Pros and cons of ABA and Greenspan and the new hybrid therapy to develop affection and proper emotion known as AABA:
ABA is a regimented intensive therapy that breaks down therapeutic exercises into very specific tasks that can be measured for progression. If you look up experiments done by Dr. Lovaas you will see some very promising statistics. For instance, some members in the group that received the most therapy increased their IQ up to 33 points. However, critics say this therapy falls short when it comes to building affectionate emotions and relationships. It builds ability via rote robot like repetition. Therapists simply keep working at an exercise until it’s mastered like matching colors or shapes then build on that.
Greenspan’s approach towards first building a relationship in order to begin therapy falls on the other side of the spectrum. It seeks to develop relationships between the caregiver and the child. This directly addresses the social inadequacies autistic children typically have. However, this is a much softer approach to therapy and it can be extremely frustrating to attempt, especially for a parent who has little or no training. The parent or therapist attempts to go into the child’s world by including themselves in the child’s favorite activities. Progression is typically at a much slower pace because you are more dependent on how receptive the child is. At the end of the day, Greenspan’s style makes it much more difficult to discern any improvement via increased ability in measurable task. Let’s be realistic here, most of us don’t have the capacity to work successfully through such barriers. Frustrating indeed.
So as a parent how can I teach affection? And how can I do this without becoming completely frustrated. How can I possibly stay the course if I have no ability to bond or become relevant in my child’s eyes? What specific exercises can I work on to help build a more normal family dynamic? Is this your inner voice? I know these were the questions I was asking myself. Worse yet, other more unsettling thoughts would raise my heart rate. How can I possibly potty train a child with no speech? How can I get him to not bolt or wander away? How can I get him to be comfortable being nose to nose with me or get him to look me in the eyes? In essence, how can I get him to be my son and not just an enclosed distant eyed stranger?
What if somehow you could blend ABA to Greenspan and focus on tasks that instill affection and happiness?
Applied Affectionate Behavior Analysis or AABA, is the exercise of applying discrete trials for the sole purpose of teaching and inciting affectionate behavior from your child. I term them Discrete Affectionate Trails or DAT's. It subscribes to the importance of Greenspan’s mantra, but enforces the patterns of a loving family social system though ritualistic and systematic behaviors. This doesn’t just mean coming home, getting into your child’s face and trying to kiss and hug them, but developing tactics and behaviors to get your child to first find you relevant and eventually desire to hug and kiss you. Many criticize ABA for creating “little robots”, that it doesn’t teach emotion or the finer social interactions so many autistic children commonly lack. But through this blended process, I have seen amazing progress via the strategies laid out in the later chapters.
Just because an autistic child does not have the innate ability to know a hug feels good or they constantly put knees and elbows out because they’re uncomfortable with close quarters doesn’t mean they can’t learn and eventually want affection. Greenspan’s style of getting into your child’s world is through interactive play. That eventually you will become relevant by always being there and playing ‘in his world’, but to me, attempting to wiggle into your child’s mind by simply getting down to his level and hoping you will become significant under their terms can be akin to going into the woods and attempting to befriend a pack of wolves. It takes an extraordinary person with an infinite amount of time, training and patience to be accepted into their world. This is not to say that Greenspan’s ladder of connection and socialization isn’t important. As a matter of fact it’s imperative, but a main reason it hasn’t been implemented more is because it’s too frustrating, takes too long and doesn’t have much in the way of proving progress because it’s not set up with systematic exercises like ABA. But through AABA you create the opportunity and apply the model toward creating and reinforcing behaviors that will later turn to natural affection.
The blended therapy of AABA focuses directly on the parent child relationship. Like Greenspan it must begin with a ladder of progression as well. But as shown in the next chapters, there are specific exercises to walk you through progression.
