Attain ABA — Applied behavior analysis therapist in Baltimore, MD

We were incredibly disappointed with Attain ABA. They really encourage you to request 40 hours of therapy a week, which I understand this is someone’s livelihood and they need the hours, but requiring a child to do intensive work with someone for 40 hours a week is insane. That’s like signing your child up for a full time job. In fact, I’ve even overheard our tech say to my child, “okay, that’s enough, now let’s do some work”. He’s 2 years old! We settled with 20 hours a week but even that was overwhelming. The tasks they would assign to him were also redundant. For example, they would have him play a matching game over and over again that he got bored with it and would just scream anytime they would pull it out. Over a period of time I feel like his behavior was worsening because he hated certain key phrases he’d hear coming from us. For instance, the tech would present an object that my son had an interest in and would state “wait” and then set a timer for 30-60 seconds. What toddler, even neurotypical ones, can stand to wait for that long when you’re dangling a toy that they clearly want in front of them? So anytime I use the word “wait” now, even if it’s for a couple of seconds, he screams which he hadn’t done in the past. Our breaking point was when our tech failed to keep our child safe. I reviewed footage from our home security camera and saw the tech sitting on the floor with her legs out. My son tripped over her leg and hit his head on our coffee table which left his eye lid split open. Ultimately, he had to get stitches from that fall. I normally sit on my knees or in the lotus position when playing with my kid because I know that sitting with your legs out is a tripping hazard. You would think a professional who is supposed to work with neurodivergent children would also know that. I understand that accidents occur and toddlers are prone to hurt themselves but what blew me away the most was her uselessness during emergency situations. My husband had to both control the bleeding and soothe a hysterical toddler while the tech couldn’t even handle a simple phone call to paramedics (she instead held the phone up to my husband’s ear while he was holding my son). I cant speak for my son but this entire experience has traumatized both me and my husband. Needless to say, we got rid of the coffee table and we got rid of ABA therapy. If you are thinking about enrolling your child in ABA, please go with your gut. If you don’t like your tech, speak up and request a new one. I wish we would have done that early on but the entire program has left such a terrible impression on me that I refuse to ever work with them in the future.

Attain is very strict about 10 hours minimum per week. My son is 6 and in kindergarten. He leaves for school at 9 and gets home at 4:30, and goes to bed at 8. In order to meet 10 hours, he would have to do nothing but school and therapy 4 or 5 days per week with literally 0 playtime or downtime. I do believe in ABA therapy and my son did 40 hours per week when he was 3. However, insisting on these high minimum hour requirements for children who are also in school is just not realistic. It also shows Attain’s bias towards autistic children, as they seem to believe that autistic kids don’t deserve free time to pursue their own interests like typical children do. We were doing 7 hours per week, and even that was hard to manage. They insisted we increase to 10 and when I said no they terminated us immediately. That’s fine with me, as my son deserves time to be a kid and I will advocate for him anytime that’s needed.

I am so happy with the services we are getting from Attain ABA. We were able to start therapy very quickly and everyone who we've dealt with has been so kind and caring. The therapists are really good at what they do and I'm seeing such a big difference in my child's behavior and day to day life.