Is ABA and habilitation the same ?

I think it can work together or conflict, depending on how both therapies are being done. A lot of people combine them. The Greenspan book says that a child might need a BCBA for behavior or maybe for specific skills but to avoid a lot of repetitive teaching. (not the exact words) Our son's school likes the kids to learn language through experiences and meaningful activities. His school combines DIR with Developmental Language Model. This model suggests that kids with autism still have to go through the milestones and learn language like typical kids. Our son learned to request with a full sentence at 2, but needs reminders because he missed milestones that would bring it naturally. He learned through therapy. When we started this school, we were told that they do not use Verbal Behavior or Pecs. Our son's preschool used pecs and ABA used VB. We have a meeting tomorrow so that we can set goals that work together. I would ask the DIR school. Maybe they can communicate. We added the ABA/Floortime combo because it is hard to find a DIR person through insurance that can come a few days a week for a couple of hours. One of the founders (speech Pathologist) from our son's school said that learning language through repeating can derail progress. Different professionals believe different things. We liked what we saw from VB because our son was talking and answering some wh questions. He was rote. We are noticing more spontaneous language since moving to DIR, but the sentences are not perfect. It is always a tough call.

I just saw this - thanks for answering. Are you saying ABA intraverbal training conflicts with Floortime-style speech therapy? I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on that.

We used ABA when our son was in preschool with Floor Time as a supplement. We mainly used ABA to teach skills and help with behavior. We used Floor time during play time to engage him and strengthen our relationship. He is now in a DIR school. We realize that there is so much more to the model. We are about to add a Floor Time/ABA combination in home. His school suggested a meeting with us to make sure that we are on the same page. Our therapist will be joining by phone. We are not going to focus on Verbal Behavior to teach language because it conflicts.