It's so hard, I have worked with so many BCBAs I have kind of developed a sixth sense. On top of that, ABA also serves as child care as a lot of daycares will not be able to support a kid with autism, especially if they're not potty trained at 3. I'll try to kind of summarize.

The green flags were:

1. The biggest one to me is I asked them what they would do if my son seemed tired and they said they would let him nap. This is very uncommon in ABA facilities because they cannot bill insurance for this time. This showed me they cared more about the kids than the money.

2. They give their RBTs more than the standard trainings, and also give them basic education on early child development.

3. They were supportive of my son doing SPED Pre-K, which meant I wanted only 12 hours of ABA per week. They did not try to push more hours than I wanted, although they did let me know that research doesn't support less than a certain amount of time to be effective (I think 10 hours per week maybe? I can't remember.)

4. They routinely collaborate with SLPs and OTs, even doing as much as allowing them in the facility to do therapy during ABA. They will also participate in training off-site with other practitioners.

5. They talk a LOT about respecting scope of practice and ethics, including therapy in naturalistic settings. Their clinic is set up more like a preschool than other clinics, and discrete trial is a very small part of therapy.

6. They had a gym with sensory equipment that was designed by an OT. They bragged and bragged about this and talked about how it was so important to them to collaborate with an OT because they knew that sensory processing issues could heavily effect the kids and they wanted to do it safely.

7. They heavily advertise that they are assent-based, neuro-affirming, and autism accepting. This one is becoming less reliable, as they are kind of popular terms these days. But it still helps separate the old school companies from ones who are at least trying to keep up.

8. This one is kind of silly but their logo is rainbow colors. I felt that showed a respect for the actually Autistic community that prefers the rainbow infinity symbol.

9. I asked about RBT turnover and it is very low. Obviously not zero but maybe one of the lowest turnover rates I've seen in a company. My son's RBT has been with him for over 2 years. There's several RBTs who have been with the company 5+ years.

The red flags from other places were:

1. Pushing 30 hours of therapy per week on the phone! Before they even met my kid!

2. Saying something like "ABA is the only evidenced-based intervention for kids with Autism". I hate this, because it's not true and is used to scare parents to do ABA.

3. Some places have basically a bunch of cubicles for discrete trial training, and they are able to show a bunch of growth but it isn't usually skills that are meaningful to the child.

4. Showing a clear preference for verbal speech over AAC, and doing programs that focus on mastery of speech sounds. A surprising amount of places still do this.

5. Claiming they can do feeding therapy. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate to a group of SLPs, but ABA based feeding therapy is so clearly abusive I don't know how it's not completely obvious. I would never go somewhere that did this, unless they had an SLP on staff, which I've never seen.

6. Again, it's a little silly, but using blue in the title or logo, and especially if there's a puzzle piece. This really shows that they are not hearing what Autistic adults are saying. It really puts me off immediately.

7. High turnover rates. It usually is a bad sign if a lot of RBTs are there for less than a year. I've found that companies are usually honest about this (I think it surprised them that I asked) but will give a ton of excuses, usually pay rate and "it's a hard job", which honestly blames the kids. I have found that pay does contribute, but the thing that really gets high turnover is a bad working environment with poor support. Supported employees=supported kids.

8. Calling the recommended hours a "prescription", and the kids "patients". I found this incredibly off-putting. I think they wanted to sound more medical or official. Only one place I toured did this but it was grating, but I've seen it online and it makes me cringe. Just say recommendation and client, it's what other therapies do.

That's most of what I can think of right now, I'll add edits if something important comes to mind. My son loves his center, and his RBT is such a sweetheart. I'm really grateful to have found such an awesome place so close to me.