Therapy and ABA...worth anything?

amother

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:00 am

amother [ Chocolate ] wrote:

Totally worth it! My child had ABA and speech therapy and it made a world of difference, I am so thankful forever to the wonderful therapists!

How do you know it made a world of difference. If I had just spent 3 years of speech and ABA, I'd say the same thing. Everyone tells me how amazing my child's progress has been.

aricelli

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:11 am

Also: I look at therapists as an outside set of eyes, an extra set of eyes. Lately, I videotape myself playing/ interacting with my son and bring it to my sons therapist and we review it together. Its amazing how much insight I get. Of course- I think its great to do this even without a therapist. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about your parenting by watching yourself live!

amother

Chocolate

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:15 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

How do you know it made a world of difference. If I had just spent 3 years of speech and ABA, I'd say the same thing. Everyone tells me how amazing my child's progress has been.

I can confidently say this, because there was a period of time where I stopped therapy and I saw regression of behaviors. I put back in therapy and only stopped when the therapists said so. It was amazing for my child, that is in a regular school not special Ed. Early intervention really is amazing!

amother

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:15 am

LittleMissMama wrote:

OP, please try to be more sensitive in your replies. You’re asking parents to prove their choices for their delayed/special needs kids.

It’s great that you’re confident in your choices, don’t try to make others doubt their own.

Thank you for pointing that out, and I'll try. Here's the thing. I'm really not confident, and if I'd had access to all the therapy, I would have done anything and everything. I'm always doubting myself, and if someone could convince me that I still should, I'd take out all the loans in the world..... But why does no one ever wonder about this?

My sister-in-law does social skills groups, and parents tell her how improved their child is after like a year of groups and hundreds of dollars. Then she asks herself, and what if it's just that the child grew up??????

amother

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:30 am

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

There are studies supporting various treatment approaches. There's an emphasis on evidence based methods even in the therapy world.

How do you get an accurate control for such an experiment?

You'd have to have several hundred children with similar needs doing a specific therapy, and another several hundred with the same needs doing no therapy at all for a very extended period of time, in similar environments.

I'd really love to see the notes on these studies.

amother

Fuchsia

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:31 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I don't know what she's doing in her groups. But take a child who is 7 years old and her peers find her annoying. She stands too close to them when she talks, she follows the same girls around all the time and asks to play with them even when they say no, she burps in people's ears and thinks it's funny even when they say it's gross, she copies other girls' projects without asking if they let. She does social skills therapy and learns how to correct all of the above behaviors. She doesn't always remember and she's still somewhat awkward, but she isn't making those specific blatant faux pas all the time. Can you assume that the therapy helped? Yes, I think so. It's really, really unlikely for a clueless seven year old to suddenly pick up all those skills on her own. Perhaps it would have happened eventually, after years of damage to her self esteem and social standing (because honestly at a certain point the other girls aren't tolerating it well). But to say it's just as likely that she would have taught herself all of those social skills within the year is not realistic among any of the kids I know with poor social skills.

amother

Fuchsia

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:33 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Not sure what you're asking, it's like gathering evidence for any other treatment approach, whether it's treating a broken wrist or moderate depression. There's a scientific method that's followed, with details depending on what they're studying. You can probably pay to gain access to therapy journals if you're interested in specific studies.

nylon

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 11:41 am

When they do studies, they compare average progress between groups. So on average, the ABA group makes more progress in specified areas than the group that doesn't get it; that means it works.

But the nature of therapy is that it's a set of odds--even with the best data, we can only predict averages. We can't accurately predict the progress for any given child. An experienced clinician can, based on previous patients, make educated guesses about which patients will benefit from which therapies. But all patients will change in some way when you're talking about developmental delays. So it's possible that he would have made more progress with ABA; it's possible that he would not have.

I think that some of the therapies my kids did (and I didn't break my neck over them) were beneficial and some were ehh.

amother

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 12:13 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

This makes sense to me. Thanks. It's very well put.

amother

Puce

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 12:40 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I agree that you can train a child certain do's and don'ts: Don't take your friends toys, don't burp in your friends ear, make sure you take turns, and things like this. Are these good ideas and do they help? Yes- but very little. The 15 year old girl with a stiff personality who doesn't have any friends and never knows what to say will get very little help from these type of do's and don't suggestions. Also, kindergarten age environment, or a social group where someone is running it, there are adults who are there who intervene and help things go smoothly. Does this translate into a real world environment? I doubt it.

amother

Chocolate

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 12:43 pm

amother [ Puce ] wrote:

How long was your child receiving speech therapy for and how old is your child? What type of of improvements did you see?

For 5 years. Wasn't speaking anything until 3 years old, started speaking in therapy and had trouble speaking clearly until was older. It made my child's life easier, being able to communicate, it was worth all the time and money put into it.

mha3484

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 12:46 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I agree with this. This was my experience with my kid but we took a more middle ground approach. We used a regular old weekly talk therapist and he has taught my son all of these things and we and the school helped him too. We did not need to pay many thousands for ABA therapy. I am personally very wary of any thing too heavy on rewards/punishment. It does not bring out the best parts of my kids personality.

amother

Fuchsia

Fri, Jun 28 2019, 1:07 pm

amother [ Puce ] wrote:

Good social skills therapy is much more than dos and don'ts. They teach the child the why and the how so they can then generalize more easily beyond those specific behaviors. Which is a major reason I don't generally support ABA, besides for very specific skills that don't require generalizing. I don't run a social skills group but I have a colleague who does and I'm extremely impressed with her curriculum and the way the children learn. There's a lot of social thinking involved, if you want to look that up.