by IABA Team | Nov 11, 2021
ABA therapy is the only evidence-based ASD therapy, but the treatment only works if it is done with care. Not all ABA service providers are the same. How can you tell if your child’s treatment is being conducted correctly?
There are some red flags you can look for if you feel your child is not progressing or benefitting from ABA therapy. The points we are going to talk about won’t cover everything, but they will cover some of the most easily observable ABA therapy red flags.
We have split this article into two parts, as we want to mention why these red flags can be harmful and what you can do to notice them. Click here for part 1.
Not Listening
Every parent has concerns about their children. ASD parents usually have more things to be concerned about. If you have voiced specific major concerns to your child’s ABA provider without an acceptable response, you may need to rethink things.
By voicing major concerns we are talking about lack of progress, not sharing enough information, billing too many hours etc. These are things that should be addressed as soon as possible. Smaller concerns may slip through the cracks so you may need to repeat them in order to ensure they are taken seriously.
If all of your concerns go unaddressed by an ABA therapy provider, it may be time to look for a new one.
Only Using a Few ABA Therapy Techniques
Relying on a small pool of ABA therapy treatments and techniques can lead to a poorly developed program. If you notice your child is being treated with the same methods all the time, you may need to look at their overall program.
Some programs may focus on a small number of treatments for a set period of time, so be sure to ask when or if the program will change or progress. Your child’s ABA therapist should have a good answer why certain treatment methods are or aren’t being used.
All children with ASD are different, so be sure not to question a treatment program after a short amount of time. Have a discussion with your ABA provider to learn about the program that was designed for your child.
Templated ABA Therapy Programs
Similar to only using a few aba therapy methods, templated programs can be a major red flag for ABA programs. Every child with ASD is different and requires a different approach tailored to their strengths and needs.
This red flag can be seen relatively early in selecting an ASD treatment program or clinic. If you are presented with a brochure of programs or therapy ‘packages’ mentioned in a consultation, you need to really look at what is being offered.
In order to get the most out of ABA therapy, each child needs a custom-built program. ABA programs built on general needs will not help each child enough to address specific behaviors and needs.
ABA Therapy from IABA Consultants
If you have questions regarding autism treatment, education, or plans using ABA therapy, we are here for you! Our goal is to make sure no family is turned away due to financial constraints. Our therapy team would love to talk to you. Find the location closest to you and give us a call. We’re here for you.
by Jessie Cooper | Nov 10, 2021
Last week I wrote to you about integrity and my own personal experience in being unwilling to bend as a woman. I spoke about my experience not only as a businesswoman but also as a woman who has left domestic abuse and is walking through divorce. That, in my unwillingness to bend, I have had to grow a tougher skin in order to stand my sacred ground. That skin, or cloak if you will, represents my boundaries. My boundaries are how I protect myself, my work, my children, and my soul. My boundaries are also what shame has told me to ignore and each time I did I lost myself.
In writing to you about my unwillingness to bend, I also wrote to you about society’s general expectations that women should be docile and accommodating. That from a young age we are taught to put down what we actually need in order to please another person (males, teachers, adults, authorities, etc). With this social conditioning, there are no lessons on protecting your own worth, needs, and desires, leaving boundaries as never a topic that is never discussed.
Setting Boundaries Isn’t Selfish
For an incredible amount of time, I thought that boundaries were selfish, that when I placed a boundary on someone else who had a need or request I wasn’t serving humanity. Each time I placed a boundary and received backlash I measured my own worth against it. I thought that somehow my boundary was denying another person what they needed. It wasn’t until my experience leaving domestic abuse that I learned how life-saving boundaries are.
Just as many women are coming to find out that self-care isn’t selfish (I’m sure it’s a hashtag somewhere), I discovered that boundaries are also not selfish. In her work surrounding shame Brene Brown teaches us through her research that boundaries are actually compassionate. Compassionate to ourselves and the person with who we are setting boundaries. Boundaries tell us what we are willing to do in alignment with our own values (and person) and what we are not willing to do.
When a person does not respect boundaries it is not a reflection of the worth of the person setting the boundaries, it is a reflection of the person pushing your boundaries. Over the last year, I have learned that people pushing boundaries are expecting their happiness and “power,” to come from another person. Neither of these things can be true.
Boundaries & Happiness
You see, happiness is a choice we make. It is a sacred emotion that lives in our own hearts that only blooms when we remain true to ourselves. Without knowing what makes our hearts glow warmly it is impossible to know what makes us happy. Without knowing what can harm us it is also impossible to be happy. Boundaries are a lifeline to our happiness and hearts. They protect our souls.
