Hi and welcome to What Works Wednesdays where we share a success story from one of our clinical cases. All names have been changed to preserve the privacy of the child and family. Our intent is to show readers how successful ABA can be.
Today’s post is about a 4-year-old little girl named Nahir who carries a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism. Nahir began receiving early intervention services early in life. She began receiving ABA services shortly after she was diagnosed with autism. She began receiving ABA services from us last year.
Nahir’s parents wanted Nahir to be a community member in her neighborhood and they wanted her to learn alongside other children her age without disabilities. We designed an ABA program that consisted of about 10 hours per week of supported inclusion and 10-15 hours per week of 1:1 ABA instruction. Nahir responded to the intervention and began showing an interest in her peers at school and she began learning many skills at home. She even began using the toilet!
After several months, Nahir’s parents wanted to increase the amount of time in inclusive settings to 20 hours per week combined with 10-15 hours of 1:1 ABA. Nahir began engaging in non-compliant behavior and her rapid learning tapered off. We discussed our concerns about this change in learning with the parents and we encouraged them to consider making a change.
As a result, the family agreed to decrease inclusion time and increase 1:1 ABA time. Watch out! Nahir’s learning took off. She began imitating, her non-compliance decreased, and she started to communicate using her new iPad and Proloquo2go.
You see, inclusion is not all or nothing. Decisions about inclusion should be made individually for each child based on his or her unique situation.
We would love to hear from readers! Share your successful ABA and inclusion stories!
Applied Behavioral Strategies 
My child has a dual diagnosis cerebral palsy ( walks with orthotics) and autism. She receives 1:1 ABA time at home (4 hours week) with great progress (lots of data prove it). We requested 1:1 ABA time at school. School only allows their BCBA to teach ABA instructional strategies to teacher. Teacher has 8-9 special needs children and 2 paraprofessionals. From what we can tell, the teacher provides 15 – 20 mins of 1:1 instructional time and 45-60 minutes of small group instructional time per day. We haven’t received any data from BCBA or teacher so it is very difficult to measure results. School IEP team denies ABA as a related service. Response is always- we have a BCBA on staff to instruct the teacher. Also, could you share with me how “inclusion supported” works with a child with a significant cognitive disability?
Thanks
Hi and thanks for stopping by.
It sounds like your child has a number of issues to overcome!
Your comment regarding “School only allows their BCBA to teach ABA instructional strategies to teacher” is not in alignment with federal special education policy (IDEIA). Schools may not unilateral limit services as services should be determined based on assessments and resulting IEPs. So, my suggestion to you is to ask for an independent behavioral assessment to determine if ABA is an appropriate service for your child. They may want to do an internal assessment first. However, they are not allowed to do that if they have already done one in the past 12 months.
After you get the independent assessment and recommendations, then you have an IEP to address the recommendations. If they deny the ABA, then you simply sign disagree. If you and the district cannot come to an agreement then you would need to go to mediation and/or due process.
However, you cannot do much without an assessment indicating what your child needs.
With regards to your comment about data, a BCBA always collects data. It is part of our guidelines for responsible conduct. So, if your BCBA does not have data, then you should consider approaching him/her about those guidelines which are available at http://www.bacb.com.
Supported inclusion is different for every child and works independent of cognitive function. My brother has a significant intellectual disability and he actively participates in the community with support. We use a variety of supports such as visual schedules, augmentative communication, and reinforcement.
Thanks again for stopping by!
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