Learning curves

[Guest guest]

I plotted my son's progress on the ABLLS last month could see that most

of my son's progress came in the first year of training. We have been

running an ABA training program for about 3 years. About 2/3 of his

progress in the ABLLS assessment came in the first year with the other

1/3 coming over the past 2 years. Overall we have met about 1/3 of the

ABLLS goals. We have taught skills that aren't reflected on the ABLLS

so the 2/3 progress might not be totally accurate but it still paints a

good general picture of our situation

My son's self stim behavior is highly motivating and it is a constant

challenge to find things that will compete with them. We have only

recently made play skills a focus of our program and through pairing

hope to make progress in teaching replacement behaviors for his stims

during times when he is not in therapy.

I had hoped that his progress would pick up speed over time but we seem

to be having a harder time making progress as the skills we teach become

more advanced. I also had the hope of reaching a " critical mass " of

skills and learning abilities which would allow learning from the

natural environment and peers/others without the need for as much

structured teaching. I was wondering if anyone has any

thoughts/information about the percentage of autistic kids whose

learning curves accelerate vs decelerate over time? From the small

group of parents I have personal contact with, the autistic kids who are

higher functioning seem to progress faster and pick up speed over time

vs the lower functioning kids who make progress slower and reach a point

where it is more and more difficult to teach higher level skills. Has

anyone observed similar or different patterns? Thanks.

Dave

Dave