Control is a perceived human condition, when we seek to control another person or outcome we have lost trust. We have decided that the world is hostile and that people cannot be trusted. That we must control the enemy, who is taking away our happiness so that our life can be fulfilled. Control over another human being is always about taking and never about true happiness.
As a woman, a business owner, and a survivor I have lived in both of these worlds for too long. Thinking it was somehow my job to make others happy before myself. Thinking that when someone wanted something from me (personally or professionally) it was my job to give it to them. In the biggest lesson in my life, I learned domestic abuse breaks your boundaries in a way where you lose yourself. Gaslighting was a constant theme in all of these scenarios, scenarios that were telling me I was crazy when I did not give in.
Here is what I have learned to be true in a year of healing. Boundaries are a lifeline. Whenever you do not know what to do, how to respond, or who to be in a relationship with, consult your personal values. Then, after you truthfully consult your values, you can insert a boundary. When you insert a boundary that is aligned with your values you will be at peace even if others are not. When others tell you they are uncomfortable because you have drawn a line in the sand you will be strong enough to withstand it. You will be strong enough to know that being at home in your own heart is all the strength you need.
Start Setting Your Boundaries
I have a list of boundaries I lean on now. If you don’t know where to start with boundary-setting, feel free to use a few as you put these lifelines in place for yourself:
- I will not make an excuse for harmful behavior
- I will not excuse my own harmful behavior
- My children and I come first
- I will not go against my personal values or needs to please someone else
- I will not be involved with someone whose words and actions do not align with my own
- I will not be in a relationship where I am not cared for, loved, and respected
Xoxo,
Jessie
by IABA Team | Nov 9, 2021
ABA therapy is the only evidence-based ASD therapy, but the treatment only works if it is done with care. Not all ABA service providers are the same. How can you tell if your child’s treatment is being conducted correctly?
There are some red flags you can look for if you feel your child is not progressing or benefitting from ABA therapy. The points we are going to talk about won’t cover everything, but they will cover some of the most easily observable ABA therapy red flags.
We have split this article into two parts, as we want to mention why these red flags can be harmful and what you can do to notice them.
Too Many Hours of Therapy
ABA therapy is a billable medical expense. Like most medically billable services, some ABA therapy providers will look to bill for as many hours as possible. Most people don’t require 40+ hours a week of ABA treatment.
Be sure to look at your child’s program and what exactly is being done from a therapy standpoint. Does the program cover everything your child needs? Are the hours reasonable for the needs of your child?
A note that some people do need a lot of therapy, just not everyone. ABA therapy is not supposed to last forever. Your child will eventually be able to live an independent life with honed social skills. Too many hours of therapy is not something that will necessarily help with ABA therapy.
No Observation or Information
One of the most important aspects of ABA therapy is continuing a program at home. If an ABA service provider refuses to share information or allow observation you may want to take a closer look at the program.
Information should always be available on how your child is progressing. Daily records should be available to parents if they want to know what is going on in treatment. If an ABA service provider is unable to share information, it may be time to take a closer look. Quick note: information and records may take a few days to be logged, each clinic is different.
If you are not allowed to visit your child’s ABA clinic to observe treatment and progress you may have a problem on your hands. Dropping by without notice is not recommended, the situations we are talking about are never being able to observe your child’s clinic & program.
Another red flag related to this is a provider only using telehealth methods (phone calls, video chats etc) for BCBA supervision. A BCBA should be directly involved in each child’s program. The only exception to this is ABA providers located in rural areas, as they may be spread very thin and have a limited number of BCBAs.
Extremely Strict Behavior Requirements
ABA therapy works to help people with ASD adapt to neurotypical social norms. Having strict requirements to not allow normal ASD behaviors may lead to issues with many people.
If a therapy program doesn’t allow things like stimming, forces social interaction, or has eye contact requirements, you may want to take a closer look. Forcing behavior changes through programs or (worse) aggressive interactions is a huge issue for any ABA therapy program.
Some behaviors and issues will need to change over time, but forcing the issue through strict programs or adherence to certain behaviors is not the way to go. Be sure to routinely check your child’s program and progress if you think any requirements of the program are too strict.
ABA Therapy from IABA Consultants
If you have questions regarding autism treatment, education, or plans using ABA therapy, we are here for you! Our goal is to make sure no family is turned away due to financial constraints. Our therapy team would love to talk to you. Find the location closest to you and give us a call. We’re here for you.
by Jessie Cooper | Nov 3, 2021
After writing to you about my career and company, last week I detoured into my wishes for my nieces’ futures. I wrote of some of my own personal hardships as a woman in business as well as as a woman leaving domestic abuse. This week I’d like to speak to you about my perspective as a woman who is unwilling to bend, and the cost and benefits.
