The Goal Was Never a Quiet Child

Every few weeks, I see a version of the same question pop up in our local moms’ Facebook group.

My child was just diagnosed with autism. Should we do ABA?

Which ABA company is the best?

I’ve heard terrible things about ABA. Is it even safe?

I always pause before answering. Not because I don’t know what I think, but because those questions deserve more than a quick comment on Facebook.

For many families, the journey begins the same way. Your child is diagnosed with autism. You’re handed a packet of information, a list of therapy providers, and suddenly everyone around you starts speaking in letters instead of words.

ABA. OT. PT. SLP. AAC. BCBA. RBT.

Somewhere along the way, you’re pretty sure everyone else became fluent in alphabet soup while you’re still trying to remember whether you ate lunch.

Someone explains that ABA is considered the gold standard of care and is often the therapy your insurance is most likely to cover. Then, after one of the biggest conversations of your life, you’re sent home to figure out what comes next.

Your world has changed. You don’t know who to trust, which questions to ask, or how to choose a provider for a child you love more than anything.

So you do what almost every parent does: you ask other parents.

Usually the moms in your local Facebook group because, let’s be honest, they know everything from the best pediatric dentist to which Costco carries the good chicken nuggets.

Honestly, that’s exactly what I would do too.

The hardest part is that every clinic has a beautiful website. Every brochure promises compassionate, individualized care. Every homepage has smiling children blowing bubbles.

Seriously, why are we all so committed to bubbles?

From the outside, many clinics look remarkably similar. But philosophy reveals itself somewhere else.

It shows up in the little moments.

I’ve spent nearly twenty years in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. I started as a behavior technician, became a BCBA, eventually opened my own clinic, and have had the privilege of supporting hundreds of incredible children and their families.

When I think back on some of the things I was taught as a new behavior technician, my stomach still knots.

There is one little girl I have never forgotten.

She had recently been diagnosed with autism and was brand new to ABA. She was terrified to separate from her mom.

My supervisor instructed me to take her into one of our therapy rooms, close the door, sit with my back against it so she couldn’t leave, and wait. I was told to ignore her crying until she “tired herself out” and was ready to work.

I can still picture the room. There were no windows. Just a tiny table, two little chairs, a handful of toys, and a little girl crying for her mom.

Some days she never tired herself out. She spent the entire two-hour session screaming while I sat on the floor wondering whether this could possibly be helping.

I was a new behavior technician, and I trusted that the people training me knew better than I did.

Today, if that same little girl walked into my clinic, we would do almost the opposite. Her mom would stay with us. We would play together. We would build trust before asking her to separate. We would celebrate thirty calm seconds before expecting five minutes, and we would move at her pace instead of ours.

The last child we supported this way took about a month before she was comfortable separating from her mom. Today, she walks into our clinic, waves goodbye, and heads off to play.

She feels safe.

That’s growth.

I don’t tell that story because I’m ashamed of this field. I tell it because I’m proud that we are willing to learn from what we got wrong.

Progress isn’t pretending we knew better all along. Progress is having the courage to do better once we know better.

So when parents ask me which ABA company I recommend, I usually don’t recommend a company at all.

I recommend looking for a philosophy.

The most important question isn’t, Which clinic is best?

It is, How do they see my child?

Some clinics see behaviors to eliminate. Others see communication to understand. Those philosophies produce very different kinds of therapy.

For me, the goal has never been a quieter child. It has never been making a child sit perfectly during circle time, forcing eye contact, or teaching them to tolerate an overwhelming environment simply because everyone else can.

The goal has always been helping children communicate—to tell us they’re overwhelmed, ask for a break, say “no thank you,” share their excitement, express their frustration, advocate for themselves, make a friend, order their own lunch, and ultimately build a life that feels authentically theirs.

One of the most important changes in our field has been the growing emphasis on assent.

Parents provide consent for therapy. Children provide assent.

Those are not the same thing.

A child doesn’t have to say, “I don’t want to do this,” for us to hear them. They may push materials away, turn their body, walk out of the room, hide under a table, cry, become unusually quiet, or become dysregulated.

Those behaviors deserve the same respect we would give spoken words. They are communication.

Instead of asking, How do I get this child to comply? we should be asking, What are they trying to tell me?

Behavior is often the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one.

One of the greatest lessons of my career came from a little boy who communicates without spoken words.

For years, his team worked tirelessly to help him find a communication system that worked. Alongside his speech-language pathologist and school team, we introduced augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC. We started with a picture exchange book and eventually transitioned to an iPad with a communication app.

It changed his world.

Until one day, it didn’t.

Halfway through nearly every session, he began quietly zipping the iPad into his backpack.

There was his voice.

Packed away.

Years ago, we probably would have responded by prompting more, practicing more, and insisting that he keep using it. Instead, we got curious.

We watched. We listened. We wondered what he was trying to tell us.

Eventually, someone on his team asked a beautifully simple question.

What if this just isn’t how he wants to communicate?

So we began teaching sign language.

Not because sign language is better than AAC. Not because the iPad had failed. We changed course because he had told us that system was not working for him.

Almost immediately, everything changed. His aggression decreased. His frustration eased.

More importantly, he was happy again.

Communication isn’t about the tool.

It’s about being heard.

There is one more thing I wish every parent knew.

Please don’t apologize to me for your child’s behavior.

I’ve been sneezed on, drooled on, scratched, bitten, head-butted, and once had a remarkably well-aimed wooden train launched directly at my forehead.

None of those moments upset me nearly as much as watching a child struggle to tell us what they need.

Parents often look horrified when their child throws a toy, hits me, scratches me, or says they hope I die. I always tell them the same thing.

This is why you’re here.

You’re not showing me your child’s worst moments. You’re trusting me with them.

The bruise on my arm will be gone next week. The relationship we’re building with your child has the potential to last a lifetime.

Then I became an autism mom.

I thought I understood what families carried.

I understood treatment plans, behavior data, and insurance authorizations. What I didn’t understand was the invisible weight that follows parents home after therapy ends—the planning, the advocacy, the constant decision-making, the grief that sneaks in unexpectedly, and the extraordinary joy and heartbreak that somehow coexist every day.

Before becoming a parent, I thought therapy ended when the session ended.

I know better now.

Parenting my son didn’t change my belief in ABA. It changed the way I practice it.

Today, I don’t just see the child. I see the family—the sibling who is quietly adapting, the parent who is exhausted before the day even begins, the marriage trying to stay connected, and the grandparents who desperately want to help.

That is why our clinic supports caregivers, not just children. It is why we offer marriage and family therapy. It is why we solve problems with families instead of simply telling them what to do after we leave.

Therapy does not happen in isolation.

It happens in the middle of real life.

Sometimes I wonder why it took becoming an autism mom for me to understand all of this. But I think that may be the wrong question.

The better question is: How do we teach clinicians to see the whole family before life forces them to?

I don’t believe someone has to become an autism parent to be an extraordinary clinician. But I do believe clinicians must remain humble enough to recognize that there are experiences we will never fully understand unless someone is willing to teach us.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that my greatest teacher wasn’t a professor, a conference speaker, or even my doctoral program.

Please don’t tell them I said that.

It was my son.

He taught me something I wish I had understood twenty years earlier.

Every child deserves to be seen before they are ever expected to change.

The goal was never a quiet child.

It was a child who knew their voice mattered.