Is ABA Therapy Bad for Children? | www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

All right. Hello, guys. Welcome to this live Facebook live about ABA Applied Behavioral Therapy. We've talked about this previously a few times already. And the reason why I'm gonna talk about it more is to make clear about my stance about it. And obviously everyone is entitled to that, their own, like, opinion, entitled to their own thoughts about a certain way of doing something. Right. I'm not gonna say it and tell you that my way is the best way. It's not. There's many ways to do the same thing, and I believe it's the same thing for teaching a child to speak or like, to be a functional human being in our society. And there's, you know, there's more than one or two ways to do it. And. Okay, and a huge disclaimer. I'm not saying that anyone, you know, like, I'm not saying that you are wrong or like, whoever is watching this and thinking, this man must be out of his mind, you know, talking about ABA and, and maybe praising it, maybe not praising it, whatever my opinion is. Okay, So I get that all out of the way. Let's start. Is ABA bad for children and especially like ASD children, because historic, historically, historically, sorry. ABA is therapeutical method for teaching children on the spectrum. Okay? And if you just search on Google, like ABA therapy, traumatizing, like ABA therapy, ptsd, you know, you will see loads of papers. What are those called? Articles that talk about ABA might not be the best thing for children who are on the spectrum. You know, like, there are reports saying, ah, you know, a lot of people report that children get, like, PTSD after aba, right? Parents will report, oh, all I hear is, like, screaming, shouting, and I can't even go in to see what's going on. All right. I will address these things one by one, okay? And the reason why I can do this is because, number one, my first ever job in the therapy world is to do with is aba. I was an ABA therapist. All right? I wasn't like, you know, it's very easy to call. Just call yourself a therapist. We've talked about this before in a previous live stream. All right? And the reason why people can just call themselves a therapist, right? It's because if you're not in the United States of America or, you know, actually, like, ABA is more of a USA thing, I would believe, right? Then it's easier to call, self proclaim yourself as a therapist without the credentials, which is what they call like bcba, a board certified behavioral analyst or something like that. Okay? On top of my head, amazed that I Can actually remember it. Anyways, so when you. When people say that, oh, I've been to an ABA place, I've worked with ABA clinics that are good. I've worked with ABA clinics that are not so good. All right, and my first point is, you cannot, like, we cannot all say, for instance, if a plumber. Let's say it's a plumber, okay? That person who solves my problem, that is very different from solving your child's problems. I understand, but just go, like, go with me with this analogy for a little bit. Plumber comes over, he uses a new technique or like a very old school technique. It doesn't matter what technique it is, all right? He fixes your. Whatever toilet, he fixes it. Next time you try to call the same plumber, something happened again, you call the same plumber, but he's not available. So you get the next best person, okay? They come and they use the same method as the first plumber who did an eclipse job. And then, you know, they screw up, they make it even worse. So they didn't even, like, solve the problem? They didn't fix anything. Right. Is it the problem of the method or is it the problem of the person who was administrating it? Okay. I don't know. You decide. Okay? What I'm trying to tell you is that just because, you know, you. Someone has been to ABA and that place, or that person who is conducting the ABA hasn't done a great job, doesn't mean that the whole approach has no credit or, you know, creates PTSD children or, you know, it's super unnaturalistic or has zero merit towards teaching children on the spectrum or anyone per se. And ABA is not only used in teaching children who are autistic. Okay. It's not only like that. You can, you know, as a matter of fact, ABA is actually used to treat ptsd. Okay, let me just double check that on the Internet real quick. Okay, I remember. Okay. If I type ABA therapy, ptsd, all I get is how children, Autistic children will get, you know, will get PTSD afterwards. Okay. All right. So that's what I heard before. Okay. Because that's what my. Who's that? My supervisor used to give up. Used to. He got his master's in ABA at whatever it's called. I think it's AB Master's. ABA in the United States. And one of the parts he had to learn was to. To help with, like, veterans through the use of aba. And you might argue, hey, isn't that for like, like, cbd? Or something. Not cbd. What was that called again? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Cbt. