welp. my son starts aba therapy today

I am so beyond happy. My son has been kicked out of two daycares. I pay out of pocket so every time I go to register him anywhere it costs a grand or over a grand. I CAN NOT afford to keep putting my son in day care for them to kick him out for dumb shit. Like him being a two-year-old and not participating in circle time and running around and wanting to play instead. To me, that's cruel and unreasonable.

I have fought for a year to get my son into OT and PT and fought hand and nail to get him in aba. He is talking more and more but I don't want to send my son to public school if he can't talk or sign to tell me people are being mean to him or the teacher is being mean to him.

They want to put him in school now, but I want him to go to therapy for a year and then see where we will go from there. He makes great progress so I am feeling very optimistic. I am just so happy we finally got in.

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OggggO · 36-40, M

https://neuroclastic.com/invisible-abuse-aba-and-the-things-only-autistic-people-can-see/

DeluxedEdition · 26-30, F

@OggggO

The difficulty is that when people hear the word “abuse,” they think of pain and violence.

ABA has a big history of those things, too. Its founder, O. Ivar Lovaas, used electric shocks to stop children from engaging in their obsessive, repetitive behaviours. He systematically trained them with equal combinations of love and pain to behave more like non-autistic children.

He thought he was saving them, turning a raw bundle of nerve endings into something resembling a human being.

that is how psychology was in the beginning stages. There was little knowledge about it and how to treat mental disorders in general. Autism up until now was poorly misunderstood.

They do not abuse or hit the children. They redirect them from harmful behaviors such as self-harm, or destructive behaviors and divert their attention to something more productive.

They teach them basic skills such as how to talk, their goal is to eliminate or eradicate undesirable behaviors such as destructive behavior, eloping, self-harm, harming others, or destructive tendencies.

ABA is absolutely necessary and during the period of time my sons father was calling child protective services on me out of spite the social worker told me it is mandatory for him to be in his therapies. My son has to attend aba, occupational, and speech.

It's very unfortunate psychology was so traumatizing and frighting in the beginning, but they have come a long way, and I participate in a lot of my sons therapies and do meetings and care plans. I am very involved and if I have an issue with anything I can change the care plan anytime.