioning by the state. And while there are somethings over which we do have no choice because we need money to enable us to live somewhere, eat etc to a greater extent I have opted out of the programming.
We now home educate and even though our sons are autistic they are being taught how to think for themselves and not to allow anyone to programme them. So why would I then go on to choose ABA and destroy their free thinking.
Caroline I am not having a bash at everyone in Canada which I do realise is a vast nation, nor even those who do choose to do ABA – but I am very much aware that the controversy in Canada concerning the way in which autistic people are ignored and outcast even by their own national body has attracted attention internationally. I remember signing a letter in support of the autistic adults in Canada a few years ago now. To my knowledge nothing has really changed in Canada where the Quebec Human Rights Commission ruled three times that autistic people are in fact a plague, and that describing them in this way is not only not harmful to them, but is truly beneficial, and a sign that non-autistics with good intentions are helping them. Indeed, autistics should be grateful to have such dedicated advocates raising public awareness of their plague-like nature on their behalf.
My biggest worry would not be whether or not I followed an ABA programme with my child but what kind of a country my children were going to be living in when they were adults and how they can expect to be viewed and treated. It quite frankly horrifies me.
Carole said:
“I would be interested to know how many of the adults who had ABA are now working and living regular lives. To me this is very relevant when you start handing out ‘gold standard’. What is the long term outcome from this intervention? How do you measure success?”
I run forums for people with Aspies and thus far, none who have gone through the ABA programs report any permanent change in their behavior. The ABA that they know harks back to the inventer of the program whose name is Lovaas. These autistics were subjected to physical restraint, electroshock therapy, and beatings to get them behave. And behave they did, to avoid more punishment. But upon achieving adulthood, they reverted to behavior most comfortable for them, that being autistic behavior.
It was only after psychotherapy to overcome what they had suffered under the ABA programs as children did they manage to make headway in the world as adults.
Though what I have heard from autistics is anecdotal, it seems so commonplace that it can be taken as fact. ABA, as far as I have heard, does more than any one therapy to prevent correct and useful integration of the autistic into the world.
Despite beliefs to the contrary, Lovaas style ABA is still widely practiced today although most reputable people have dimissed the punitive aspects of ABA and focused more on simple behavioral methods.
I personally would not recommend it for anyone.
To anyone who has not tried ABA, you carry little wieght in discounting it as a potential “gold standard”. It is impossible to take a viable position against anything you have not tried. For our son, we were scared off of trying ABA by the “programmed” and “robotic” statements made by naysayers. It wasn’t until our son was 5 years old did we give it a try. With the RIGHT behavior analyst setting up and maintaining the program – ABA has been brilliant! Our son is much more communicative, is reading, doing math, having conversations, has been potty trained and so much more that I could take up pages and pages by the increases gained through the proper ABA based interventions. This is not meant to say that the use of ABA interventions should be exclusive. Each one of these children is very individual in their needs and each child needs to be assessed and have each individual need and component of who they are included in their overall treatment. However, we have had the great fortune to work with truly talented behavior analysts who work with the child and create a customized program to address our son’s very individual needs. Through the brilliance of Applied Behavioral Analysis, we have been able to closely track exactly what our son is learning and the progress he is making. There is nothing robotic or programmed about it.
Just as with cancer and the “gold standard” of chemotherapy treatments, just because the most widely used treatment works for most, it doesn’t work for everyone and is not typically employed exclusively, but in conjunction with other complimentary treatments and thus is the gold standard – but not the only way to go.
Given the data that exists currently, ABA should absolutely be offered as a gold standard when it is done properly and is used in conjunction with other appropriate and complimentary interventions.
Through my experiences, I have most definitely learned not to sit in judgement of others, particularly parents of their choices and their path, but you can’t in good faith denegrate an effective tool in the intervention tool box based on rumor and speculation. Please don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
Sandy said, “life is made up of consequences, and I think that’s hardly comparable to ABA.
Any consequence that reinforces, extincts, or shapes behavior (in other words, ALL consequences that affect behavior) applies to the science of Behavior Analysis.
Sandy also said, “most of us do not need repetitive teaching in order for us to maintain simple concepts. ABA is not what we all do in general life- these things come natural to us. they do not with a child with autism.”
