The Department of Defense reported to Congress on Oct 25, 2019 about Comprehensive Autism Care that after 1 year of ABA treatment 76% of those with autism had no change in symptoms and 9% WORSENED by more than 1 standard deviation. This reaffirms Navy Capt. Edward Simmer, chief clinical officer of the Tricare Health Plan, statement in November 2018 that the effectiveness of applied behavioral techniques for autism remains unproven. Year after year, the data says the same thing.
Read the report.
The Department of Defense updated the report in 2020. The new report concluded that “the changes are small and may not be clinically significant” Read the report here https://altteaching.org/update-us-government-reports-aba-doesnt-work/
To understand some of the reasoning why ABA does not work, please read the peer reviewed research https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311908.2019.1641258
The failure of the Functional Behavior Assessment also leads to misinformed treatment of Self Injurious Behaviors in autism. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311908.2019.1682766
Many people have asked me what is the point of teaching Ethan or any child with special needs Algebra, Geometry, or Biology. They seem to imply that these kids will never amount to much and will never use these skill, so why teach them and especially why teach the nonverbal kids?
A few years ago, we used to wake in the morning and find an empty and 
From a very young age our kids with special needs are taught to be 
Every few months Ethan’s OCD kicks in and he has to rearrange things according to the autistic feng shui 🙂 . There is no rhyme or reason but things that used to be OK now bother him and he has to move them so that there is “order” in his life. Sometimes it has been paintings on the wall, other times sofas and chairs. Over the years we have learned that if he is in the “OCD zone” where he is sweating and so worked up, there is no negotiating and the only thing that calms him down is to allow him to express his “inner designer” and move them. Once he has moved things, he quickly calms down and things go back to normal. The only time we will not allow him to do what he wants is if it is dangerous and then the only alternative is to remove him from the environment until he calms down.