Is there any "evidence" I can give the special education director of "prove" my son needs ABA.
They have to use research-based methods to teach your son. If he is not currently making adequate progress with the methods that are being used, they have to up the frequency and intensity of interventions. There is a TON of evidence that ABA works with autistic kids. Google ABA. Also, the yahoo group, ABAparents, is an excellent one to get involved with. You should ask this question of that group. They'll have tons of info for you.
ABA is the only empirically based (research proven) method out there. Although excellent results are also acheived in TEACCH, RDI, DIR, etc.....ABA is the only one backed with research. If you google journal of applied behavior analysis you will find tons of research to back your request.I am also talking about methodologies for teaching subject matter. For example, the law now requires that a reading program used with a particular child HAS to be research-based an peer reviewed to show that it works for the sort of problem the particular child HAS (decoding or reading comp, for example).