I personally think thats too much but it all depends how your child reacts. My son gets 12 hours a week of aba therapy. Hes at school from 7am-2pm then as soon as he gets home his therapist is here waiting for him to do 2 hours of therapy. She's here from 3pm-5pm. While they are doing therapy she gives him break because he's very hyper and can't sit still for too long. So she works with 5 minutes then gives him a 2 minute break and then back 5 min with a 2 min break etc. She did this method in the beginning and it really helped. Nowy son can do 10 min sitting still learning and 2min break.

My pediatric neurologist recommended 40 hours + of ABA when my child was 1. I really wish we had been able to do that but no money and no providers. We got the 2 hours of early intervention a month. Fast forward 7 years later and my severely autistic non verbal child finally got her 40 hours a week of ABA that people had fought so hard for insurance to cover. After being in school since age 3 and the school saying she was too dumb for an ipad just 4 months ago... after only 4 months of aba she can make H sounds w sounds, b, m, a's, o's and brings up her speech on her ipad all by herself to request food and play without any prompting. They say the brain stops making connections at 3-4 years of age. I cry at the thought of how much more she could have been had I been able to track ABA down when she was 1. It physically hurts. Do it as long and as much as you can. Studies have shown the less hours the worse it works... And its not as intense as you think when it's all day. They go for walks. they play.. she has access to a kitchen whenever she wants and since she has eating issues I can't imagine the torture it was for her to be in school and only eat once a day as she likes to graze and they allow it at ABA and it encourages her to learn. btw.. she is on her way to being potty trained. after 8 years of peeing on the floor and smearing her feces... something happened and it clicked. I did pull her from regular school to go full time to ABA. At school with packed classes she was nobody and wasn't taught a darn thing.

I get that. Therapists come and go. They get use to having a best friend because they might never have one in real life (mine hasn't) and then they just leave. So they become trusting. It's scary. I was scared too with our first male therapist. He had a severely affected child and was very knowledgable and I knew he had way too much on his plate for anything else. He did end up quitting. They just hired their first male therapist at our center and I've seen him helping play with my kid and I get it.. it makes me nervous. She's a beautiful girl with no way to say she's in danger and frankly no way she would be able to KNOW that this or that is wrong. He seems nice enough and it's a center so even though there's one on one time there's windows on every door so that's comforting. It's probably worse case scenerio but I can't help it either.

Thanks @A MyAutismTeam Member, I am glad your child is finally getting the help they deserve but so terrible that it took so long. thank you for sharing your story. I think often about how much we will benefit from all the parents who came before us and fought so hard to get us access to services that will make a difference for my child that they didn't get for their own. We will start next week with 12 hours and are waiting for them to find a second female therapist for the other hours. It might take 2-3 more months but they said not more than 6. I am fine with doing 8 in a day if we have to to get the hours, and it sounds like that schedule will not change, but I had a lot of hesitation about my three year old son being with a male therapist at such a young age, which was who they paired us with for the second therapist, and I was unprepared for that. We got the schedule Wednesday for a Tues start, I thought about it all weekend- it kept me up at night. I feel like, especially with the disability, three years old is too young to teach him to trust adult males who are not his relatives. It's been hard choices because I feel desperate to get him more care, but my gut is strongly telling me not to do it. We were already talking about how he has seen so many people for assessments that he is getting used to trusting strangers. I hope they can find another female therapist within the next two months. It's killing me, but I made the decision this weekend that my first obligation is to protect my child and for him to be safe. There's clearly a shortage of therapists. They told me the only ones they have available are male therapists so it seems like other families are refusing them too. I am sure a male therapist will be great once he is older, more verbal and we have had a chance to get some body books and teach him about appropriate contact (which we need to do anyways now that he is seeing tons more caregivers with the increase in services). I hate that I sound like a crazy person, and my family has said I am overreacting but something just did not feel right, and so far, trusting my gut led us to find the autism diagnosis for him, I want to keep trusting it along this journey. I don't really know this company and their hiring practices yet. I have only met two people from there so far, one being the owner. They seem great, but I get the feeling that demand for services are so great that they are pressured to hire lots of people.

Mentioned Users

A MyAutis...

ABA does take a lot of time. I had the same concern but we gave it a good try with all our effort. We are not doing it this year with a therapist but we try to follow the same priciples whenever we can.