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. So those things are like, you know, like you, you obviously CBT is a better way to treat those, you know, PTSD people. And, and I'm saying this as if you know these terms, right? I'm sorry if you don't know. Okay, so let's go back to the main topic of is it bad or not. My main point for the first point is children, you know, people who conduct ABA might not be the best person to do so. Okay? Just because someone doesn't know how to do it doesn't mean they represent the whole field. All right? I don't want that to happen. I've certainly seen very bad things in the field of aba and they use that name even if they don't have enough training. Okay? So I don't like that. And number two is like AB is like always. It's like, I've talked about this before, right? Is how it's like a behavioral system to teach everything, right? So people would use that thing to teach everything that a child needs to know and they will step on people's toes. Like people like me, like a speech therapist, they're trying to teach speech and language and also communication with their own methods, which I may or may not agree with. And for you as a parent, you may or may or may not agree as well. Okay, so that's my first point. Second point, how about the PTSD about like, you know, like children on the spectrum who are crying like crazy and they don't get, you know, they just cry like crazy and then you don't know what's happening. All right? So I would like to argue like, you know, children who are speech delayed, whatever, disordered, they're going to cry anyways if they go to kindergarten. Okay? And most of the time, children who start ABA are early because usually what happens is that they go through like early intervention and the earlier they get into it, the better. Right? So think about a child who hasn't even gone to preschool, or maybe they have suddenly has to go into a highly intensive and structured environment. What are they going to do? Cry. Right. So if you think that all children are going to react, you know, to the therapy with a crying attitude, you're probably wrong. Okay? It's around like 60 or 70%. Right. So I'm going to see what questions there are. I think there are two. The first is like Pecs from Kuyen is Pecs is encouraged for a 31 month non verbal kit. I'LL talk about that later. I'll get back to you guys later. How soon can a non verbal ASD go for aba? Okay, cool. Let's talk about that later. Okay cool. So I want to talk more and let you guys know about what I feel. All right, so all that crying and stuff, it depends on the. Again, it goes back to the therapist who is a therapist if it really or he or she is really someone who has trained to do that work. All right. They must know, they must know how to sell a toy. They must know how to be child friendly. It doesn't matter if it's ABA or not. Right. If it's like even a dentist, would you say that being a dentist would be like, would cause a ptsd? Would you say that being a hair salon barber, a children's barber, is that causing ptsd? Yeah, to some extent. Right, but were they like they're doing the job, but were they trained to work with kids? Have you seen really child friendly do like doctors and dentists, nurses, barbers, whatever. Like you know, you have, right? It's the person, it's how they conduct themselves professionally. And do they know how to work with children? That's the, that's the point I'm talking to you about. Right. And why, you know, like one of the things that I learned recently is that I was working with someone's ABA therapist and I feel like there is a very dehumanizing point of view towards ASD people or children in general and they don't know how to treat that ASD children or person as, as a real human being. I feel like that's a problem sometimes. I feel like if this was just a typical developing kid, you wouldn't think that way. You know, you wouldn't say that, you wouldn't try that. You wouldn't, you know, do whatever you're doing. I'm not going to go into details because that's my clients information. Right. So let's talk about some. Let's go back to the question. So Koyen, Kuyen, I think, sorry, is PACs encouraged for 31? Well, I have talked about PACs before. Maybe I'll make next week I'll talk about pecs in particular. But to be honest, like you know, like people always think, oh, if someone's non verbal, we should try pacs, we should try aac. Yes, we should. And the reasoning sometimes is kind of wrong. Okay, so PACs, you know, you really have to go. If someone has to conduct back pacs, most ideally is someone who has been through The PACS course or someone, or working with someone who has been through the pecs course. Okay, I haven't been through the pecs course because there just wasn't any pecs course at the moment. That when I graduated until now, that was, you know, particularly convenient for me to join. Right. But I have worked directly with someone who is pack. Certified. Certified. And they write the thing, they write the whole plan and they teach me how to do it. Right. So I've done that before. I'm telling you that pecs, all right, you need to see if that person knows how to do it. Number one, again, it's not about the horse, it's about the jockey. Right. If you don't understand this analogy, it's like, you know, in a horse race, you know, it's a huge thing