There are many in the autistic community that are excited about and actually rant and rave about A.B.A. which is an acronym for Applied Behavior Analysis. It is a behavioral intervention that helps give children the ability to learn through discrete trials and motivation. We lived in California when we were introduced to this type of therapy. It has had a high success rate with children on the spectrum, so they have created schools that are solely based on this strategy. We were blessed that my oldest was placed in a private school with partial public funding based on this therapy. He was only 2.5 years old when diagnosed and enrolled into this school. I admit it was hard for me emotionally to let go of him this early and not keep him at home. However, I believed with my whole heart, he needed it. It was located an hour from my house, so I had commute back n forth. It turns out, it was just what he needed. He was a fast learner, and in six months, he was more or less graduated from that program. At that point in time, he was moved to a cluster unit of high functioning autistic kids for preschool age. This new school, it had some ABA based things, but it also provided alternative approaches to teaching. When my oldest was diagnosed, he was considered pretty moderate on that spectrum, so it was a privilege to have him join the high functioning kids. He did super in that classroom too. By kinder garden he was mainstreamed. He started out with needing a teacher's aide in the classroom to help him adjust, but he was slowly "weaned off" that need. I want to say it was second grade, that he truly didn't really need much help in the classroom, but he still need sensory integration breaks because he would sometimes get overstimulated. I was trained on ABA myself at home, and I was really GUNG-HO on this type of strategy. I really know a lot about it. It was exciting to have something really working for us. I also studied child development and psychology in college, so I already had a knowledge base for it.
And then....my second child, he was diagnosed about six months later, now they said he was borderline and honestly didn't know if at 18 months old, he showed enough on the testing to determine if he was on the spectrum, but he had enough delays to get early intervention for him too. I opted a program that was home based for him for the next year and a half where tutors came and went all day long in working with him while my oldest went to a public school just down the street, in walking distance. They were half day programs, but since my younger one was so infant like they considered the nap he needed in that schedule and that is why it took part of the morning and part of the afternoon. I liked most of the tutors but it was a bit obtrusive to have someone always in my home. It was also A.B.A. based program. By the time, my younger one was 3 years old, I was not happy with having it based at home, and we had determined that A.B.A. method was REALLY not working for him, like it has his older brother. I was VERY pleased with the preschool that his older brother was attending down the street, so we got him enrolled there. I think it was mostly a LoVaas method focus called T.E.A.A.C.H mixed with four other strategies. He responded a lot better to this new program. We were thankful that the other alternatives was partially working for him.
My concluding thought about why A.B.A. did not work for him and did for the other one was based on one very important fact, the A.B.A. assumes the kids have the capacity to understand cause and effect. They have to be able to develop some reasoning skills appropriate for a toddler.....and well, I mean toddlers don't have much reasoning skills, but they do start to emerge into that phase as they understand language that there are opposites. Unfortunately, my younger one took a much longer time to understand cause and effect.
We had to start from scratch with my second child, he just learned differently and his personality was in many ways not the same as his brother. It became REALLY complicated as parents to understand those differences, meet their individual needs, and handle it all. They couldn't be more different in many ways. We did our best. It was neat for a spell when they were in the same preschool class before my eldest started kinder garden. They were so close in age, that in some ways it made things easier and in some ways complicated it too.
