My Stepson Cullen is 6 years old and he is Autistic. He is an amazing little boy and I am trying to find as much help for him as I can. His mother told me about a treatment that she had heard of called ABA or applied behavioral analysis. I was wondering if any of you have had luck with this or had heard anything on it. Let me tell you a little about the current situation with Cullen.

Cullen's school is getting very concerned with his behavior especially lately. He is very aggressive with the other kids and hits, kicks, punches, spits on, bites, and pinches them and his teachers. My husband and I are at a loss for this as we never see this type of behavior at our house. The school will call and tell us this and then they ask us where he is getting it from or what is causing it but we just don't know. My husband and I demand respect in our home and he knows it and does not act that way here. Because it is only happening at school or at his mother's house and not here, I don't think that it is something that he has no control of. He knows that he can do anything when he is not here. We don't punish him or discipline him but on the rare occassion he does try something here we tell him no and that he can not treat people that way. He then throws a mini fake fit for about 10 seconds whining and crying and my husband or I will tell him "Culen, That's enough" and he gets this look on his face like he was caught in the cookie jar and then stops. If we see him doing it at school or outside to other kids all he has to do is see us or have us say his name and he acts like he is being innocent and he shrugs his shoulders like "what" and then he stops. He then waits until he thinks we are not looking and he will look to see if we are watching and he might try it again. This sort of thing reminds me of a child testing the boundries and not an actual behavior problem but I would love to hear what you think.

If you know anything that could help please let me know.