My daughter is nine and nonverbal and has had multiple therapies since she was 3. I can tell you that ABA has helped tremendously with behaviors but it has not done much for speech. My daughter has a vocabulary of about 10-15 words and that has taken all this time.

The truth is some children never become verbal at all. ABA does not do much for vocabulary, speech therapy is what you would use for that, along with PECS and technology like tablets. My daughter uses the above along with sign language and she communicates reasonably well. She gets her point across and is able to ask for and chose what she wants.

Stay strong it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. There is always hope but you have to accept there may be limitations, you just have to work with them.

We've been getting aba for 8 months and G is just starting to imitate words. I've seen big jumps with biomedical therapy and the diet. It's hard to be patient for me me bc I'm a speech pathologist, but I know every child is different so I just keep hoping and continue to explore options to add to her plan of care.

I do hope you are able to receive the deeming waiver soon! My son spoke only in echolailia until he was almost 6. Duelspectrumdad offers some great insight. ABA helped our son the most with appropriate behavior.
Another approach may be Floortime. A group here in GA called Learning on The Log was wonderful for our son.

It might be different for everyone but in our case speech therapy, OT and ABA didn't help much until we started on the biomed route. First we started the gluten free casein free diet, he started noticing people around him, eye contact improved dramatically and started playing with toys better. He used to only look at a straw sideways for long periods of time. Now we are doing probiotics, vitamins n minerals and B12. Now he can pay attention to the therapist enough to imitate them trying to speak. He is babbling and saying about 6 words now. Look into TACA and DAN doctors.

I am a parent but also work in the field. Sometimes it takes longer. Are pecs being used. I've seen kids who start with pecs and then once they go thru the stages the therapist will continue with pecs or start working on more verbal. Some kids it takes longer