In light of many recent events within our field, I think a bit of explanation is in order to reaffirm
values and ideals within our agency, as well as I believe any ABA agency that is providing
ethical services. ABA is such a valuable addition to any therapy program and has some pretty
amazing benefits and results, with children often rapidly gaining skills and eliminating many
dangerous behaviors within 1-2 years. Over the next few weeks, I will be highlighting some
common complaints/ misconceptions about ABA and focusing on a few key points to address
my thoughts on these.
ABA Professionals are “Know it All's”.
This one hits home so hard, but as professionals in any field know, you can not do it all. We need and thrive when we work with a collaborative, multidisciplinary team. Agencies need to be kind to others in their field, and practice within their scope.
ABA is not the only answer, but rather is one piece of a giant puzzle of PTs,
OTs, SLPs, Feeding Therapists, caregivers, teachers and other professionals in a child’s life.
Finding a BCBA who can manage this will save you precious time and allow for maximal progress
as usually we can teach other providers what we know only if they are interested in learning from us,
and frankly, who wants to learn from someone who does not know how to be humble?
"ABA creates robotic responding".
This is absolutely true, that if done poorly without planning for generalization,
children may start responding automatically with the same 2-3 responses
regardless of what is being asked of them. However, with effective therapy
and proper supervision, typically this “phase” is short lived as we increase more
responses in their repertoire and they learn that repeating the same word over and over
does not lead to access to any item but rather to that one specific item they are
requesting. In the same way, children may walk around clapping or touching their head
because this was a skill targeted through sessions, but they should grasp shortly that
nothing happens when they clap or touch their head if no one has asked them to. If you
are seeing this type of response for more than a few weeks, programming should be
changed to address this, as this is never the intention of a provider.
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