Help me chose between ABA and preschool! | Autism PDD

In my experience, at this age, ABA would be much more beneficial. If you think the school is a good program, you could do both. My son has gotten so much more out of ABA. We were in the district for 3 months and made no progress toward IEP goals. After 3 months in a VB/ABA program he met all IEP goals and then progresses much further. I could go on and on, but the progress in this VB program has really helped with langauge, receptive and expressive. He is now speaking in sentences, hundreds of words and it is functional. He can follow directions. The preschool program didn't have enough time to help him the way ABA did. I think ABA works well for a lot of children, especially with langauge. I personally like the floortime model as well for play skills and it also helps with langauge in a different way.i pulled my son from his pre-school program (he is 3.5 years) to do home
ABA!

ABA is my opinion. this summer he has made such big strides. we are in
the process of adding more hours to our home program. we are going to
be doing around 35!

L

To make a long story short, I’m trying to decide between keeping my 3 year old in a preschool where I’m worried they are not challenging him enough. He made significant progress this summer (he was in summer school part of that time,) and now they seem reluctant to change his lesson plan created prior to that. And speech still focuses mostly on pecs and signs, although he is finally starting to become verbal. Typical peers were poorly behaved during a visit there—crying, whining, poking, and one possibly bit himself? Many are younger or seem immature, but maybe it was just a bad day. We could demand a new IEP and more challenging goals, but that would not address all issues. I’m not sure what to do, because we loved the school last year, and we appreciate how they took care of him.

One option is public school, though I doubt it could be any better. We would have a 2 hour option though, instead of 4 hours a day, and it would be free. Or we could have a retired school teacher relative who lives with us learn and implement an in-home ABA program under a consultant. She already does some “lessons” with him, and he enjoys that time. It would be a lot more work for all of us, and we would have to find appropriate children and groups for play dates to make sure he would have enough play time with typical peers. We would probably need to take him for speech therapy, too. One book I read (Interventions for Young Children with Autism) claimed that studies show ABA is the intervention with the most scientific studies proving that it works, and the only thing to make a significant difference to IQ scores (though the book is 10 years out-of-date.) I worry that we really need to do ABA or something more autism-specific. And we can't afford to keep him in private preschool and hire an ABA consultant on an on-going basis to direct the program.

It’s a big decision, and I would welcome any advice from this group.

Heather

Mom of Thomas (3 years old mild-to-moderate ASD)

Heatherfeather39310.3124305556

I would do both. But I would opt for the public school because they legally have to give your child what he needs. (speech therapy and OT, PT etc) Two hours a day leaves plenty of room for ABA. This way he will get peer socialization at school and be more prepared in the school system when he starts kindergarden as far as the social stuff is concerned (cafeteria, going to gym etc).

Karrie

karjab3039310.3199305556If I had to chose I would pick pre-school. I've seen more improvements there with my ds than I ever did with ABA! I say do both. the 2 hour a day program for social skills and the home aba for academics.I would also do both. Just to confuse you, our son had more improvement with ABA than with school. With VB/ABA, he's learned more language than he did at school. At school he had way more social experiences and opportunities to use what he learned with ABA.

We did full time ABA & speech for our dd..the preschool ppcd classroom was not a good option for us..way too many kids and she needed 1:1 therapy. They had a little girl with autism that was in it for 2 years without much progress~this came from the girl's mom and one of the teachers that taught her..our kids need kids but if they are nonverbal or not communicating I would totally focus on a good VB/ABA program & as many hours as possible.

We opted out of preschool and around 4&5 yrs. old we put her in part time kinderkids class..3hrs/day 3x/week and kept up with speech, ABA and 2 playgroups an hour each. No regrets:)

She went from nonverbal to fully functional language by kindergarten..totally mainstreamed with no supports. I owe it all to ABA therapy:)

DO the ABA!!!!!!!! My son laid around in his class, and didn't get challenged. I kept him in the class to be with other kids, but his progress came from ABA.

Thanks!

I would do a combo. Go with the public pre-school to get the speech services and do home ABA.

Thanks, Mamajot!