When to switch from home ABA to School Program

[Guest guest]

Our son, Dylan, is 3-1/2 and has been in an intensive Lovaas-style

home ABA program (35 hrs/week). (We are currently starting a

supplemental VB program to see how he responds to NET.) His program

includes 5 hours per week in a preschool disabled program and 2 2hr

play dates during his home program per week. He is verbal, although

not converssational, and age appropriate on many academic skills

(alphabet, counting, colors, shapes, puzzles, etc). His primary

weeknesses are expressive language delay, recipricol language, peer

socialization. He still has a lot of problems with non-response and

scripting videos.

The school district wants to switch him to a full-day program at

school that will incorporate ABA (not Lovaas-style but couldn't tell

me what model) and some Greenspan with typical kids. I don't feel he

is ready...but how do you know when your child IS ready, and when the

appropriate time to make that kind of move is?

Marcy

mkelly@...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/22/02 3:30:05 PM Central Daylight Time,

mak4232001de@... writes:

> The school district wants to switch him to a full-day program at

> school that will incorporate ABA (not Lovaas-style but couldn't tell

> me what model) and some Greenspan with typical kids. I don't feel he

> is ready...but how do you know when your child IS ready, and when the

> appropriate time to make that kind of move is?

>

Marcy and list,

I think that when a child has enough receptive language to understand

basic directions, even if he still needs visual cueing, and can behave even

marginally acceptably in a group setting and seems to show even a slight

interest in at least being in the company of peers, it's time to start

pairing all the good things the child likes with being in school/peer

settings. Life is alas not a 1:1 proposition. Negotiating to get the

services and supports to make the school setting truly reinforcing is the

parent's job. Teaching the child then becomes the school's job.

in WI.

[Guest guest]

Marcy,

There is no easy answer to your question, but what needs to guide the

decision is what is the most effective use of the hours for your child. In

other words, if Dylan will gain more from 35 hours of intensive teaching than

he will in a classroom, than intensive teaching needs to be what he is doing.

As an intermediate step, I can tell you that many of us on this list would

argue that the optimal allocation of resources (since time is a resource) for

most kids would be fifty percent intensive, fifty percent NET. School counts

as NET. .

If Dylan will follow group instructions and doesn't act out, I think

perhaps a typical classroom with a shadow might be the best placement option

for the NET time. Errorless teaching transfers quite readily to the

classroom and in our brief experience we've found teachers (and even

kindergarden classmates) can learn the prompting techniques fairly quickly.

Why a typical classroom? More positive modeling and many, many more teaching

opportunities. If you want to teach a child to respond to peers, putting him

in a room with other language delayed students who are unlikely to initiate a

social interaction isn't very smart, is it? One caveat, the shadow needs to

be a therapist with prior experience with Dylan who has been paired with tons

of reinforcement and has instructional control over him. Assigning a

stranger is a recipe for disaster.

I'd be leery of the ABA at school, though it's not impossible to do it.

Tell them you want to observe it first before signing on. Poorly conducted

ABA can be worse than no ABA at all. Moreover, pose questions about how they

intend to make his strongest reinforcers available (probably videos...right?)

and how they intend to minimize or remove outside distractions. If they

can't replicate the control of the environment you have at home...veto it.

If they can come up with a reasonable fascimile, okay since doing both at

school should facilitate the generalization of the skills he's learning at

the table to the classroom.

Just my thoughts,

Mark Cyr

Grant's Dad

" Children with autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching

challenges. "