How did you learn the alphabet? Didn’t you label each letter numerous times before you could finally remember and retain the meaning? What about writing your name? How many times did you practice writing each letter before you developed the skillset that enabled you to write your name with ease? Many times, right? I would call those simple concepts, wouldn’t you? Repetitive teaching is how we ALL learn and retain information. Even if you “think” you can learn something without repetitive teaching, your unconscious mind is like a DVD player that rewinds and replays what you learned over and over again.
Later in the comment, Sandy said, “I myself also do not believe in a reward system of M&M’s or stickers. I believe a child should learn to do these things without the concept of something is given if they perform a simple task. I myself am trying to teach the ‘want’ to do it without those rewards ABA is based on.”
First of all, how do you establish the “want” or desire for reinforcement without using the rewards ABA is based on? ABA applies to ALL reinforcement of behavior. When your child does a “simple task” do you say, “good job,” or something similar? If so, you just gave social reinforcement (a reward ABA is based on). Do you pat your child on the back, smile, clap, give a high five, or wink to show your approval? If so, you just gave nonvocal reinforcement (a reward ABA is based on). When your child speaks, signs, points, or displays a PECS card to “eat,” do you give food? If so, you just gave “appropriate” reinforcement for a mand or request (a reward ABA is based on). When your child is terrified of a scary image on the TV, do you turn it off? If so, you just gave negative reinforcement (a reward ABA is based on).
When your child screams, cries, and tantrums in a grocery store to leave, do you give in and walk out? If so, you just gave reinforcement to an abherrent behavior (a reward ABA is based on). Even worse, you “condition” your child to scream and cry the next time you visit the grocery store. Why? Because your child now associates screaming and crying in a grocery store with “escape.” Your child figures, if I scream and cry for long enough, my parent will give up the battle for control and I get to leave this aversive situation or environment. After all, if it works once, it will probably work again. (This example also applies to sensory hypersensitivity.)
(By the way, I’m not implying anyone who has posted a comment or their children exhibit these behaviors.)
Carole said, “We now home educate and even though our sons are autistic they are being taught how to think for themselves and not to allow anyone to programme them. So why would I then go on to choose ABA and destroy their free thinking.
How would ABA destroy their free thinking? If you don’t mind me asking, how do you teach them to think for themselves and not allow anyone to program them without “you” programming the way they think (as an effect of your teaching)?
the difference is ABA offers an animate item for importance, where as I offer an inanimate item, a smile. what children with autism lack is spontaneous reaction and I am sorry, ABA rewards teaches a child you get an item. I cant tell you how many times an ABA therapist trained with a sucker and the parent or other care giver didn’t have a sucker, meltdown city.
facial rewards/ responses and verbal rewards/ responses have been around since the birth of the first baby, has little to do with an ABA concept.
children with autism many times need the repetition to learn many things, much more than a typical child. many kids with autism memorize things, like the ABC’s or a whole movie word for word, but never use them in practical use. the manner in how you go about that repetition is the difference and choice. I myself am attempting to teach my child with repetition, the concepts behind why they are doing the things we ask of them. sometimes it doesn’t matter what method you try if the concept isn’t connected with the child. I am also sorry, but known controversy surrounding ABA is the child ends up with robotic responses, never being spontaneous or understanding concepts. you may not agree with this, but it is controversial and something I did not and would not do with my child not should be a standard for all kids in a public school.
“With Applied Behavior Analysis the belief and the idea is that an individual with autism will respond better to behavior being rewarded than if the behavior was ignored altogether. In other words, every time the individual with autism responds to the therapist in an acceptable or desired manner they are rewarded with something that is of value to them. Instead of ignoring the desired behavior the professional has rewarded the acceptable response, hoping that at some point the behavior will become part of daily life.”
“The difficulty and criticism for such a technique is that some individuals with autism won’t respond well to the process because it is not in their nature to do so. The child may become too strained or stressed resulting in more negative behaviors, which outweigh the power rewards give for the acceptable behavior. Also, the therapy can take up an extensive amount of time that cuts into family interaction, finances and may stress the individual with autism.
Finding the perfect solution for all children with autism is an unattainable goal. Some may find tremendous success and results with one form of therapy while others may find no real discernable results with the exact same process. Trying different therapies or processes is one way to decide which is the right one for you or your loved one.”
http://autism-treatments.org/treatment-types/applied-behavior-analysis-aba/
How would ABA destroy their free thinking? If you don’t mind me asking, how do you teach them to think for themselves and not allow anyone to program them without “you” programming the way they think (as an effect of your teaching)?
