Autism child

Absolutely not for us. I believe it’s very harmful approach

Honestly my son’s diagnosing psychologist was really pushing for us to take the regional route but since ABA was more readily available I had to give it a shot. I have nothing but good things to say

I’ve googled but I cannot find much information or examples - can someone give me some examples of ABA therapy approaches? I’m very curious, as never heard of it before.

I don’t have a child with autism, but I have autism. ABA tells you that your autistic behaviors are wrong and you need to change, rather than helping you learn how to live with them

I do not have a child with autism but I do work with children that are diagnosed with autism. And we are teaching life skills to them and when they get overwhelmed how they can handle it and use their words/voice. The work that I’ve done with my children in general has been a world of difference.

@Polina may I ask why if you don't mind sharing?

Very much for it. I do ABA therapy with my nanny kiddo and my 19 year old has been in ABA therapy for a few years. It’s been very helpful.

@Knadia what is the regional route? I'm new to all of this since my son just got diagnosed.

@Rhi I've also Google but the cons that I've seen is that it's time consuming and may take a while to work, focus on behavior change instead of skills which doesn't seem like negatives to me.

@Kailee does different programs teach different things? Because I've heard some don't teach skills only how to change the behavior.

Oh yea there’s a bunch of different programs. Some kids need it to be focused on behaviors and some don’t. Like there’s ones to teach things like how to cope when the child is told no, and how they can accept it. If that makes sense.

It is definitely time consuming. But nothing happens over night for adults or children.

Incentives. Games. But more importantly, teaching emotional regulation. Healthy. Coping. Mechanisms. Of course life is uncomfortable. Of course people need to learn that life is uncomfortable and scary and accept it. But neurodivergent or not, we never just accept it without learning coping mechanisms. That is how we accept and handle any uncomfortable situation, is through coping mechanisms, whether they're healthy or not. And most helpful productive mental health treatments are all about teaching people how to form healthy coping mechanisms to deal with life's trials. There's a reason why a good therapist will tell their client to "feel their feelings". Because just ignoring any pain or uncomfortable sensations is damaging. Anyone in psychology knows this. Instead of purely focusing on change in behavior, you empathize with what's going on with a person emotionally and teach them techniques that help them deal with uncomfortable situations

There’s amazing specialists at The Soke (clinic based in Chelsea, and it’s been absolute eye opening for us)

I’m a pediatric OT. I only support ABA in extreme cases like the child is consistently unsafe or extremely maladaptive

I always felt my child was slightly “high functioning” for aba or by the time I realised what it was developmentally I felt it wasn’t for him. My friend did it with her son and spoke highly of it plus it introduced her to other sen parents however I think she felt that her son had moved on from it. I think it depends how it’s done and as long as the child is enjoying it.

I do not have a child with autism but have worked in schools that use ABA so I hope it’s okay I comment my experience. I think ABA can be helpful but it’s not for every child.

i work in special ed and have found that its very helpful for some kiddos and not for others. i think it can be a useful approach but it definitely depends on the individual needs of the child. there are some aspects of ABA that i’m not crazy about but overall its worth trying and if its helpful then i would go for it.