about the horse. The vehicle is a huge thing, but the person driving it is also very important. Like a huge plane, you know, like it's automated. You just need to press a button apparently. Right. And then they fly. But the pilot is also very important. Right. So Pex, is it a 31 month non verbal kit? Is that encouraged? It depends on if your child has any. Want to initiate communication? Okay. PECS is more about teaching a child to initiate communication. All right, so the first, just the first two stages of pecs is all about stuffing a card into a child's like and into the adult's hand. All right. Pecs for those who don't know is picture exchange communication system. Yes, I got it. Right, okay. So you got to know if they have the initiation to tell you or not. Usually we use PECS for children who lack initiation. Don't like the conventional ways of, you know, tapping, using gestures, eye contact, you know, like vocalizing. These are all out of the question. We will use PECs to teach them how to start a conversation correctly. And that usually means them initiating without us even trying to like, encourage them to. Which is a huge problem in the therapy industry is where, you know, a lot of children are prompt dependent. I was talking to this mother the other day. The therapist told her to teach the kid by, you know, showing, letting the child lead them by the hand. And then you know that the mom will ask, oh, what do you want? And then say, I want cookie. Like, it becomes a whole sequence and then remembers the kid remembers that and never says it themselves. So in this instant, pecs would be a good idea because it changes the, the, the story. And pecs is great at teaching a child how to initiate communication with like, hearts. Right. So how soon, should a nonverbal ASD child go for therapy? Go for a. Go for assessment. See what they say. All right, See what the, the therap, the psychologist says. See what the therapist is saying and then try it. Okay, Try it for a month or two. Okay. How soon? I would say, like, the earliest you really can go is around two and a half, I think, because if there are two, they can't even, like, sit properly for a long time. And, you know, like, ABA is like three hours a day and five days a week. If your child, you know, like young children, you might think, oh, me sitting here, referring to, requires no muscles. But for children, their abdominal muscles, their whole muscles, that structure, they just cannot really, like, sit properly. You know, they get tired and that's why they have to crawl around and roll around and stuff. Right? And sometimes even run, you know. But, you know, you get my, my point. How early should you start? Like, preschool, kindergarten, whatever, or playgroup or, you know, speech therapy? I think it largely depends on how long your child can sit, what the therapy is like, what the activity is like. If it's all sitting like aba, I would say at least two and a half. So Yubing says, oh, by the way, Yubing, remember? I remember you're in the Y. Bing. Or is it Y Bing? I don't know which one. Sorry. Please let me know how to pronounce your name because I, I always see you around and I really want to be able to, like, call you in the correct way. So remember, on Thursday we're having a membership call with the videos. If you haven't, you can submit the videos to me. Okay. So I kind of. I was a BA in psychology. Okay. But would I say that I was qualified? No. I had to go through, like, the place that I worked in. They provided two months of training before I started. Actually, a month. A month of training before I started. Right. And they told me about what to do. They supervised me a lot. And, and the most important thing is that the supervisors are great in ABA because it really helped me a lot and it helped the kid a lot. If it wasn't for the supervisors, I wouldn't know what to do. I'm just a guy who just graduated from college. Back then, having a BA in Psychology has nothing to do with aba. Nothing. Zero. And to be honest, the bas in psychology might know the, the theories behind it, but practically, when you do everything, are you able to name all the theories and stuff? Are you able to link it back? No, and it doesn't matter either. It's all about the results, right? So Kuyin says how to understand nonverbal toolkit and deal with emotional breakdown. Dude, there's always. Sorry for calling you dude, ma'. Am. Okay? There's always a reason behind emotional breakdown. And I've talked about that in a previous video, so I'm not going to repeat myself there. If you haven't, you should join the courses and agents of speech. Start with the micro course as listed in the title or something around here. Cool. So after answering some of your questions, I want to keep on talking about whether it's good or bad. I really think so. I really think it's not bad at all. Okay. You cannot call. You can't even say that, you know, anything is, you know, is bad in nature. You know, back in the day when ABA was in. Was like. Or not just aba, Special needs education was really based upon behavioral psychology, right? And this is what ABA is. It's based on behavioral psychology is what we teach. How