Our first shot was to read up on ABA therapy and give it a try ourselves. Even when the state came through, they only paid for an hour per week of ABA therapy, and studies show that best results come from 20 to 30 hours per week.

If you have the ability to put on a fund-raiser, then it is something I would consider, but for people like me, it was easier to learn ABA therapy than to do a fund-raiser.

There are plenty of online resources to learn the basics of ABA, but be sure to read the reviews. Some of the resources won't work for some kids.

The same is true of books. Read the reviews before you buy the book. The Applied Behavior Analysis book by Cooper and Heron is something like $100, but you can get it used on Amazon and elsewhere for closer to $20.

But if you have something that motives your son (with us it was food), then you can go ahead and get started on ABA yourself. You can get started well before starting the formal program, and have a huge head start when the formal program is ready.

My suggestion:
1. Make a list of what skills he needs. (With us, it was pointing, nouns, and simple requests.)
2. Offer the reward in exchange for the behavior you want. (With us, if he said "cookie", or even tried, he got a cookie.)
3. If he doesn't get it in a few seconds, give him the reward anyway, so he is encouraged to keep trying.
4. If you have trouble, break it down into smaller pieces. (We used to give my son a reward just for looking anywhere near our eyes.)
5. Don't be afraid to break the rules. (The books tell us not to reward the word "more" because it is too non-specific to be useful. We were so happy to get the word that we rewarded it like he had just discovered electricity.)
6. Quantity is better than quality. Don't be worried if you are not doing ABA the way a professional therapist would. If you are teaching him the rewards of interaction for four hours a day, you will get more interaction than a therapist will in an hour.
7. Don't give up. It is easy to just let kids watch TV, but it doesn't work. It is hard to interact for four hours a day, but it gets results. It may take months, but studies show that it gets results better than anything else.
8. Check in with a professinal once a month or so, and get advice on anything you want to improve. If you get a good therapist, they will quickly realize that their time is best spent teaching you what to do rather than working with your son.

'Rethink Autism' has a website that allows you to get online supervision for your ABA program for a much lower price than you could get in-person.

It is still expensive to do it yourself. You lose time away from work, and you have to train yourself to become an expert in ABA. But it is worth doing.

It is definitely worth it.

I recommend no. I did a fund raiser the first year and I ended up spending a lot of time on it when there were so many other things that I needed to be doing. Instead spend time trying to get funding that will last from year to year. Ideas:
1. Most states have funding systems through their disability department. So your child may qualify for a Medicaid waiver or crisis funding.
2. Several states have passed laws that require insurance companies to pay for ABA. However even if you are in a state with this law, you need to check to see if your insurance is covered by state law.
3. If you are military, there's some additional funding resources for ABA.
4. You can begin working with your school district to require them to implement an ABA program. However if your school district is resistent, this can take a long time to realize the dream. It took me 5 years before they finally hired the ABA consultant.
5. RDI is a much cheaper alternative and is easier for a family to implement. I'm still learning about this.

In some states it is the school system that actually pays for ABA and not the state itself, so if your child is school aged I would look into it. Sometimes the school will tell you that they are giving your child ABA while at school, which is probably true, however it is incorporated in the curriculum and is often not enough. If your child requires more than that then I would suggest requesting an IEP meeting and have them add some extra at home ABA and if it is warranted they have to take care of it. If it seems like you are getting nowhere then I would use the threat of an Advocate or attorney and they will work with you most times just from the threat alone.

Other than that I would try to use some of the ABA techniques at home that were suggested because it will help. The only issues sometimes is that if it is you and it is in the home environment sometimes the child will not react as well as they would out of home and with someone else. The reason for this is very simple and that is because your child is still pushing boundaries for you as a parent no matter what issues they may have, whereas a someone else not a parent does not have to deal with as much of that.

Have the fundraiser if you don't use it for this therre will be other areas you could use the help

Do not wait! I don't know what other therapy you're getting, but you want to start some therapy ASAP - speech, OT, etc. ABA is crazy expensive, but check with your public school to see what they offer. Call multiple ABA providers in your area to see if any of them know of financial assistance that's available.
Wisconsin mandates that insurance companies cover autism therapy. There's lots of ways "around this", such as self insured companies, but you may want to further explore your insurance options. You may want to go as far as looking for a new job that offers you insurance that covers autism therapy.
In the meantime, I would start him on the number of ABA hours that you can afford., even if it's only a couple of hours per week. This will help you get some strategies to work at home. But don't wait a year.