Our son has always had one thing going for him. No matter how much his behaviours got in the way of anything else, come time for AIT testing he was without fail chosen for the testing. The reason was simple, he thrives on the AIT testing environment and so he behaves at the best of his abilities and makes his trainers look the best they can possibly be.
Now last year he entered kindergarten and so the end of ABA therapy. And for the ABA center it was the end of using our son for their testing. But, there was an unseen detail. Because of our son’s ability in testing when the AIT program did their OTJ training our son was chosen as one of the subject’s because of his history with the testing. This was again repeated later in the year, so in kindergarten he had two rounds of AIT training courses.
This year we were called again and asked if he could participate again (we really enjoy him participating as he functions well during it) and again today when the head trainer called me she asked if he could be used in the second training as well.
The advantage that his participation in this course provides is specific ABA based training used in relation to school based activities. In school his TA’s are both ABA trained however full ABA teaching is considered to disruptive to the class and so while he gets elements of it, he does not get the full benefit. During the AIT training he is still working on the school programs but it is for this period being done using full ABA methods and his responses are significantly greater.
We willingly allow him to participate in this program because he functions so well and benefits so much from it. however one question I often ask myself. Which is more disruptive Using ABA in the classroom or having his behaviours in the classroom.
His behaviours are not completely removed by ABA but they are dramatically reduced. Sometimes I quietly question (in my head) whether it would be more productive to use the ABA in the classroom, both for him and for his classmates.
His classmates are another thing. We are fortunate that he is only in Grade 1 at the moment. But I am so pleasantly surprised by the friendly way he is treated by his classmates (and others not in his class) even though he is non verbal and generally unresponsive to their attention. But everyday when I pick him up someone is always waving and saying hi to him or someone is waiting for him to play with him even though he generally accepts but also ignores their presence.
Sometimes it makes you feel that regardless of what commenting you read on news pages when it comes to some adults opinions of special needs students and integration, apparently bigotry and hatred are not genetic because almost all the kids i have seen in my child’s school have missed that “message” and are extremely well behaved not only with my child but with most other children there as well from what I have seen.
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