My little one *LOVES* her ABA therapists and every day asks when they are coming. She is always disappointed if it's a weekend or holiday and she has to wait. She doesn't like 100% of the tasks they do, but the therapists really do try to incorporate the training programs into her preferred activities as much as practical. I can tell that the BCBA is familiar with Floortime and RDI because I can recognize elements of those approaches incorporated into the ABA sessions. Are there bad ABA therapists out there? Unfortunately, yes. There was one program I heard about on the news that uses electric shocks and that is outrageous IMHO. But that kind of abusive program is the exception rather than the norm.

I am not a believer in the shots being the cause of autism but I know a lot of parents think they are. The real question here is does it really matter if it was or not, how is that going to help you now? I think people are latching on to this hoping it is proven so they can sue and claim damages, but what good is that going to do. Think about it, by the time you would ever collect anything it would be to late to do anything anyway.

The fact is that your child has autism and needs to be treated now so they can have the best outcome later in life. Wasting time and energy chasing a ghost does you child no good, but getting them ABA, Speech. PT and OT will do them a lot of good. I am sorry to put things so bluntly but no one ever talks about this aspect, they only argue about data saying the shots do or do not cause autism, and it is pointless because again it changes nothing at this point.

The only reason to really worry about the shots is if you are going to have other children and then you would decide whether to get your child vaccinated. Then you have to decide if it is worth your child getting one of the diseases the vaccines protect against.

@A MyAutismTeam Member I've often wondered about the same thing. I too believe that the MMR vaccine contributed to my son's autism. In less than a week after receiving the vaccine he lost speech and didn't begin talking again until he was about 3 1/2 yrs old.

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A MyAutis...

Sounds like you had a bad experience with ABA and it does happen out there, however a lot of children respond well to it because they get rewards for doing what is asked of them. I will say it does depend on the therapist and how good they are. No child autistic or not likes to be forced to do something however if you just give in to them all the time when they get older you will pay the price for not retraining them to do things they don't want to or differently so to speak.

If you have found a way to get bad behavior ,self injury , and aggression under control without ABA and meds that is great but often it cannot be done without them. I have seen wY to many horror stories of children going into their late teens who were not helped early and now the have to be put into a state home and are very unhappy and all of this was because their problems were not addressed early. This is a quality of life issue where you are giving them the skills they need to be better adults, and the retraining is not easy.

I think parents are already doing the traditional approaches as best as possible and then some. The question of etiology is extremely important from research perspective, first from prevention and susceptibility research, then early diagnosis, and ultimately a cure. It isn't a question of lawsuits or whatever but about doing the right thing. It maybe too late for most children but unfortunately there are millions more to come and that is not a sustainable for anyone when and if half the workforce is disabled. It is a very important quality of life issue within this generation.