ABA is hard work for a little 3 year old. The first few weeks he would come home exhausted, go right to bed, wake up for dinner, and go back to sleep for the night. Every day was the same thing. I have to believe this is the right thing to do. The most widely accepted research states that this is the best way to help a child with autism. It is hard as a mom though.
I wish I could keep my little guy home with me. Let him spend his days playing outside with his brother and sister. This is his big brother's last year at home before starting kindergarten - part of holding Nathan back a year was to give the boys another year at home together to just be kids.
So, is the ABA therapy working? I guess so in some areas. They tell me Matt is passing his programs and doing great. He is becoming more independent. The potty training is starting to actually produce some good results.
I don't know if he is talking any more though or connecting with us any better than before. It's only been 2 1/2 months, so I'm sure these things will come, but I wish we could see big results a lot quicker.
He is just now getting to the point where he is not utterly exhausted after school every day. Now I have to make the decision on whether to get him started in his prescribed occupational therapy 2-3 hrs per week and his prescribed speech therapy 2-3 hrs per week. More hours of not interacting with my son, but his developmental pediatrician feels that he needs this. My mommy heart wants to just let him be 3. I wish I knew what to do.
There is actually debate about whether ABA is any good. The study where 47% of autistic children were cured used aversives--i.e. pain--to achieve the results. Since then, nobody has actually tested whether ABA actually works without the infliction of pain. ABA--essential or waste of time? Nobody really knows, but it certainly does make a lot of money for those who work in the industry. I recommend this Times article that compares ABA with a newer treatment, DIR: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191852-1,00.html
ReplyDeleteAlso, check out Aspies for Freedom. They'll give you the scoop on how adults with Asperger's and Autism view their condition and the childhood treatments they were given.
It has been overwhelming to sort through the vast amount of information out there. Everyone has an opinion on what does and doesn't work. We've definitely seen some improvements using ABA therapy since I wrote this post 4 months ago, but there are so many other treatment options out there that just lack the studies on whether they are truly beneficial. Sensory integration, hippotherapy, biomedical therapies, Speech, Floortime model, etc. We obviously want to do what's best for our son, but figuring out exactly what that is.... now that's the hard part. The nice thing is, he's gotten to the point where we know he loves being at school. He is communicating more and stimming less. Although it is ABA therapy, the day is laid out like preschool with interactions with other children during snacks, music time, and circle time. All of his teachers / therapists are friendly and energetic. If we were 6 months in and we still weren't seeing improvement and thought he was unhappy there, we would pull him out in a heartbeat and look into other options.
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