@A MyAutismTeam Member can you please update about your kid's progress with intensive home+ center based ABA? We are starting intensive ABA in same way after doing only 10 hours of aba at home. Little skeptical about putting less than 4 year old thru this.

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A MyAutis...

My 6 year-old daughter has been in an ABA private therapy place for about 3 months. That's probably too short a time to give it a fair chance but so far I'm not impressed considering we are paying $10K/year making it the more expensive than any private school in this city. That's more than the in-state tuition when I went to grad school. That wouldn't bother me if I thought it was worth the money but is there a time when most a parents turn into ABA cheerleaders? Is it in 1 year, 2 years. . . .?

We put a lot of faith into ABA based on the glowing recommendations I'd heard and read about. Maybe it's because my daughter is (I think) in the middle of the spectrum and she's not likely to ever get mainstreamed but she does talk when she wants something. I don't see the point if she can't learn any basic academic stuff and I don't what she is learning. My work problems don't help so we are looking at yet another cross country move.

Makes me really envy the previous generations that didn't have to deal with autism and hear all their complaints. We have a son who doesn't have autism and he's far easier to deal with. He is really starting to dislike his sister's antagonizing behavior and asked "if he could get another sister". Kind of funny but also kind of sad the more I think about it.

We only started with ABA at the age of 12 years, I too was sceptical that the therapy would be too intense and might cause him to regress. Also we have been trained to apply the ABA ourselves with help from the facilitators and the online training offered through the Rethink program. www.rethinkfirst.com I only have praise for the system where we have learnt to be consistent in our interactions and instructions with him - it has helped the change in behaviours to be reinforced. It also took time for us to get to grips with everything and for us to reinforce the approach with his teacher, us as parents, his grandparents and extended family.
It appreciate that our setup is probably more relaxed than with an actual therapist or team of therapists. I do know that they recommend checking regularly to see that the instructions given by one therapist will be as well received as those of another to ensure the child has learnt to generalise the skill, irrespective of trainer, place or differing materials, We have a child session every month where the facilitator will test our approach and guide us on what may work better, how our instructions could potentially be creating confusion and how to tweak the approach for guaranteed success. Good luck - it is not easy, however - well worth the effort. We are able to stand in a queue and wait for our turn, visit a restaurant as a family and visit new places with far less melt downs.

I would give it a try and see what works for your child. Also you are the advocate you dont have to start with 25 or even do 25. You can tell them you want to start slow. He is approved for those hours which is great. You push to how you want it implemented