Share Expereinces in setting up ABA/VB | Autism PDD
I am sorry to hear that you are finding it difficult to organize things. ABA is very expensive here as well and NOT covered by the school at all. I am trying to organize it for my son as well and we will be paying out of pocket as well. Its not easy financially.
I do not know anything about doing ABA privately in US so all I can say is best luck. Hope things are sorted out for you soon. :)
Mary
Thanks Mary I can't help you either but why can't you fill out your own ablls, you don't need a pro to do that?Why can't the BCBA do the ABLLS? That surprises me. I too, would be very kind but try to convince her to work with you at the lower rate. Will you then have her train therapists to run the programs? Our therapists get paid much lower and are here 25 or so hours a week. We pay 5 hour for our BCBA and she is here 1 hour a week. She was here more in the beginning and we paid a big lump sum to cover her training us and the therapists.
Most of our folks come from an agency, but we pay out of pocket for most of it. (We have a scholarship through the district that helps pay, but we forfeit our right to a FAPE and doesn't cover a good portion.)
I feel like the whole thing is worth it. I would take out a loan if we had to. They are only young once. And, I can't tell you enough what a difference this has made for my son and we've only been doing it 5 months. So many doors have opened--he loves life and can communicate his needs. Once it gets going you really will feel more confident in how to help him yourself. I say keep trying--I know it's hard and it takes a while to get set up.
Kajoli,
I can't remember if I talked with you about this before (seems to me I have), but, the ABLLS is not rocket science and there's no justification for having to pay 100/hour for someone to fill it out. You can buy a copy youself from behavioral analysts (the company that produces it) and it's, like, 50 bucks or something.
Do you have any private autism schools nearby? If not, have you simply tried advertising for a tutor for a young, autistic child? How many hours are you expecting the BCBA to put in (at her 50/100/hour rate)? Are you hiring students or just-starting-out graduates to actually administer the therapy?
Geez, wish you were here. Here, we can hire very competent, experienced therapists for about 15/20 hour. Ours did the ABLLS assessment over a period of a few weeks and we continue to use it to guide the girl's tutoring.
Our current tutor, who is excellent, wants to become a BCBA so she can charge 100/hour, too (can't blame her!), but she's a great teacher, even without the letters.
I should mention our tutors/therapists all have different backgrounds and are each great for different reasons (we have 4). One has a Masters in Counseling Psych, one is a grad student is psych, one has a bachelors in some random area but has experience and the other is an art undergrad. We pay the agency and hour.
So many difficulties starting an VB!!!Well we met a really nice BCBA and she is very nice and we are all set to start the VB program - but she says that we should start with the ABLL's with an agency in a nearby city would do.
Of course the evaluation is quite expi - plus they will come twice and we have to pay mileage @ per mile - but we figure its a one time cost!
Now this BCBA will supervise the program and tells me her rate is 50 an hour
But today I get an email from her saying that because she does not have liability insurance she would prefer we pay her through the agency at the agency rates of 100 an hour
I wrote back to ask her if we could just sign a waiver or something since I DONT want to deal with the agency plus I dont want to pay twice the rate.We are totally paying for this out of pocket
DH was totally in the camp of throwing in the towel - but I have heard so many great things about VB that I am really keen to give it a try and I really liked the consultant - her heart definitely seems in the right place
Has anyone been in a situation like this ?