we teach, like animals, per se. I've got like two cats here, so, you know, it's how you condition them. And whether you want to believe it or not, we are. These behavioral principles are true in human beings, even if you don't want to believe it. All right? And then some people will say, oh, yeah, you treat. You treat children like animals. Well, you know, I don't know what to say other than is there a better way, a more effective way to get to them right in the beginning, really? If there is, then, you know, by all means, there wouldn't be aba, right? There would be something else. Okay? And a lot of the things we use are from the same. The same guiding principles, okay? And back in the day, in 1970, something when we were first teaching autistic children, why they had like, you know, we were not doing this anymore. I'm saying this again. We're. No one is doing this anymore. There was like, strict no's, right? Like very loud no's. Like no like that to kids, scolding them. Number two, there's punishment. You know, not saying, like, hitting or whatever, but, you know, starving. Starving them until they want the rewards. I'm not talking about now, okay? This is 1970 or 1980 or probably 1970 something, right? So all these techniques that are slightly treating children like animals and pets and whatever, it's not here anymore. Now Ava is much more naturalistic, actually. Sometimes if the person knows how to do it, it looks like they're not doing therapy. Okay? It really is like that. It's like they're just playing, okay, with a lot of talking, right? So there's a huge misconception about it, okay? Number two is that the people who are conducting it are not well trained. They don't know what they're doing. And I'm not saying this because to step on them or whatever. I'm not saying that as a, you know, as a fellow practitioner. I'm not saying they are. They're not good. I'm good. I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not great at ABA either. I'm not even in that field, man. I'm just telling you from what I'm looking at, what I'm seeing, okay? And if you ask me what we should do, what we should do here is that the problem is that aba. Expensive, okay? And the reason behind it is it's skilled labor, right? You take someone fresh out of college, fresh out of university, sometimes not even university grad, right? To do this kind of work experience is rather, you know, in this field is very, very. You know, we put a huge emphasis on it, right? Like, a mom figure who has been working in the field for, like, 20 plus years would have a lot more authority in front of the parent or in front of the kid than someone like me, right? I'm just a regular Asian dude who's like 30, right? So, you know, like, people will think that way, right? And the kid will. You can also see in the kid that they're, like, scared of that woman, you know? And the problem is that here is it's not about the experience, about how you do the skills. Like, how do you transfer those skills to the parents, number one. How do you use those skills to teach the kid? All right? These things you cannot see. You really cannot see. And you can only see it by the progress and results of the kid, okay? So my advice here is there's no bad therapy by nature. Who in the world would go into this kind of business, okay? The money isn't that great, right? Like, who would. Who in the world would make, like, an evil type of method to teach children who are on the spectrum for earning less than just working at the bank? Come on, think about it. Like, why would we even do it? It's not even financially rewarding. You think about it, like, to everyone. I'm just saying out there, to everyone who says, ABA stocks, aba, whatever, aba, whatever. Like, if you can find a better way, like, okay, let's talk about, like, floor time or whatever, right? And naturalistic approaches. They have their own place, obviously, we have to use it too. But if you say that, oh, 100% floor time. I wonder how much you're going to get done within an hour. You know, how much words are you going to. Are you going to teach within that hour? How much communication, interactions are you going to be able to elicit? Right, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, so Ku Yen says how to encourage you. Follow a song rhythm. Do the actions tend to focus? If you're interested in song, but only listen. I just want to wonder why. Okay. Hey, are you inside of the micro course? Ku Yen? So sorry. So you. You should really join because it really isn't about if, like, it really isn't about, like, if he's doing the actions or not. It really 100% is about if he's interested or not. You know, you need to know why he's not communicating with you, why he's not, whatever or anything. You should think about it in that way. Always have something to offer to your kid. If it doesn't interest your child, they're not going to talk to you. All right. It's very different from typically developing children. Right? Typically having children do anything and they kind of laugh. But for children who are delayed, like disordered, whatever you call it, I don't want to put labels here, left, and there, but if your child isn't talking