ABA Resource for Parents

If you're a parent that has to buy just one book related to Autism, in my opinion this would be the one. The intended audience of the book is both parents and professionals working in the field of ABA based Autism Treatment. If you'd never read anything about Autism before reading it, you'd still likely be able to comprehend the writing in it. lt's practical. We were referred to this book by the Doctor at my son's ABA provider, assigned to my son's program. We'd asked if there was a "how to" manual out there that listed what had been taught to the children in the original UCLA Young Autism Project. The book's not exactly that, as it doesn't list granular specifics of the UCLA study, nor is it affiliated with it (one of the authors played a significant role in the study however, John McEachin), it does list out which ABA programs should be taught to a child on the Spectrum and more importantly, it lists the sequence in which those programs should be taught. Many of the programs detailed in it, lead into, or are prerequisites for, programs that are taught later on in the book. I like that it can be easily referenced and comprehended by parents, who want to implement some of the ABA programs at home themselves, and also, it can be leveraged by parents so that they can ask informed questions of their professional ABA provider. In addition to providing a full ABA curriculum, the book also discusses disruptive behaviors, self-stimulatory behaviors, sleep problems, toilet training and how to approach each of these with your child.

It's reported that a large percentage of people with an ASD have mild to severe deficits in their ability to attribute mental states to others (theory of mind). In layman's terms, Theory of Mind is the ability to imagine what another person may be thinking. For example, if you see someone peeking into an open drawer, you'll imagine that they're probably looking for something in that drawer. This is just one example of Theory of Mind. Many people with an ASD are thought to be void of this ability that the rest of us take for granted. This is a critical deficit when you consider how often you typically imagine the mental states of others throughout the day, especially during social interactions. The lead author of the book, Simon Baron-Cohen is the Director of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre and in 1985 headed up the first study related to Theory of Mind. There aren't many books published that specifically target this deficit in people with an ASD, and that's what makes the book so unique. Before I go any further, I want to point out that I couldn't find much data on whether or not the teaching methods detailed in this book are backed by scientific evidence showing that they work. That's not to say the methods don't or won't produce results, I just didn't locate any scientific data to support that they would, nor have I located any other books on the market dedicated to teaching this subject.

The book progresses nicely, beginning with simple recognition of basic emotions through facial expressions, happy, sad, afraid and angry. This is followed by multiple scenarios where a person is illustrated in a particular sìtuation, but the person's face purposefully has not been drawn in. The student then needs to choose from one of the four emotion pictures displayed and state how the person feels. For example, lady in a burning building. How does she feel? Answer: Scared. Why does she feel scared? There's more to it than that, but that's my simplified expIanation. From here the book moves into teaching the student desire based emotions. For example there are two pictures given for a scenario. Picture 1 may show a child wanting orange juice, with picture 2 showing the child being handed grapefruit juice. How does he feel? Answer: Sad. Again, this is a simplified explanation, the book is more detailed. The next section of the book moves into belief based emotions. For these, there are three pictures, and two sub pictures contained within one of the three. One sub picture displays what the child wants, the other is what the child thinks they're going to receive or will occur. An example of this would be, Picture 1 displays the reality, a swing is broken in the park for example, Picture 2, displays a child wanting to play on the swing and that the child also thinks the swing is in working order. How does she feel? Answer: Happy, as she doesn't know the swing is broken yet, she hasn't been to the park yet to see the broken swing. Next she arrives at the park. How does she feel when she sees the swing is broken? Answer: Sad. These are belief based emotions. The next sections of the book are based on seeing leads to knowing and predicting the simple actions of others based on what you're imagining they're thinking.

The authors recommend that the student has a language level of a 5 year old and above, but of course this doesn't mean it's written for 5 year olds, nor does it mean 4 year olds wouldn't benefit from it, provided that they have the language and comprehension level to understand it. Speaking strictly about my own son, I can say that he displays a strong Theory of Mind. lt may even be close to the same as that of his typically developing peers, but I don't believe there's any real world diagnostics available to  measure a person's level of Theory of Mind, so I can't quantify it to say for certain. Did his Theory of Mind develop as a result of me working through the entire program in this book with him? I don't know. I imagine he had some level of it already before participating in the program in the book. I do believe at a minimum that the book has improved upon it, so it's had a positive impact on his life.