By Vince LaMarca, BCABA, Editor
Lovaas Institute - Indianapolis

Springtime means IEP time in a lot of school districts. As a behavioral consultant, I've had my fair share of IEP meetings that have gone smoothly and those that have been contentious. Often there are controversies surrounding the services a child should receive. Both parents and school personnel feel strongly about their position and coming to a consensus can seem impossible. However, I've also found that there are a number of critical areas that make it more or less likely parents will be willing to listen to what the school district has to offer. Here are common requests I hear from parents about IEP meetings.

There are many good reasons to find materials for therapy around the house or create them on your own. Such materials save money and are more likely to be relevant to your individual child. At the same time, finding and making materials can be time consuming and so it can also be helpful to draw upon materials that others have already created.

Following are a few of the sites that have been helpful to many families searching for therapy materials.

• www.difflearn.com
• www.autismshop.com
• www.aba-materials.com
• www.dotolearn.com
• www.superduperinc.com
• www.linguisystems.com

By Vince LaMarca, BCABA, Editor
Lovaas Institute - Indianapolis

After presenting a thoughtful, highly educational overview of strategies and principles of applied behavior analysis that are often utilized with children with autism, one of the teachers in the audience brought me back to earth with this comment, "I don't have time to get a degree in ABA, but I like a lot of the ideas that you talked about in your presentation. If you had to remove all the theoretical talk and could only give me the 5 most practical and specific things to do that would probably increase a child's success in school, what would you say?"

By Vince LaMarca, BCABA, Editor
Lovaas Institute - Indianapolis

Part of the family's role in behavioral treatment is to help a child apply skills he has learned in therapy to everyday life. Some parents question whether they can do this when the day is already so hectic. However, many parents are pleasantly surprised at the benefits of consistently focusing on generalization.

Dorothy, the mother of a four-year-old son with autism put it this way, "Generalization gives me a chance to connect with my child in really positive ways. Bedtime used to just be a routine, but when we started gradually moving things from therapy, it became more of an interaction. My son's so familiar with the games we play at bedtime and he's always been so successful with them that now it's become a time of the day we both really look forward to."

By Vince LaMarca, BCABA, Editor
Lovaas Institute - Indianapolis

As more and more research is conducted, support for behavioral treatment only grows stronger. In the past two years, two replication studies from independent authors have bolstered the Lovaas Model of Applied Behavior Analysis in particular. Bibliographical information and a quote from each abstract are included below.

Sallows, Glen O. & Graupner, Tamlynn D. (2005). Intensive Behavioral Treatment for Children with Autism: Four-Year Outcome and Predictors. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 110 (6), 417-438.

"We found that 48% of all children showed rapid learning, achieved average posttreatment scores, and at age 7, were succeeding in regular education classrooms. These results are consistent with those reported by Lovaas and colleagues (Lovaas, 1987; McEachin, Smith, & Lovaas, 1993)."

Cohen, Howard, Amerine-Dickens, Mila, Smith, Tristram. (2006). Early Intensive Behavioral Treatment: Replication of the UCLA Model in a Community Setting. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 27 (2), 145-155.

"Children in behavioral treatment scored significantly higher in IQ and adaptive behavior scores than the comparison group. Further, 29% (6 of 21) children were fully included in regular education without assistance and another 52% (11 of 21) were included with support. This compares to only 5% (1 of 21) children in the control group who were placed in regular education."