Chris I was responding to your post No 16 where you pointed out that to a greater extent we are all being programmed by the system throughout our lives. I agreed with you because we are. By home educating we have managed to by pass a great deal of the systems programming which, where my sons were concerned, was geared towards normalizing them without them understanding why they needed to be normalized. To a greater extent I feel that this is what ABA does – and before I am told once again not to comment if I have not tried ABA – we do meet with parents whose children have done ABA and I see and hear the programmed responses being made by their children. They know the way they are expected to ask for something. You can see them get part way through a sentence and then realise that they are not putting the sentence together in the way that they are expected to do so, and so they start again. My own take on this is that they have not realised ‘why’ the sentence is not correct just that it is not. I say this having heard 5 different takes on one sentence before the child hit on the right one.
I will accept that I am to maybe a greater extent programming my own kids. I make them question things before doing them. Is this the right thing for ‘me’ to be doing and saying and why? I don’t want them spending their whole lives never having understood why it is not nice to tell your physiotherapist that she can take the Halloween Mask off now, because she had no idea that this is your newest joke and might be offended because you were saying that she is really gross (this happened to us today so it’s not something I just plucked from mid air) I want my son to understand his actions and people’s reactions. I want them to know why it’s not cool to roll around on the floor in a restaurant and I want him not to do that because he himself understands why it’s not cool. I want him to know that it’s cool to be autistic and that his Mom accepts him warts and all. And that together we can unravel the world that he truly does not connect with and hopefully make enough sense of it for him to be able to cope on his own one day.
My own take on the education system in general is that it is pointless to pass exams and have the qualifications if you do not have the skills to apply your knowledge. I want my kids to be able to apply their knowledge. To be able to do that you need to understand why you just managed to crack the theory of relativity and question how you did it.
How would ABA destroy their free thinking? If you don’t mind me asking, how do you teach them to think for themselves and not allow anyone to program them without “you” programming the way they think (as an effect of your teaching)?
Hi Carole
Nice meeting you on a forum
Wanted to leave one comment for Christopher .
Carole did not teach her son’s to think for themselves. She has helped them put their own thoughts into words; made sure that those words carried shared understandings; and then used meaningful words to have meaningful conversations.
Autism doesn’t prevent the person from thinking. If the autistic person has not the vocabulary to express his wants, needs, emotions, thoughts, etc, he or she will resort to behaviour. In modifying behaviour one ignores the original message and the person who’s behaviour has been modified purely on grounds of ‘this behaviour is unacceptable’ is no wiser than before his or her behaviour has been modified. Understanding the original message may take lots of guesswork but guessing it its worth its weight in gold (communication I should say).
One example springs to mind. A 49 year old, who could use language to talk, was terrified of driving on any streets with schools. Figuring out why took some time. This person interpreted the ‘school crossing ‘ sign literally. Believing that the actual building might one day cross the road and not knowing which day that might happen, this person avoided driving on any roads that displayed the ‘school crossing’ sign in order to avoid crashing into this building.
This person had thoughts that nobody taught them. My job was to find out how many of these thoughts shaped ‘unreasonable or weird’ behaviour(s) and how could I go about changing the ‘false beliefs’ into reality. Once this person accepted/understood the real meaning of the crossing sign driving on such roads was no longer a problem.
In this example, ABA has not ‘destroyed’ the free thinking, it has however taught the person not to share his/her beliefs with anyone because more often than not, people were laughing at what this person had to say. This person kept all beliefs a secret (behaviour modification) yet these beliefs were shaping his/her behaviour every day.
As for the ‘gold standard’…I do not think it can be achieved other than on one on one setting, over however long it may take, until this child or adult is empowered to express his thoughts and feelings. But that is another story
Florica
We all use parts of ABA, that I agree with, it’s how life works. However, when I say to members of the autism community that I use everyday life as a therapy, I get admonished, yelled and sworn at because I am “anti-ABA” and how dare I spout such blasphemus things! Not once did I ever hear any of those people say…YES! You are doing ABA!
