The Verbal Behavior Approach: How to Teach Children With Autism and Related Disorders Paperback – Illustrated, May 15, 2007

If you are searching for information to support a loved one who has symptoms of autism or any suspected developmental delays, this book might just change your life. First, I need to share that the progress we have seen at home wasn't something I learned by skimming through this book. I have read and reread the information in this book and still refer back to it very frequently. The progress we have seen has required thousands of hours of intentional teaching using Mary's techniques. It has been a lot of work on the part of everyone in our family but within a few months of applying Mary's techniques my grandson was consistently responding to his name again whenever when it was called after a full year of regression. We all felt helpless and hopeless as it seemed that he was slipping farther and farther away into his own world and not responding to anything we did to try to play with him or teach him how to communicate. After reading Mary's book, we were able to identify things we needed to use to motivate him. This same child who could not attend to any direct teaching was gradually able to calm down enough and become motivated to learn when we paired learning activities with positive reinforcement. The screaming and temper tantrums were greatly reduced. He stopped banging his head and his anxiety and sensory aversions improved with daily exposure to learning activities. A few months later, he could name family members and identify several objects. Sometimes it seemed like we were stuck and could not see progress but I kept using the same techniques consistently every day. He finally learned how to point to things to show us what he wanted. Mary's philosophy is so empowering. Her medical knowledge empowered us to get referrals to specialists to identify and treat the underlying medical issues such as allergies, eczema, feeding difficulties, sleeping difficulties, and chronic constipation. Mary encourages parents to do everything possible once signs of autism are present to begin working with your child immediately. I am so thankful I took that advice because I would not want to look back 20 years from now and wonder if I should have done more. The methods Mary uses in this book to decrease problem behaviors and increase language are proven to be effective and based on many years of scientific research. After seeing the success from her book, I saved up enough to join Mary's online course. This has been the best investment I ever made to support my grandson in the recovery of all the skills that he lost to regressive autism. Our initial evaluations 18 months ago indicated moderate to severe autism, severely delayed expressive and receptive language skills, and moderate delays in social, motor and adaptive skills. Now he speaks in sentences!. We still have some issues we are dealing with but the future is so much brighter now knowing we have a child who can follow simple verbal directions and express his wants and needs. I never even knew this much progress could be possible! If you are on a wait list for an autism diagnosis or if your child shows some signs of developmental delays but did not qualify for an autism diagnosis this book is for you. If you have the diagnosis already and want to learn more about what you can do at home to support your child this book is for you. If you are a professional who works with children and want to learn how to shape behavior and do it in a way that is not emotionally harmful, does not use any negative reinforcement or punishment, and fully supports a child's emotional development this book is for you. If your child was recently diagnosed and the word autism feels like a death sentence with no possible way to recover, you must read this book to learn that in some cases, young children with autism can recover enough to be indistinguishable from their peers! The Verbal Behavior approach takes the science of ABA and breaks it down into an easy to implement format that anyone can use to help a child reach his or her fullest potential! I hope someday Mary finds the funding to distribute this information to every family who is impacted by autism. I hope insurance companies and state agencies will mandate and fund a parent training component to help families that are impacted by autism. There is nothing else out there (that I know of) that takes the science of ABA and simplifies it enough to help parents implement it in the home. Mary's book and online courses could have an enormous impact to help turn autism around for millions of families if a parent training component could be included with intensive ABA services and I hope to see that happen! Until then, if you are wanting to do everything you can to support someone you love who is showing symptoms of autism, I implore you to buy this book and check out Mary's video blogs and podcast titled "Turn Autism Around." Mary Barbera shares information she has gathered from real life experiences as a BCBA, registered nurse, and as a parent of a son with autism. Mary is always very cautious not to provide specific treatment advice but I am so thankful she took the time to write this book!

Great companion for the online course. be sure to read the Introduction chapters for background. I had to take the course and then reread the book to understand the method thoroughly (I am a special ed trained teacher with a Masters in Early Childhood).

When my son was diagnosed with autism, it became clear that ABA was the best type of therapy available to treat autism. We quickly enrolled him in a GREAT ABA program, and he was quickly making progress. He was seeing a speech therapist at this time through our state early intervention program.However, using appropriate language in a functional manner was VERY difficult for him. This book comes highly recommended from professionals in the autism field, and the verbal behavior approach is one approach to ABA, which is considered Best Practice for autism therapy.I was reading through the book rather casually, when a common speech therapy approach was basically denounced by the authors. This common ST approach was being used on my son at the time, with a pretty visible negative impact on his ability to use speech appropriately. It was so bad and so obvious that I immediately dismissed his speech therapist. I began using other ideas suggested in the book, and immediately started noticing a difference in his language. He went through professional ABA therapy for two years- a service I was VERY happy with- and I still prefer a VB approach when it comes to teaching language. In his professional ABA programs, he was taught to label objects before learning how to request objects. Everything his therapists attempted to teach him, he learned with ease, but it wasn't until we introduced a VB approach that he learned to use language SPONTANEOUSLY! This book helps you tap into your child's motivation in order to make language important to your child.His language and speech is at age level now, and I don't worry about him at school, because I know if he needs something or has a problem, he knows how to ask for help. While individual progress in autistic children will vary, depending on many different factors, this book made language acquisition SO much easier for my son, and without it, I believe we would still be using professional services and fighting to catch up to his peers. By the way, I've been to several support groups over the years, and these god-awful ST approaches the authors of this book condemn are ruining children's lives. For example, if your speech therapist teaches your child the word "more" before teaching your child the words for ANY commonly desired object of theirs, they have already set your child's speech back quite a bit. They've already done more damage than good. If I could do ANYTHING over again regarding my son's diagnosis and subsequent treatment, I would have read this book WAY before getting involved with Speech Therapy.