ABA take down in the news

What about that report in the NY Times regarding ABA?

Fraudulent billing for autism treatment is once again in the news. As reported previously here on Special Education Today (27 March 2026; 26 February 2026; 26 January 2026; 3 January 2025 , 5 July 2021), there have been repeated allegations of providers charging for behavior analysis services that were not actually provided. The issue is back in the news of late May 2026.

In the New York Times (23 May 2026), Sara Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz reported an investigation of ABA service providers under the headline “5 Takeaways From a Times Investigation on Autism Therapy Clinics: A rapidly growing industry often overprescribes treatment to young children with autism, who spend as many as 40 hours a week at the facilities.” The article has been picked up by other news sources.

One of us (ET) sent a letter to the authors. Here are the contents of that letter:

Thank you for your recent reporting on Applied Behavior Analysis therapy in The NY Times.

I very much appreciate your highlighting this therapy for children with Autism, but I strongly disagree with the statement that the effectiveness of ABA therapy is mixed.

Indeed, ABA therapy is one of the most effective strategies for teaching students with disabilities, including those who experience severe Autism. Through ABA therapy, students learn communication, social, and academic skills. The therapy is most effective when conducted in real-life settings, such as home and school, with family members and peers.

If the therapy is not working, as your article suggests, then that is likely due to ineffective or poor implementation. ABA requires work and consistency on the part of the therapist, the caregiver, and the child. Interventions must be tailored to meet the needs of the child and family—this tailoring is informed by continuous data collection. When implemented correctly, ABA therapy has made a significant difference in the lives of people with disabilities.

I encourage you to check out the free resources from the University of North Carolina AFIRM website, which provides training in evidence-based ABA interventions for students with Autism. You can find a systematic review of these practices in Steinbrenner et al. (2020). Note the breadth of these interventions—from communication to exercise to cognitive-behavioral approaches--These interventions are all grounded in ABA.

Peabody Vanderbilt has some terrific videos showcasing the effective techniques of ABA in teaching young students to communicate, play, and interact with their peers.

I appreciate your reporting, but it’s critical to note that, like any evidence-based intervention, correct implementation makes all the difference.

Check out Paul Coyne’s example of evidence-based ABA in action.

References

Steinbrenner, J. R., Hume, K., Odom, S. L., Morin, K. L., Nowell, S. W., Tomaszewski, B., Szendrey, S., McIntyre, N. S., Yücesoy-Özkan, S., & Savage, M. N. (2020). Evidence-based practices for children, youth, and young adults with Autism. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice Review Team. https://ncaep.fpg.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/EBP-Report-2020.pdf

Readers also might want to consult a post by Pal-of-SET, Paul Coyne. Over on Paul’s Substack of Useful Information for 31 May 2026, Paul responded to the NY Times article with a description of his recommendations for autism programming. Here’s a paragraph from his article, “I would not design a center based program as described in the NYTimes“:

I would not develop a center based program for children with autism that looked like this. I prefer to arrange the teaching in natural environments, such as the home, or in the classroom, or in the community, where ever the child’s goals and objectives dictated. In the home the therapists worked with the child on a 1:1 basis. Certain sessions were designed to train the parents in ABA teaching techniques. We taught them discrete trial teaching and pivotal response teaching. We taught them how to give good instructions, how to use prompts, how to reinforce, when to ignore behavior, how to arrange activity schedules, how to react to screaming, hitting and other behavior problems. We taught them how to collect data and more. I felt that if you trained the parents so they used the teaching techniques in naturally occurring situations the effects of the behavior therapy would extend beyond the therapy sessions. You did not need to provide 40 hours a week of therapy to obtain excellent results.

The articles by Ms. Kliff, Ms. Sanger-Katz, and Ms. Elkeurti have gotten lots of play in the popular press. Examples: Real Clear Investigations echoed it; World News also repeated it; so did Seemayo (film clip) and Longreads.

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