In-home ABA has been helpful for my kids (7 yo) coming out of the isolation of the pandemic. Honestly, it takes a lot of management from me to make sure these techs (who are pretty inexperienced folks) respect my kids’ autonomy and use respectful and positive language and strategies. I have sent many, many techs away for not doing the right things and taking my feedback (or being incapable of understanding), or for just being slackers. The supervisor/s have been good and understanding. If I couldn’t oversee their sessions (I have an eagle-eyed, protective childcare assistant when I’m not here) I would never let strangers spend so much 1:1 time with my (vulnerable) kids. So I’ve just found a way to make it work for us. ABA is only as good as the people running it, because frankly the practices can be damaging unless the tech holds a high personal level of integrity and respect for the child, and good judgement. Its easy for adults to fake caring and integrity, so thats why I oversee. Lastly I don’t focus too much on reaching goals bc it can encourage techs to bulldoze past my kids comfort levels. “Respect their wishes, needs for breaks, etc, or no ABA” is my method.

My son did ABA ;from 3-6 years old. I can say I liked most of the therapist. They are young but do try their best. They helped my son to stop throwing objects over the fence, keep
His cloths on when he went outside and not eloping. By 6. It was play and fun for him. Now I stopped because the manager kept making goals where she focused on him looking creepily in your eyes. Or they said he did t make eye contact. Also they want him to be like everyone else. I didn’t want to change him, just wanted to help him be the best him. I loved what they did to help him. But we stopped at 6 as we no longer needed their service. We did have a therapist we loved so much we hired him to go to
Kindergarten when my so. Started 1/2 day and it works great

I don’t let the techs use the language around my kids “Noncompliant” etc. It’s an interesting relationship between me and the techs and the supervisors. I think you’re right to be skeptical, and its definitely a challenge to make it work well. But there isn’t much other chance to have someone focus in on creating many many opportunities for dialog with the kids, for setting up reciprocal activities, for making a friend and learning boundaries - at least not at 20 hours a week like ABA. The right tech, the right coaching, the right oversight, it has been very helpful I think (but it took a while to get all that in place).

ABA has been wonderful for my son. He said Mommy and Daddy within 3 weeks of starting. He doesn't speak too much yet but when his ABA worker was on vacation he walked around saying her name and danced when he saw her on her return. Doesn't need to fully talk for me to get he likes it.

I had my son assessed to see if ABA would help but they said the goals on his IEP with his teachers and therapists were suitable. They did recommend social skills therapy.