Women in Society
Over the past year, as I have stood my sacred ground, I have witnessed both the external and internal costs of taking a stand. Externally I have navigated (and continue to navigate) cultural stereotypes. Internally I have fought and am fighting to keep the voices at bay that tell me I am being too loud; that I must become small. I’m walking through fire and slowly learning that I am in fact fireproof.
As women, we are taught from a young age to make ourselves small and to make other people comfortable. That it is somehow our gender’s job to make men comfy. And not only should we make men comfortable but we should excuse ourselves at any point in which a person around us is hurt or offended by anything we say or do.
By societal standards the perfect woman is polite, accommodating, nurturing, and apologetic. She is beautiful, slight in her waist, and ready to smile through the adversities of life. I realize in writing this you may have a gut reaction of, “I don’t expect this of other women, or myself,” but if you ask yourself, “has society taught me this or shown me this,” I assure you the answer is yes. While we do not wear the corset of the 1800’s I guarantee you each woman reading this article has tried a diet at some point in her life. We are still wearing the expectations of our gender on a large scale even if your experience isn’t as dramatic as mine.
Internal & External Perfectionism
In the book, “Brave, Not Perfect,” the author writes about the concept of perfectionism as it affects women. On a much deeper level, she recants how from infancy through college (and even well into marriage) women are taught to be perfect and polite. Soft and docile. Desirable. In her work, she writes about overcoming the need to meet society’s standards and to be brave enough to be herself. It sounds like a small thing but as a woman, I assure you it is not. As soon as you slip off “soft and docile” the crowd in the stand wakes up. I have yet to meet a woman who is boldly herself that has not pushed away these crowds and at times even gone to battle with them. What does this battle entail?
In my experience, the battle is first and always presented internally. You know you have something to say, you know injustice is happening, and you know your soul is trying to break free. Your internal self scans the external world. Unskilled in any first attempt, when a woman boldly speaks her mind, she is almost always met with judgment. Sometimes she is met with hate. The judgment could be from an external person scolding or bullying the woman for being bold or from her own internal interpretation of how the world perceives her.
In both instances, the woman will question her own mind, her own soul, and her own desires. Was standing up, speaking out, and being herself worth the cost? The cost of losing a perceived community, relationship, place to fit in, or being ‘liked?’ In extreme cases, like domestic violence or any type of restriction of safety/liberty, the woman is hurt for speaking up.
Speaking up, unwilling to bend on who she is, the woman will learn quickly who in the world is not ready for her and who accepts her as the being she always was. The thing here is that the woman, unwilling to bend, has to accept herself as she always was. She must learn to ignore the explosions from the outside, call internal questioning a liar, and stand her sacred ground. As the wounds from the outside accumulate the woman must tend to the wounds with care and not accept the wounds as a reflection of her worth. They are battle scars from the fights.
Looking to the Future
As I wrote about my nieces I wrote with hope for a future in which no corsets (physical or mental) exist in the world. Where they are free to boldly be themselves. This goes for my three sons too. To set a future for our children when little boys and little girls are able to be who they are and one where we as parents don’t bend. We cannot accept the status quo or any type of gender stereotyping that restricts the freedom of another person. This freedom can be tiny, such as domestic division of labor, or large, such as equal representation in the legal system. We have a long way to go. But if more of us are willing to stand our ground and realize that by speaking our desires and advocating for our equality there will eventually be more people in the ring fighting for justice than the stands.
I’ve been down here a solid year, fighting for equal representation in domestic law, I’m not tired yet. I am my children’s mama, my niece’s aunt, and I am a woman unwilling to bend.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Oct 27, 2021
Over the past two weeks, I’ve written a little to you about my business Instructional ABA Consultants and my early career as a BCBA. This week I celebrated my twin nieces Grace and Emma’s third birthday. That’s them in the photo for this blog. They are related, I promise. As I held my now not-so-baby nieces on my lap I also held my desire for the world I want them to live in. This one’s for the girls.
Being There & Not Being There
In the fall of 2018, my sister was 32 weeks pregnant with the girls and I was around four months pregnant with Declan. My sister shared her birth plan with me as she got closer to the delivery. A piece of that plan was not wanting family there until after the girls were born.
