Building off one of @A MyAutismTeam Member points, good people are essential. Try out different speech therapists, etc until you find someone she relates well to. I took mine to three speech therapy places- Scottish Rite was terrible for him- young inexperienced college students who aren’t trained for special needs- he made almost zero progress there in months of therapy- spent most of time running away from and avoiding therapists, another place was another speech factory with a young inexperienced therapist- he said one word in 45 mins and was not engaged at all, the other he was Super engaged right from the beginning- tried hard and she really knew how to keep him motivated. You don’t have time to waste on people who can’t motivate your kid. Consider Private speech therapy 2x a week (Or pay them for extra 15 mins on top of 30 min session) unless you feel the school district does a good job.

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A MyAutis...

I’ve experienced a number of ABA clinics for my son & they were all in it for the money. Not one person was dedicated & they did everything by the book. From my research into ABA, I’ve found it to be mostly about the therapist collecting data & is a very robotic training method. Unless a child has severe behavioral issues, I wouldn’t put any 3 yr. old through the very stressful process. My nonverbal son was mistreated & neglected in some ways so I can’t recommend ABA based on his experiences. I also have to disagree with the above posters Doctor who believes it works best for more severely affected Autistic children. A child can only benefit from any therapy if he or she can comprehend & follow basic directions. If a therapist can’t teach an ASD child at their level of functioning, then there will likely be no benefit to the child. There is no one size fits all therapy for our ASD kids.

Also check out Gemiini - I found that to be effective for helping him understand that apples, for example, have certain characteristics- but several types fit into apple definition- green apples, red apples, yellow apples. It was helpful for us for a few months. https://gemiini.org/#/get-started

@A MyAutismTeam Member. As you & I know all too well there isn’t any therapy “made” for our lower functioning kiddos. I can definitely understand your thinking your son’s school wanted him out because he threw off the success averages, it’s the sad truth. I’ve experienced numerous therapists that didn’t want to work with my son using the excuse that he “doesn’t follow directions”. It would be amazing if there were therapists who were specifically trained to work with our LF/nonverbal kids. Do they even exist, no. My son is the master of ignoring therapists if they don’t make therapy fun. I swear my kid has had the young, inexperienced therapists who think they can teach a nonverbal child & they prove over & over that they can’t. They made pathetic excuses & some lies to get out of providing my kid therapy. I agree, corruption is rampant in ABA clinics because people are told that ABA is the ONLY way to help our Autistic kids function. I’ve witnessed things most people wouldn’t believe. Sadly, our LF kids hold no value in our society because if they can’t contribute to society they are simply seen as a burden. ABA simply wants to “fix” our kids to try to mold them to fit into the neurotypical world.

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A MyAutis...

Nay. Kids are more than just behaviors. Rewards and punishment are for dogs. It is borderline abuse in my books. Look up what autistic community says about it. Not the non autistic as they didn’t have to deal with it neither do they understand it.