When I said ABA didn’t work for my son, I literally mean it didn’t work. You could not motivate him with even his favourite toy, as he had none. You couldn’t give him a break choice because if he thought he had to work to hard for something i.e. ask for it, he would do without, wait until 2 am, then sneak out of bed and get it himself. Discrete Trial didn’t work either because he honestly could have cared less, he was happy in his own world and if he couldn’t get it himself (for example, if we hid desired things so he would have to ask for them), he would stop asking and just sit at his bedroom door, rubbing his head back and forth on the door. Teachers, who you say use ABA in their teaching (I agree by the way) couldn’t reach him either until he was in grade 4.
So, when I say ABA didn’t work for him, I mean it didn’t work for him. Do I use it with other kids? Yes, Every day as the girl I am with thrives on it. However, saying that ABA worked for my son, I just didn’t get the desired results is totally off the mark. It DIDN’T work at all…believing in him and that he would learn when he is ready to learn is what worked…it wasn’t until we were ready to accept him and enter his world that he would venture into ours. I still have the mud-puddle stained shirt in my closet as a reminder of the first time my son allowed me to share a moment with him…he dove into a mud puddle and was laughing at something in a storm drain. Curious, I laid down in the puddle and together we watched a bug float around on a leave in the storm drain. That was the first day he made eye contact, it was the first time he allowed me to share something with him, it was his first self-initiated hug he gave me…always in the past he would run off if you got too close. That, in my house, in my sons’ life, is true measured success. ABA had nothing to do with it. My sons’ readiness to allow others in his space did.
Caroline
I am astonished by what appears to be a “Hatfield vs. McCoys” conversation. If you’ve experienced success with ABA, DIR or any other type of method, then congrats to you, but more importantly to your child. I am a parent whose child experienced 40 hrs/week w/ ABA for years, but something was missing. He learned the drills but couldn’t adapt them to everyday life, therefore we tried, and have had success with DIR. If we can all agree that persons on the spectrum are all so different, then why must we try to pursuade that our method is better than your method. Just a thought…..
“I am also sorry, but known controversy surrounding ABA is the child ends up with robotic responses, never being spontaneous or understanding concepts.”
Do you want to know why some people in ABA therapy end up with robotic “rote” responses and never or rarely initiate spontaneous communication or understand concepts? The reason is because many “so-called” ABA therapists and behavior analysts fail to teach a target until the person generalizes it.
Here’s what I mean…
I could teach a child to label a picture of a wagon. So, the child would say “wagon” whenever I held up the picture of the wagon and asked him “What is it?”. However, if I pulled a shiny, red wagon in front of the child and asked him “What is it?,” he may not say “wagon” because he hasn’t learned and retained enough variations of wagon in different colors, sizes, angles, environments, and in 2D and 3D with distractors to generalize the concept. Not only do these variables play a part in generalization, but the discriminative stimulus (Sd) I use (in this case, “What is it?”) also needs to be varied. So, instead of just “What is it?,” I might ask “What object is this?” or “Can you tell me what I’m holding?”. Eventually the goal is for the child to be able to spontaneously label any variation of “wagon” without a vocal or nonvocal prompt.
However, just because a child can label any variation of a “wagon” in any environment with distractors doesn’t mean the child can generalize it across operants. In other words, just because the child can label the wagon, doesn’t mean the child will say “wagon” when he wants to request the object or can receptively follow a command to touch or retrieve the wagon. That’s why you need to teach the child not only how to label (called a “tact” by B.F. Skinner) a person, place, thing, idea, adjective, preposition, or action, but also how to request (called a “mand” by B.F. Skinner), follow receptive commands, and answer WH questions (who, what, when, where, why, how) in the form of an intraverbal. At a more advanced level, you want the child to tact and follow receptive commands by feature, function, and class (FFC).
Once the person generalizes (or truly understands) the concept, he will be able to use it to initiate spontaneous communication across operants.
It is interesting to see how many people here post with full confidence but have no idea what ABA is — I recommend that instead of listening to people trying to sell you their services (there are so many unqualified people calling themselves behavior analysts) — and look into our literature — our journals and textbooks will give you a better understanding.
I am amazed at the attitudes of the people that support ABA I wonder how we can say that anything is a gold standard for children with autism. I believe that it is a spectrum disorder which means that every child is different. How can we say that one treatment works for every child? I also don’t think that we should be criticizing each other for the choices we make but we should be supporting each other.