On a Friday morning, Kristen’s plan changed when she found out she had preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome meaning the girls had to be delivered immediately. At the time I was overcome with fear for my sister and what to do with Henry. My ex-husband was less than kind when I spent time with family or when I was not the one caring for our son. I called my dear friend and babysitter in tears. She immediately jumped in to help with Henry. I called my sister, let her know that I was on my way to Ohio, and left.
This is a day of joy and despair that I will always remember. My sister and baby nieces were in crisis, I was pregnant, and felt fear for my family. Isolation is a common tactic of domestic violence and my ex-husband used this birth just the same. Nothing was below him. As I drove to Ohio I was ordered to turn the car around and when my nieces were born I was told I didn’t love my own son if I didn’t come home. I cried in relief of their birth, for my sister’s wellbeing, and for the cruelty of my ex-husband. I stood my ground, of course, and stayed with my sister and the girls.
My Sister’s Beautiful Little Girls
I remember their tiny little fingers and toes as my brother-in-law took me to the NICU. Emma’s soft, fuzzy blonde hair and Grace’s dark brown are still clear in my memory. I kept thinking for 32 weeks these babies have so much hair! Linked up to tubes and swaddled into boxes, my baby nieces were safe and still developing as though they were in the womb.
I will never forget braiding my sister’s hair and wheeling her to see her daughters. To see her reach into each incubator and brush their hands, “I’m mommy, I’m mommy.” Healing from her emergency c-section my sister poured love into those baby girls (their papa too) as they welcomed their daughters into the world. Me? I was an aunt. The very thing I wanted, even before I wanted to be a mommy of my own.
Leaving Domestic Violence Behind
Over the last three years so much has happened and changed. My baby nieces came home from the NICU after four weeks and just in time for Thanksgiving. Wonderful, beautiful Declan was born. Dametrius became my son. And I left domestic violence.
I have spent an incredible amount of time in shock over how I have been treated simply because I am a woman over the past year. Raised in a household where gender did not define our worth, I have been overcome with disbelief time and time again as I have been met with discrimination. Discrimination that I, until I faced, did not know still occurred in this day and age let alone in my own family.
When I came out to my father’s family about my experience with domestic violence last fall, his family’s radical views on women came out of the woodwork. A cousin I held dearly turned on me within a day of me standing up to my ex-husband reciting the 10 Commandments to my dad. An uncle told my dad, his own brother, that if I submitted to my alpha husband God would restore my marriage. Another uncle sent me a weekend retreat I could attend to learn my place in my marriage. Another cousin even went as far as to state, “he didn’t hit her, it’s not abuse, what’s next she’s going to say he raped her? Husbands cannot rape their wives.”
I did not and do not have words for the belief system that was exposed. As I let go of a family I thought I had, but never really did, I wailed to the skies, “What?! I am losing my family because I am a woman with a voice? Because I refuse to be abused?” I cannot tell you the pain and relief that came due to the separation from this side of my family. As I chose to set the boundary of, “I will not be in relationship with those who support my abuser or use religion to oppress women,” I set a precedent for my nieces. I cannot imagine a world, Goddess forbid, that Grace or Emma find themselves being mistreated and told how to act, or else, because they are women.
Overcoming Discrimination
Over the course of the last year not only have I been discriminated against by my family but questioned time and time again in the court system. To this day my legal team is fighting against that stereotype that because I am a successful business owner I must be a bitch. For a year now, when I have brought forth true concerns of safety for myself and my sons we have to fight this narrative. Time and time again I have been told I cannot fly my feminist flag in court.
What if it’s not a feminist flag? What if I am a human being who is just asking to be considered equally within the court system? What if I am not trying to control but instead a frightened, concerned mother? What if I am not a bitch but instead an excellent, caring leader? And what if I am just a person being brave and trying to call for justice, as well as create hope, through my talents in business?
I do not want this for myself yet more than that I do not want to ever see my nieces treated as less because they are women. I want a world in which when my nieces speak, they are heard and believed. A world where when they wish, dream, desire, lust, and wonder they are free to pursue what lights the fires in their souls. A world where when injustice comes it’s met with justice, not discrimination. I never want my nieces to even consider being a woman a limitation. It is not. We have a long way to go in building a world where the world does not default to limiting them. Unfortunately, it took a divorce for me to see exactly what is still happening in our world.
Grace & Emma, be thirsty my loves. Be brave. Be fearless. Your Aunt Jessie? I’m trying, my darlings, to create a small but carefully laid path of hope and justice in our family and world so you may walk a little easier than me.
Xoxo,
“Aunt” Jessie