Please share experiences on starting you own program
Have you seen any of her written programs? What makes programs
effective is how it is tailored to yr. child. There has to be consistencies in
the manner that therapies are applied. With 4 distinct providers, that
places a great burden on you to make sure that one therapist is not
undoing another therapists work. How much parent training will she
provide? Consistency is the key to a good program. Your ABA provider
and yr. VB/ABA provider may run a program that targets the same skill
but with a different prompt hierarchy. They may have a different behavior
intervention plan as well for the same behavior. This is one thing you
need to make sure that everyone is consistant on. You need to give VB/
ABA enough hours to see if it makes a big difference to yr child. You will
have data on this and it should be very evident. Just remember that the
no. of trials and the no. of times that a program is run will make a
difference on how well yr child masters a certain program. I personally
like 8 trials versus 4 or 5 trials. The modeling that goes on with VB is
important to do outside of therapy as well. Godd Luck.We just started a program 3 months ago and have already seen good improveent - a long way to go though. Funded thru ontario Govt. Pays per hour to cover all supervision from Sr therapist as well as JR therapist hours up to but not passing 20 hours per week. the psychologist is required to supervise 2 hours per month at a rate of 5 per hour. I went with the company my neighbour was using. I love one jr therapist and would adopt her if i could. The other not so much. but he's making improvemnts and loves to be kept busy. Especially since he does not know what to do with himself otherwise. Now the big test will be IBI + school. Long day.... We'll see.
A psychologist who specializes in ABA oversees Anthony's program. We contacted her (a referal from the pediatric neuropsych that dx'd Anthony) and she came to our house for about two hours to talk to us and observe Anthony. Her fees are 5/hr.
We then set out to find therapists for training. The psychologist knew a woman who lived a few blocks from us that was doing ABA for another family. We met with her and loved her. She is a special ed teacher and she does this in the evenings. They also knew another woman, who happened to be the 1:1 aide in school for the other boy the special ed teacher did ABA with. We met with her and she had never done ABA before, but had experience with autism.
The pyschologist did a two day training in our home with the therapists, DH & I and Anthony. That was very expensive we had to pay the psycholgist and the therapists. It was in the thousands, but it was a one time thing.
She also put us in touch with the case manager. The case manager is a very experienced ABA therapist. She runs our team meetings (therapists, Anthony, and I are at the meetings) and changes the programs they are running. We meet every 3 weeks. Her fee is /hr. The meetings are usually 2 hours.
We meet with the psychologist about 3 - 4 x per year and team meetings. She meets with the case manager more often to discuss the programs.
We pay the therapists and per hour.
We pay all of this out of pocket.
ETA - while this is expensive we believe it's worth every dime. His language has improved SO MUCH. His therapists love him and are constantly bringing their own materials to work with him. They shop at the dollar stores and bring rewards and little artsy things for him to work on. They bring stuff from school. The 1:1 aide has a laminator at home so she's always laminating things for him. She cuts pictures out of magazines etc. They are really wonderful.
Thanks you all ! Keep the expereinces coming - I am going to bookmark this post
The BCBA ( from your link WImom) is a really nice person and seems to really care and I hope she will accomodate us.
I and the BCBA have been back and forthing emails - I did offer to buy the ABLL- R thanks for the links and the suggestions
I also asked her to clarify if the implementer ( who was supposed to be charging us 15 ) will be through the agency - hopefully not
I wrote back to her
Some of the parents of ASD Kids in our support group actually said that they just buy the ABLL”s and the BCBA fills it out for them .We were thinking of asking you to do that – if you were okay with that! Let me know and we will order it right away !
On the insurance thing would you not feel comfortable with us just signing a liability waiver? Suppose DH and I just sign a piece of paper saying we will not hold you liable for anything! How is that for a blanket statement J
Your having or not having liability insurance makes no difference to how we feel about you in our home – and I mean ZERO difference – we know we already feel good about you - so no it will not make us feel any better
M- we know your heart is totally in the right place and of course its clear to anyone that you are an ethical and sincere professional - I think DH and I have a real resistance to using an agency on an ongoing basis - we are currently working with
1. Agency X- Speech
2. Agency Y - Sanction services
3. Agency Z -
4. Starting OctoberFloortime X- Floortime
It adds to the pain and bureaucracy and expense of the process .
Also what about the implementer – will we be able to pay her directly 12-15 dollars or would that be through the K Agency as well? We definitively won’t be able to afford her either then!
