Every child’s ABA therapy hours look different, and that’s by design, not by accident. For example, a two-year-old just starting early intervention and a seven-year-old working on a handful of specific classroom skills will almost never be on the same schedule. So there’s a reason it’s hard to answer in one sentence. The honest answer […]
Your child’s teacher says today was a good day. Circle time went fine, they followed directions, and they even helped a classmate clean up. Then you pick them up, or they walk through the door at home, and the switch flips. Crying, yelling, dropping to the floor, or going completely silent and refusing to talk. […]
How do I know if ABA therapy is working? Look for these signs: skills that show up outside the therapy room, prompts that fade instead of multiply, transitions that get shorter over time, challenging behavior that serves less of a purpose, and a data trend line that climbs across weeks, even when a single session […]
Boys are diagnosed with autism at roughly three to four times the rate of girls, and that gap has far more to do with what clinicians were trained to look for than with how many girls are actually autistic. The tools most widely used to screen and diagnose autism were built and tested largely on […]
A geneticist and a BCBA answer two different questions, and knowing that distinction is the first step in deciding whether genetic testing makes sense for your family. Genetic testing does not diagnose autism, and a negative result does not mean your child is somehow less autistic than a child whose test comes back positive. What […]
A two-year-old and a five-year-old in ABA therapy are working on almost nothing in common, even though both fall under the same broad label parents hear at diagnosis. The method stays constant: break a skill into teachable pieces, reinforce progress, track data, adjust the plan. What changes, year by year, is everything else: where therapy […]
An autism babysitter is not the same job as a regular one. A standard sitter needs to keep your child fed, entertained, and safe until you get home. An autism babysitter needs to know your child’s routine well enough to keep it running without you, recognize the first signs of sensory overload before it becomes […]
Finding daycare is stressful for any parent. For a parent of an autistic child, it can feel like an entirely different kind of search. You’re not just checking hours and tuition. You’re wondering whether staff will understand your child, whether they’ll be included instead of sidelined, and whether a hard morning turns into a phone […]
Your child’s teacher says the day went great. Good listening, no issues, played well with others. Then you pick them up, or they walk through the front door, and everything changes. Tears, yelling, a full meltdown, or a child who goes completely quiet and shuts down. If this happens again and again, you’re not imagining […]
Does your child’s therapist seem to help less and less with each session, even on skills your child hasn’t fully mastered? That’s not an accident. It’s called prompt fading, and it’s one of the most important parts of ABA therapy. A prompt is the help a therapist gives so your child can succeed at a […]
Speech Delay vs. Autism: How Parents Can Tell the Difference
