Clinic Notes: ABA Workshops: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

At least several times a week I am invited someplace to give an ABA workshop. The workshop audience that I am invited to speak to may be parents or other caregivers and that's good, but often the workshop is for professionals--therapists, teachers, classroom aides, etc. Nowadays my clinic is so over run with children with autism and my waiting list is so long that I politely decline, but even if I weren't busy I would decline most invitations. The problem is that with the popularity of ABA as a treatment for autism everybody wants to get into the ABA business. Most of the invitations come from organizations that want me to train their staff in ABA. In one day. Then the newly trained staff can go out and do their own ABA. And bill. Families and school systems do not know that the "ABA therapists" they are contracting with only have one day training and know just enough to be dangerous.