yet, most probably is because it's not. It's too hard or it's not entertaining. Right? Either the two. So you better make it easier for those two reasons. All right. Am I providing ABA short course with parents? No, this is not ABA or anything. Or I don't even call it speech therapy. It's just what's been working from me teaching offline to parents like you or, you know, all over the Internet. I'm teaching, like, not children. I wish I could teach children over the Internet easily through zoom or whatever. It doesn't work, man. Like, they look at the screen, they run away. What am I going to do? Like extend electronic hands and hold them or something? Impossible. So we have online courses for parents. The first one you should take is the micro course. Just go to agentsofspeech.com micro. We've got over a thousand people inside already, so join if you want to. All right? And then, you know, these kind of questions that you ask, it's just, I've heard it a thousand times. So go check it out there and watch it and then ask specifically for a child inside of our Facebook group, and then it'll be much easier to Help you. All right, so all in all, let's. Let's. Let's wrap up this live video. I've been talking too much. Obviously, my stance is that, you know, ABA isn't bad. You know, it is. It's. It's. In fact, I like it. It's good. How about when I asked the. The children who are on the spectrum, who are now teenagers or adults within my circle, within my. The people who I taught, who I am teaching, what do they say about aba? They like it. They like the structure. They've never heard. They. They. And I said, do you feel bad? Like, do you have bad memories about aba? And then they said, no, in fact, they didn't have bad memories about aba. They had bad memories about, like, sensory integration, speech therapy. They had bad therapy. Bad, you know, memories about, like, their parents bring them to. What's that called, you know, acupuncture in the head. Those are the bad stuff, right? And I would say that, you know, and ask, hey, is it really, like, speech therapy got you a bad experience? And then my student would say, told me that it was that teacher back then that really scared her, you know, or him. I forgot which one. Okay, so see, it's not the thing. It's not the therapy. It's not the method. It's the person conducting the thing. The method, the whatever. All right? You can. Like, there's a whole spectrum, I'm saying, spectrum of skills, abilities, competencies, whatever, okay? Across any profession, you can have a waiter that is real bad, but you can also have a waiter that's like, very good, and you feel so good, and you want to tip him 100 bucks or something, right? Agnes, I have no idea. I really do not know. I am not a healthcare professional. I do not provide this kind of advice. I would say that after a child has been to acupuncture and has come to me, first of all, they're really tired because why everyone has to pull him down in order for the needles to go inside the head. They're damn tired because there's a bunch of adults holding them down. Second of all, I would say, I would argue that they are a little calmer than usual. I don't know if they're tired or. I don't know, or they're more Zen or whatever. But, yeah, I think that. I really don't know in terms of mood or whatever, I think it. It's effective. But I'm telling you again, guys, whatever. Medical or biomedical or, like, acupuncture, whatever, massage or whatever, these kind of stuff. Hey, you. You practice what you get. And this is where, like, ABA is good because they only focus on the observable skills. All right? You acupuncture someone and you don't teach them how to talk, they still, no matter how smart they become, they still can't talk. You know what I'm saying? It's not something that without the lack of practice, it will come naturally. It's not like that. If it were like that, they wouldn't need speech therapy. They wouldn't need aba. They wouldn't need, like, occupational therapy, that kind of stuff. Remember, you practice what you get. You cannot just say, oh, after they ate, like, some DHA stuff, and then they start talking. Right. It never is like that. I think. All right, if there's someone who tells you, oh, it's all because of biomedical. I think there's something fishy going on. Okay, Coming from a therapist. Okay, so I'm really biased. Okay. So, yeah. So obviously there are some people saying out there, like, oh, I take this medicine, just help my son a lot. You know, help my student a lot. Eating this, playing this, whatever. Increasing the cognitive ability, whatever. I don't know. I really don't know. I only know that. I only know that this is what I know, only. Okay, before I say that, yeah. Neurofeedback, not over. It's not about helping. It will help in a way, but it won't help for what you're looking for. It won't help. It might, like, help their gut, you know. It might help their, you know, their overall calmness. But will it help their speech and language? I don't know. Right. It's like, for instance, your joints. For me, I eat for my joints. I eat, like, fish oil. Dha, epa. Right. But does that mean I'm going to be able to be more