Positively Autism ~ Home-Based ABA Programs ~ January/February, 2009

Home-Based ABA Programs
Volume 4, Issue 1 ~ January/February, 2009

Helping Our Child Achieve His Maximum Potential
A Parent's Perspective on ABA
by Garrett Butch

As parents of a 6 year old with Autism, Garrett and Christy Butch understand what parents are going through and the tremendous burden that raising a child with Autism can bring. They also see the incredible joy that their son Collin brings to their life. “Collin is an amazing child and it would be tough for us to see him any other way,” says his mother Christy. “His smile and personality is so infectious and everyone wants to be around him. He is one of the most popular kids in school.”

Collin was diagnosed with autism at 22 months and was non verbal. He now attends public school and is in first grade. He splits his time between the typical classroom and a resource room. He is with his peers in all his specials, lunch, recess and homeroom, while all of his course work is done in a resource room, where he gets the extra help he needs.

When Collin was diagnosed his parents Garrett and Christy Butch placed him in every therapy they could. “ Some therapies worked better than others,” says Garrett, “but we found our most success in ABA.” In the four plus years since their son’s diagnosis, they have spent countless hours sitting in on therapy sessions as well as spending thousands of hours working with Collin independently to follow up with what he learned.

They have seen tremendous progress in Collin and are extremely thankful to the therapists who have spent so much time working with their son. They also realize that Collin would not be where he is today if they did not put so much time into working with him after therapy to follow up on what he learned. “Christy is the true hero in this,” says Garrett. “Our first ABA therapist came into our house and told my wife that she had to sit in on Collin’s therapy and learn what to do after she left, or she was not going to work with us.”

Christy did just that. For a period of 18 months, Christy sat in almost every ABA session. The lessons she learned there have been invaluable. “Everyday we work with Collin on something,” says Christy. “It may not be sitting at a table, but we have learned the skills necessary to counter act negative behavior, reinforce positive behavior and teach skills the right way.”

Having the ability to understand ABA and work with Collin at home has maximized the time their son Collin spends learning. The Butch’s take what he has been taught in therapy and expand on it. This does not always mean that they spend hours working on Discrete Trials, but that they use the time to put skills learned in session into every day life. “Our goal is to have Collin be able to function in any situation,” says Christy. “To do that, he has to be able to generalize his skills into the natural environment. For example when Collin works on numbers in therapy, we then take it to the next level and have him first identify numbers on a calendar and a clock and begin to have him understand dates and time. As he progresses, we introduce more advanced skills and are constantly communicating with his ABA team and school to ensure that we are consistent and on the same page.” The Butch’s were also able to learn Collins strengths and expand on them. “Collin has always loved letters. He knew his letters before he could talk,” says Garrett. “We encouraged Collin to read and he taught himself to read. We used the skills we learned in ABA to properly teach new skills, prompt effectively, fade the prompts and properly reinforce. Collin now reads on a fifth grade level. The step we are working on now is comprehension.”

In order to do all of this, the Butch’s had to learn ABA therapy, its principles and how each aspect worked in order to most effectively help Collin. Sitting in on countless hours of therapy, asking questions and practicing enabled Christy and Garrett to understand how to work with Collin in Discrete Trials as well as Natural Environment Work.

“As children, my parents worked with me to improve everything I did says Garrett. Whether it was playing catch, drilling me on my spelling or teaching me life skills, my parents were a part of my life. Unfortunately when it comes to ABA, many parents just do not know what to do to help their children.”

The Butch’s also understand how lucky they are to live in an area that has a number of ABA options as well as available training and school support. The more people we came in contact with and the more we saw through the media, made us realize that many places in this country and around the world do not have sufficient resources for families” says Christy. At the same time many families do not have the financial means to pay for the appropriate number of hours” The more information they received, the more they began to want to make a difference. In an effort to provide every family with a chance to help their children, Garrett and Christy (http://www.maximumpotentialkids.com) developed an ABA training course that provides parents with an opportunity to learn the principles of ABA. You can read more about Maximum Potential in section two of this issue of Positively Autism.

“Collin is doing so much better,” says Christy. “He is still autistic, but we would not be where we are today, if we had not put in the hours to work with him and improve his skills.”