ABA therapy

anyone done ABA with their little one? I have heard it is expensive, does anyone know how much? From what I know about it I think it'd probably be good for Mikko if we could afford it. My other problem would be attending the sessions as I always have a very needy toddler with me

Hi,

I investigated it as a possibility. We were looking at the minimum sessions of 5 hours per week. The organisation i contacted had a therapist who was supervised by trained ABA supervisor. The therapist would come to your house and implement programmes that were designed by the supervisor (based on their assessment of what the child would benefit from). I worked out the cost for the therapist and the supervision would be around $800 per month.

There were keen to stress that they could offer programmes for the parents to implement, but with the usual proviso that the results wouldn't be as quick.

So in short never went through with it and are sticking to SLT and giving music therapy a go this year.

cheers

Oh I have just looked into this in Auckland.

Our paediatrician recommended ABA, but said research supports 20 to 25 hours a week of 1 on 1 therapy. The provider up here is CARD and I spoke to them last week. They said they meet us and assess how many hours the child needs (we have booked in for this next week as we think it will help Evan).

I enquired about costs and she said that to have a qualified therapist complete the programme it costs $30 to $40 per hour (way out of our reach). She did however say that they will train your own private therapist to work with the child and they could oversee their work. She said that works out much cheaper for families as you can normally get an undergraduate student for around $15 to a maximum of $20 per hour. She could put me in touch with students studying ABA that wanted to get some practical experience while they were studying.

To actually do the ABA programme through them you would also need to pay for psychology sessions for them to oversee the programme, at around $100 a session.

I also asked how much it cost to actually do the training. She said you could complete it online for $150 US dollars, or do a one on one training session for 10 hours with them for $600. Benefit of paying for the $600 session was that they would not only train your chosen therapist but other members of the family that would work with the child(mum and dad etc) for no extra cost.

We will have to see if it is viable once we know how many hours Evan needs.

I have booked in next week to have him assessed by them and learn more about the program, so can update you next week if you want. I also think it would be possible to use a therapist to work with more than one child if you know another family keen on ABA living in the same area (then you could share costs).

My husband is very keen on this program, but it will no doubt mean selling our house to fund it!

I hope this helps