I hope you don’t think we are misers – far from it – we would do anything for our son but we are just trying to stay within our budget
I will let you all know what she says
Thanks so much for the suggestions
>Kajoli:
ShellyR has had significant sucess with her ABA thing and I think that Roshyn is starting her own program for her son as well. Good Luck with Rohan.
You can do the ABLLS but it costs to get the test in the first place, around 100-150 I think last time I looked.
Setting up a VB program is not that hard as long as you have people who know Autism/ABA as line therapists.
I have thought about starting a website to help families set up ABA/Vb programs and use web cams and videos to help with training staff and families.
Sorry totally just got off topic, I'm a little tired this morning.
Here's a link to the ABLLS-R. It's . Maybe the reason the BCBA doesn't do it is because she doesn't have the materials? Because she is going out on her own. Just a thought. Maybe if you offer to buy it, she would do it. She could do it over the course of several sessions. It shouldn't take too long because R is young.
http://www.difflearn.com/prodinfo.asp?number=DRB%20500&t op
I have recently started ABA program in my home, (2nd week). I have a couple of issues that I didn't see coming and really I'm really concerned. 1st the BCBA I have hired has been to my house 1 time, 3 weeks ago. She has a junior consultant that seems to be handling everything. I have been waiting for a workshop to be schedued for 2 weeks and just found out that my BCBA will not be doing the workshop with the 6 therapists I hired, but the Jr. The consutant will be (whom is a college stdt working on Masters for her BCBA).
The wrkshp is also just a power point (slide show)..Is this all normal? I thought when I hired one of the well known BCBA in the country that I would get the best for my son. I'm really worried that I screwed this up. Can experienced parents give me some feedback please.
We have a clinic twice a week with our child, all the therapist and the
BCBA who is our program coordinator. We review programs and make
adjustments or changes and add new ones. We also go over any new
behavior issues. We have programs both for school and at home. We
also have a set of programs that is just for us the parents. We however
are not new to ABA as we have been doing this for our son since he was
2.5 months.
We have had to endure a lot of parent training and not all of them that
effective. This is our second agency and one of the best in my area.
There are times that our BCBA (one of the partners and founders of the
agency) is out of town and another senior therapist who has a BA and
currently working on her masters in BCBA will lead the clinic. While not
the same, it is good. So I would ask your BCBA point blank, who writes
the programs for yr. child. If it is just for parent training I would not
sweat it. I would however ask for very hands on training (not a power
point slide presentation). I have never been to a clinic where they have
used this. Our clinic notes are 32 pages and emailed to me that nights or
the next morning with the changes so therapies at my house are pretty
consistant. Good Luck! Go join an autism support group in yr area and
find out about the different providers in your area. I have gotten my best
information from other Moms.
I need advise from the ABA parents. Can anyone give advise about their experience of when you began your ABA home program. Did you have your therapist work only in the therapy room at first? For 3,4,6 months. My son is 3 yrs old and we have a nice therapy rm that we are still adding to,, but 1 of my therapists is insisting that she should be manding and pairing all over my house? Is that the usual? I thought that in the beginning stages, it should be 1 on 1 in a non-distracting room, hence the therapy room. I think because of my sons level, he really needs to be in a quiet room. If he sees me walking around, I know he's going to bolt. Please anyone, any feedback?
You've been so helpful.
We did not set up our own VB/ABA program. It is funded through Wisconsin's waiver program. We did have about 10 providers to chose from, and we selected the one our private speech language pathologist recommended.
The head of our program is a BCBA. She set up the instructional objectives for our son after meeting with us. There are items from the ABLLS-R incorporated into the program. However, I purchased the ABLLS-R myself and filled them out. (.95 at www.difflearn.com) The lead therapist told me she would help me if I had questions. I don't know why you would have to hire someone to do this for you.
We have a team that works with our son. There is the head of the program who comes out to our home once a month for 3 hours along with the entire team. We also have a senior therapist, who is also a BCBA, and 3 line therapists (college students). We have weekly meetings to discuss our son's progress and the programs being run.