flexible just by eating fish oil? No. Does that mean my joints are going to be stronger because I eat up, eat that kind of stuff? No. It helps, but it doesn't. It's not going to help me become the thing without the practice. That's the thing I'm trying to say. All right, obviously, all this kind of stuff works for everyone, but you cannot say because I ate this thing or because I did this and it led to a result that is totally not that related. All right, if you say that I went to speech therapy and my speech became better, I think, yeah, fair enough. Right. If. If you went to, like, occupational therapy and now my son can grip, you know, the pencil nicely, then I think, yeah, okay. Fair enough. Right, so. But if you say that, oh, my son went to acupuncture, now he can talk. I don't think so. Right. So obviously it will help, like in a different way. And I'm going to end with all I know is that to those parents who have reached out to me, like through email, through private message, who, those who posted in the group who like, have seen results and helping the child to speak. Right. There's only one common thing students say who are on the spectrum. Tell me they wouldn't be able to communicate at all if the mom, especially the mom usually pulled them out, you know, when they ran away, put them back on a seat and kept on and kept on practicing. Okay. No matter. Whatever method you want to use, right? Aba, speech therapy, floor time, pecs, whatever, I don't care. All right? Parent involvement is very critical and it's up to you, okay, Whether, you know, the methods I talk about here will work for you or not. They will only work if you put time into it. They will only work if you take action upon it. They will only work if you try, if you practice the thing that they need to know. Right. If you're teaching them, if you're teaching them to like crawl, then how does that, what's that to do with them talking? Right? Yes. And consistency. That's correct. And it takes a lot because I know you guys are very tired and stuff and this is, you know, it's a full time, 247 job. Okay. But I just want to tell you guys that, you know, that's what I've been hearing from everyone, like from adults who have suffered from speech disorders. You can check him out. He's on Facebook, he's called Jordan. I think it's like fighting for my voice. It's a Facebook page of a guy right now who's 20 something or something. And then he only started talking like five or six. His first words, he's got apraxia of speech. And then he said he wouldn't have done anything if it wasn't for the mom drilling him after speech therapy. Right. And you know, there's also another kid who's in Indonesia who's. I'm teaching right now, he's in primary school. And he said if it wasn't for Aba and then his mom doing ABA with him, he wouldn't have been able to. And he wrote, he even wrote a book, man. Although he doesn't speak that well still right now, but he does write it out and stuff. And he says that, you know, like ABA therapy is great. He likes it. He likes the guy, the teacher who taught him. And I'm just here to say it's not the method. Find someone who you can trust and trust 100%. It might not be me, don't need to be me. I don't want maybe, you know, I don't really want that. Sometimes a lot of pressure, right? But at the same time, go try it, do it, do it and evaluate if it's effective for a kid or not. Same for all those, like, essential oils, whatever, like biomedical stuff. Just because it works for one person doesn't work for you. But I'm truly. All I know is that you practice what you get, right? You try as much as you can, right? You can. Only if you're teaching a behavior which talking, communicating, language, these are all behaviors, then behavioral therapy is worth it. Okay? And that's all I wanted to talk about today. And thanks everyone for checking this video out. You're very welcome. To those who are saying thank you, I really appreciate it. And you know, if you haven't, you should really join agentsofspeech.com micro. It's a low cost online course for parents just to go through all the frequently asked questions. Like for instance, how to get your child to sit down, how to get them to look at you, how to get them to answer to your name. To their name, sorry. How to make them want to talk to you. What things are you doing that you shouldn't be doing, like asking questions, whatnot, that kind of stuff. You can go there and check it out, watch it and then, you know, use it into your life. Right? And a lot of parents are saying that not really a lot, but around like 20 plus are saying that they're seeing great results. And you can see it inside of the, of the website. Just go, agents of speech.com micro, check it out, Go look at what parents are saying. Join our private Facebook group for that one and ask there and we can go from there. Okay, so that's all for today. Thank you. For those who are inside of the micro course already, we have our, our monthly Q and A on Wednesday, coming Wednesday. So check that out and it will be probably like in this format and you can ask me anything you want there. Okay? So see you guys. Thanks and have a great night and stay safe.