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ABA Therapy…. your thoughts?

It can be a polarizing, yet highly praised form of autism therapy.  Some parents say ABA “recovered” their children, while others say it seemed abusive and cruel.  It’s a disciplined, rigorous and difficult therapy for many children, but it may also be effective.  In fact ABA is the only scientifically proven therapy to produce positive results for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas at UCLA developed this behavioral therapy, now practiced by independent therapists across the country.  Much of it involves teaching children to curb negative behaviors and reward positive ones.  Children can learn basic life skills, develop purposeful play, and even form speech basics through this therapy.  Catherine Maurice’s book “Let Me Hear Your Voice” chronicles a great deal of struggles and rewards from an ABA program.

Did ABA work for you, and when did you see the results? 

I baby-sit for a girl as well as help her family with ABA therapy for her and ABA has done wonders. She has been in ABA for almost two years now and even though results were not instantly there, she has progressed so much. I am really happy that her family chose ABA because she is able to respond and communicate more than she ever has. She is also able to do things that we never thought she would be able to do.
If a family were to ask me about ABA I would recommend them to try it. It does not work for every child with autism but results vary in any type of therapy that is tried.

ABA is not the only evidence based therapy model to show positive results. There is evidence that exists as well as studies currently being done that support the use and need of relationship based therapies and specifically DIR/Floortime. (I would be happy to provide copies of articles from studies to those who want them) What throws people off about this model is that it doesn’t always look like therapy, it looks like play. If you look in to books like “The Child with Special Needs”, “Engaging Autism” (both by Dr. Stanley Greenspan) or “Play to Talk” by Dr. James MacDonald, you will learn more about the benefits and methodologies. Its a wonderful model which can really help the child to connect emotionally with others and has shown much better results in areas of generalization and social pragmatics. What is really great about it is that this is something that parents can be heavily involved in, and in many cases they are some of the best people to work with their kids.
The one thing I would like to point out is that it need not be a “one or the other” thing. Floortime and ABA can work really well together to help children to progress towards recovery.