When we first started the program, the therapists just played with our son. It was the "getting to know you" phase. They wanted him to be excited when they showed up on our doorstep. They then slowely worked in some table sessions to probe his skills. Again, the emphasis was on making sure he was enjoying himself and excited about what they were doing.
Table sessions typically run about 15 minutes, and then they play with my son. We do have a table set up specifically for table sessions. However, they are all over the house when they play. They even go outside and to our park down the street.
I am amazed at the progress being made. My son runs outside to greet the therapists when they arrive. To him, it's all fun and games.
Kajoli,
Found your link late.. sorry1
You are the boss and you can pretty much write your own rules of how you want your childs therapy to be set up..some are happy to be consultant and therapist..I also never paid for gas! Best of luck!
We have a BCBA that does it all and he is the only therapist. The cost is 0 an hour but Tricare covers 2500 a month per child and will only pay for a BCBA, so this is why he does all the therapy. I pay a copay of a month. We are working up to 10 hours a week per child. I think with the school and OT/speech they are getting this is plenty. He did the ABBLS. It probably took about 3 sessions to get it done. Everytime he would think he knew where they were and what to start on they would surprise him and show him they already knew that and as they get more and more comfortable they show more and more of what they know. So that might be an advantage in you doing it. You probably know better than anyone what he can do. They do all the therapy in my daughter's room. All the toys are in there and he like to work with them one at a time, so I keep the other two occupied out here and he works with one back there. We don't use a table because Nikolas was pushed way to hard at school last year and tables are an object of dread for him. So everything is done on the floor. Eventually we'll get a kiddie table back there since he is doing really well sitting at a table at school this year, I was leary of the whole table thing, but for now I think the floor is the best place.
Oh I don't pay for gas either.
My therapist are all over the house. I have little tables in the living room, a
couch in the playroom, a computer in the mudroom, a desk in his room.
They even run programs while on my kitchen counter/bar. Just watch from
afar and ask questions at the end of the sessions. Address any questions to
yr BCBA. When my son was 3 we even had some outings planned with our
BCBA (the park, restaurant etc) If you get a bad feeling or if your child fails
to make progress, I would speak up.
KathyK,
Thanks for the info. I will follow-up with with the quest on who writes programs. I had a sick feeling that the actual training for my therapist crew should be hands on as you said. She already told me that she is too busy to do this training in person so I fear now that if she gives my no choice, I will no longer have a BCBA (she may say, "take it or leave it)." We will see. But thank you so much.
KathyK
Again, thanks for sharing your experience on the roaming the house issue.
No problem. Our programs are writtten in such a way that it is easy to
follow. Our BCBA is pretty good about correction and procedure, he is the
first person to question things at clinics. He is very good and from my
second agency. We are at the point of my sons program that it is very
indivisualised. Keep in mind that ABA works, I like VB/ABA as it has been
great for my child. Not all ABA is good or effective. If you are concerned,
look around and ask other parents discretely. I asked around and found our
second agency that way.
KathyK,
Actually we are doing VB/ABA, so far I think it's ideal for my son and I am happy that we chose it as our method of treatment. I think that before it started, I had a picture in my head of what the actual senario would be as far as what to expect with people in my house over 40 hrs a week. There is so much to learn as far as what the norm is when doing this.
It is not easy to have anyone at yr house. My friend and I used to joke thatwe want our house back. Not going to happen for a while. We are on
35-40hrs now, we started at 25hrs. You are going to see a lot of results. I
am not a new parent but I had to relearn everything. I am all over
noncompliance and other issues when it comes to my sons behaviors. I had
to put my ego on the back burner, boy was that hard. Just ask a lot of
questions, and the more you are around it, you will learn the lingo. There is
quite a few of us who do ABA on this board. So ask as many questions as
you like. Its tough, I have been there.
Copyright Autism-PDD.net