What to expect: staff turnover. ABA therapists can be amazing, or they can be total ineffective. Most are young (late 20s), some are enthusiastic about what they are doing, some not so much. The therapist position is entry level, requiring only a short training (30ish hours?), so the turnover rate is very high. We went through at least 10 therapists over less than 2-years, simply due to turnover. In fact, none of our therapists still work as therapists, and our entire case management team turned over twice. It was a mess of poorly set goals from there on out.

What else to expect: it'll take some time for the therapists to develop a report with your child. Some will bond faster and stronger than others. Progress started to show for us about 2-months in. It stalled when goals were not reset once mastered, and further when goals were set by staff that didn't know him. I credit ABA with a lot of his early progress with basic interpersonal communication skills, but was really frustrated by the time we left.

Bottom line: stay involved. Make sure you're part of the goal setting. If a proposed goal is too easy for your child, say so. If a goal doesn't make sense to real life/educational success/your goals for your child, say so. If your child has obviously mastered a goal, talk to your clinical supervisor to get the goal updated. I tried, but no one listened. If that happens, talk to your insurance provider and switch ABA providers. I wish I had.

Make sure you as a parent know the expectations the team has for you and the expectations they have for your daughter as a patient as well. Make sure you know in the beginning how many your family has to commit to ABA therapy a week. How long each session will be? How many sessions a week? What the therapist expects from you as a parent during the sessions. Are you expected to be in the same room well therapy is going on? Learning what to do? Are you able to do light housework well therapy is going on? Are you able to leave and run errands? Make sure you know the expectations for what kind of space the therapist needs as well. Do they need a whole room dedicated to therapy? Is it ok if siblings occasionally sit in or visit? Who will buy supplies needed for ABA therapy? Who chooses what kind of tasks are done at ABA therapy or what goals are worked on? Will the ABA team be having meetings at your house or clinic to discuss goals etc? How often? Make sure you know upfront whose your child therapist and what kind of training they have? Think about things like do I feel comfortable if the therapist takes my child alone for a walk? Or alone to the park? Find out early how particular your therapist is about whether a house is perfectly clean? Whether they like or are allergic to pets? Whether they smoke outside your home? Find out if the therapist feels comfortable working on activities that may involve a bathroom, like handwashing or potty training? Find out if the therapist feels comfortable using your bathroom, again a cleanliness thing? Make sure you know if everything said in therapy is truly confidential? Find out if your ABA team will attend IEP meetings with you at your childs school? Find out early if the ABA team expects you to do any home repairs to accommodate them particularly if you live in a older home? Find out what or how they plan to reward your child and do you approve of their methods? Find out all cancellation policies. Find out how long a company typically keeps a child before discharging them? Make sure you understand your insurance and whether or not they cover the services. I only say all this because we had negative experiences on both ends, not always but sometimes. Sometimes you have to be careful who you let in your home and what you tell them. People are very quick to judge, even if they themselves are not any better than you. These are questions I wish I had known ahead of time to ask. We went out of our way to accommodate the therapists but didn't always feel like they returned the favor. Good luck with everything. Let me know if have any more specific questions?

they usually use that when the behaviors are attention seeking...

the one big one that causes a lot of parents to give up or feel like it isn't work is when Extinction Protocols are implemented...they will ignore a behavior until it starts to reduce...the problem is that in the beginning the behavior being targeted ramps up....it is the added intensity that causes parents to feel like their child is being harmed or abused....the behaviors will eventually reduce....

Also if you want therapists to work on homework with your child, find out upfront if this is something they typically do? Some are unwilling to make this part of therapy. But still want you to accommodate 10 to 12 hours a week to therapy outside of school work everything else. Still want to work on academic tasks just not homework...... so frustrating!