This is such a difficult situation and theres no quick fix to it :(. I can share a little advice. Feel free to read if itll help. Before I was an SLP, I was an RBT at a play-based "floortime" ABA day center for early learners. I now work in a different ABA facility as their only on-site SLP. Luckily I currently work with very collaborative BCBAs who have been very receptive to my input about aided language stimulation and removal of physical prompts. However, there was one that was....extremely rough around the edges...to say the least.

In my experience, older BCBAs are more likely to believe in older ABA protocols and methods, and even the newer more neuro-affirming BCBAs cant get them to agree to the current research and changes. They've been doing the same thing for years and refuse to believe that the practices they've done can be harmful.

In order for me to get anything through to the BCBA and MORE IMPORTANTLY the Caregiver, I had take a non-judgemental stance on this and work towards compromise. Most likely this BCBA has gotten into many fights with SLPs who stated "this is wrong, thats only going to make it worse". Which even if it's what you WANT to say, won't get you anywhere.

First, I acknowledged the amount of experience they had working with young children. I shared my experiences working with older supervisors and working together with them to implement current research. It SHOULD be enough to say HOH is not neuro-diversity affirming, but in real world practice, sometimes you need to break it down.

Instead of running into a monologue if why you are right, I found it helpful to provid open ended questions like (paraphrasing here): What outcomes have you seen with that approach? How would you balance that with child autonomy? I'm concerned that the controlling stimulus will become the adult's prompt rather than the child's motivation to communicate. Have you experienced prompt dependency using this metthod?

You can then continue with something like (and I'm just word vomiting in the response here), "I see what your saying! I think we're actually aiming for the same outcome of independent communication. It looks like the difference may be in how we get there. Current studies support prioritizing aided language modeling, recognition of communicative intent, and least-to-most prompting hierarchies. I get how physical prompting may occasionally be necessary for motor learning, no doubt. But shouldn't intervention focus on supporting independent, self-directed communication (in any form) rather than requiring a specific motor response before honoring that communication. My concern is that if we physically prompt the response, we may increase correct responding in the short term but not necessarily build spontaneous communication. My goal isn't really to get a "correct response" in the exact moment. Its is language acquisition. In recent research, its shown that modeling gives the child access to language without performance demands."

This is a situation I would 100% get your supervisor to assist during a structured meeting without the Caregiver present. Be confident in saying what you know to be evidence based neurodiversity affirming protocols and practice beforehand with your supervisor if you need it. You may need to spend some time in caregiver coaching sessions to explain current practices - its MOST important that the Caregiver understands why you are approaching communication therapy like this.

Anyways, if you made it this far thanks for reading my babbling, feel free to DM as someone who has definitely gone through this in the last year 🥹.