I might also say that I am not sure how ABA can be a gold standard wouldn’t anyone improve with 40 plus hours of one on one therapy a week? I personally am trained in TEACCH but I also pull from other models depending on the child and what works for them. I would say that as a community of parents and professionals that love and work with autistic children we should support other parents and professionals not judge and criticize them.
Michelle,
While I support ABA, believe the science of Behavior Analysis applies to every living organism, and made my opinions well-known in these comments, not once have I judged or criticized another parent for their choices. Also, not once have I said ABA is the ONLY intervention for autism. Just so you know, I’m not some BCBA who rips off parents for $150-$250 an hour, a special-ed teacher who only faces the challenges of autism for a few hours a day, or some graduate student whose experience with autism comes from the pages of a textbook — I am an active parent, teacher, and advocate of a child with autism and this is my life twenty-four hours a day.
To answer your question, just because a person receives forty hours of one-on-one therapy per week doesn’t mean they will improve — regardless of the therapy (e.g., ABA, RDI, Floortime/DIR, RDI). Quality of therapy matters more than quantity. As a result of forty hours of “defective” therapy, a person could experience massive setbacks and regression due to abherrent behaviors.
First of all let me say that I apologize to anyone that took offense to my earlier post. I am only expressing my opinion. I think that the point has been made by several people that they have been criticized for not supporting ABA. And Since I am one of those special Ed teachers that only faces autism a few hours a day I have worked with several families that have been told that if they don’t use ABA they are doing the wrong thing and their child is not going to get better. I was only trying to point out that maybe as an autism community we should be more supportive of one another’s choices while still believing strongly in what works for us.
I have a great respect for parents of children with autism and the challenges that they face on a day to day basis. I also feel it is my passion and my calling to work with those families and help with those challenges as much as I possibly can. I have just founded a new organization which is first and foremost a parent support group. So again I apologize if I offended anyone this is just my opinion from my experience.
Michelle, I agree with you that we all need to support one another’s choices and beliefs — especially when they differ from our own. And it wasn’t my intention for the “special-ed teacher” remark to sound condescending. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand a person’s meaning with the written word. I appreciate everything you do to help people with autism and their families. I wish you much success in your endeavors. If there is anything I can do to help with your parent support group (e.g., a website), let me know. Blessings!
ABA is Documented no other method is. Other methods do work for some Children but not for most. The fact is ABA got my Son to speak.
We all need motivation in life to accomplish our goals. We go to work for a Pay Check. ABA simply Teachers them that they will be rewarded for positive actions.
Scientist are working on a Cure but not every person in the Spectrum needs a Cure. Autism is neurological disorder. Research is showing that it is Environmentally and Genitally based. Based your arguments on fact not emotion. Log on to simonfoundation.org or sciencedaily.com and Educate yourself.
Lovaas began working on ABA in the 1960’s but it is not and old method. It is a Scientifically documented method.
I always assumed that, when people asserted that ABA met the gold standard, they knew what the gold standard meant. Clearly, they do not. ABA is documented and studied, however, it does not meet the gold standard for the scientific method for several reasons: (1) control groups are often less intense versions of ABA (performed by parents with fewer hours), (2) selection into the control and experimental groups are not done randomly–in order to apply the statistical distributions that prove ABA, every child must have an equal chance of being placed in either group, (3) the sample sizes are too small to be making the claims that are made about ABA, (4) the peer-reviewed replication studies are too few, and (5) assessment needs to be done by completely independent reviewers who are all blind to whom will be receiving a given treatment before the study and to whom received a given treatment after the study. If a study is poorly designed, then all the statistics in the world mean nothing. (I have a master’s degree in statistics and took a course on experimental design.)
Here are some questions I would like answered: where are the follow up studies of the original children as adults? Are they married? Do they have friends? Are they able to stay employed doing meaningful work? Are they independent? For a person to be truly indistinguishable from normal, all of the above must occur. Since autism is a life-long disability, we need more than follow-up of these children as they enter adolescence. Their long-term outcome ought to be documented in peer-review journals.
I think it is perfectly fine for parents to make the best and most informed choices they possibly can. But, it is not fine to make claims that a method meets the gold standard of scientific research when it does not. Sixty years of autism awareness has produced no studies on promising therapies that truly meet the gold standard.