Floortime vs. ABA - what if your child is not reward driven?
I admit - I am fairly new to the whole ASD circle.
I recently watched "autistic-like" documentary - and it got be thinking. Actually got me thinking about things I had already been thinking about.
My son is in a full time ABA pre-school program - and yes it is wonderful for him.
Here are my concerns:
Brady (my son) is not terribly "reward" driven. I see all these kids doign things for an m&m or a sticker, and that just isn't brady. he's just not motivated by rewards (and I wonder if thats part of our poor parenting, but I digress)
as further aside this has made potty training even more difficult, but again...back to the point of my post.
I know that "rewards" is a key component to ABA. and yes, my son (he is primarly speech delayed - and I question his auditory processing most of all) has improved - obviously somethign is working.
I actually am going to pick up greenspan's book -- and look at the floor time model - from my limited understanding its seems like it just means getting into the child's world ("getting on the floor") and interacting with him. I am sure there is more to it -- but I am thinking maybe this. I guess I will find out.
any comments or experience would be appreciated.
ok - back to my hellish job...thanks all 
Re: Floortime vs. ABA - what if your child is not reward driven?
I have no idea what the answer to your question is- but I wanted to dispel one of your concerns- my child is VERY reward driven, and would move mountains for an M&M, and I consider THIS to be bad parenting! He won't behave at all unless I have a big pocket of M&M's. I can't imagine the judging that goes on at Target when I've found myself ripping open bags of fruit snacks just to stop a temper tantrum.
I agree with PP that rewards at school ARE different. My son isn't interested at stickers at home (probably because he knows he'll get candy eventually) but at school, stickers are a big deal. Also we are starting to PT, and at his (typical) daycare, just being able to flush the toilet is this huge prize to him, probably because all the other kids are doing it too.
We just put a tv in DS' room because I was hoping that I could use it as a reward- he has just a few shows that he likes to watch. So far that has backfired too and now he'll just tantrum if I don't let him watch it so now he's just a little TV hound. Parenting is hard!
ABA is all about trying to find things that your ds does like. My ds probably wouldn't work for stickers anymore, he did maybe a year or so ago when he started the program. He will always work for candy, but we were swayed to dimisish the use of food rather quickly. We did that initially to get him interested in ABA, for the first few months, after that we tried a variety of things, and we always had to vary it up, because he got bored rather quickly with these things. It is also key to make sure that the rewards aren't just given to them on a regular basis outside of therapy. It has to be something that is of high value to him (every child has something), that is limited to him only during therapy. Believe it or not, my ds rewards in ABA now are just praise or a high five. It gets a lot of pleasure out of being praised. It just takes a lot of experimenting and such.
Now, floortime, I do not know much about, and I have considered it before. But, I am a working mom, so it is difficult for me to find time to do this with him on a regular basis, plus insurance doesn't pay for floortime where I live and floortime therapists, well, I have yet to find one that exclusively does this.
I could go write a novel about my opinions and experiences with ABA vs. Floortime, but I will spare you. And I will simply suggest that a DIR/Floortime life-style paired with the specific types of therapies needed (ST, OT, ABA, etc) is my opinion of the best combo.
But to specifically respond to your comment that your DS isn't rewarded by external reinforcers...which, as you state, is a hugely important component to an ABA program...
Often people get hung up in using reinforcers that WE think are reinforcing. But that misses the big point. For an ABA program to be effective, the consequence (reinforcer) meant to increase the targeted behavior has to be something that is reinforcing to the specific child at hand. Sometimes it may be an M&M or a sticker. Many times, not.
I have one kid who loves this particular "woooo" sound I make. So, when we are busting out some drill like work in speech therapy, the "wooo" is the reinforcer....a sticker means nothing to him, but my woo is remarkable, apparently. I have other kids where we use their stims (spinning, scripting, etc) as the reinforcer. For many, rough play, tickling, flipping them, squeezing, etc is the reinforcer used. Or, if the child really has nothing (I have trouble saying that, I think if we search hard enough, we can find an external reinforcer for anyone), having time to himself can even be the reinforcer.
Lastly, I think people in general have trouble using reinforcers that we don't find socially appropriate. So we try to use things like candy or prizes, but it isn't effective. Some may be completely against an 8 year old playing with a musical sesame street toy, as it isn't age appropriate, but if it is what the child loves, it is perhaps the most reinforcing item. And if you are using a behavioral approach to intervention, you HAVE to find what is reinforcing to the child, not what we think SHOULD be reinforcing.
I think I have said the same thing 20 times. Sorry.
Lastly, I think Floortime and its focus on developing internal motivation and social reinforcement) has a lot of value. GL