 The need for monitoring applied behavior analysis services ABA. What is ABA? Applied Behavior Analysis ABA, also called Behavior Engineering, is a scientific technique concerned with applied empirical approach based upon the principles of changing behavior. The behavior must be significant to the individual, family and society at large. ABA has been utilized in a range of areas including applied animal behavior, school-wide positive behavior support, classroom instruction, structured and naturalistic early behavior intervention for autism, pediatric feeding therapy, rehabilitation of brain injuries, dementia, fitness training, substance abuse, phobia, ticks, and organizational behavior management. Presently in the United States, ABA is a medical intervention and it can only be applied by persons who are trained and certified in the application. With the alliance of other behavior analysts worldwide, we have now March 20th as the World Applied Behavior Analysis Alliance. What does this all mean? The implication is that if an individual has a neurodevelopmental disorder, you must put in the intervention that is done through evident-based practices so that data can be taken to determine the effectiveness of that treatment. If this is not done, the condition becomes complicated and this is where the line between duty of care and negligence starts becoming blurred. Currently, the prevalence of children with neurodevelopmental disorders is 1 in 44 and most of these children are being attended to by unqualified persons or the persons licensed are not being supervised. What licenses do we have that are pick up in Nigeria currently? There are three foreign licenses bodies currently in Nigeria. You have the IBCCES, the BCBA, the QABA. There is a chain of supervision with all these bodies and this is not being applied. Technicians, assistants, program developers, all report to the developer who need to understand that individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders have medical conditions that deserve the most effective treatment and if this is not done, we only make the condition worse. These are lifetime disorders and we need to give the individuals the best opportunity for the most beneficial quality of life. It is ethical and morally wrong to keep children with such conditions under the care of quacks and this needs to stop. Individuals with this condition have other medical conditions that are serious and can result in the reaction and the child might die in the care of the school. We really need to stop this practice. It is not fair to the individuals or the parents. Learning supports in schools should be monitored by ABA consultants and not just anybody who has a passion to work with a vulnerable child or group of individuals who have neurodevelopmental disorders. Well, it's quite a lot. We always emphasize what you are trying to say is the emphasis should be on getting people, professionals that are well studied or well trained to handle this issue. It should not just be based on passion. No, I have passion to take care of children with special needs or patients with special needs. Let me go into it. You might cost more than go into the process. Yes, so basically now that it's a medical condition, the truth of the matter is that if a child gets worse under your care, you can actually go to prison for it. So schools really do need to understand that these children are really ill. They are medically ill. You know, people see these children as not being ill because they come to school and, you know, they behave almost... They appear normal. They appear normal. But each of these conditions have commodity other conditions like seizures and stroke. So I want to find out why is most of the burden being placed on the schools? Are these boarding schools or day schools? Day schools. Are they parents who have a child, who has that condition and who take the child to a particular school? I'm trying to see why the school should bear that responsibility, especially when it's not a burden facility where, you know, the child has to be there continuously. That's a very good question. The truth of the matter is that if a child has a medical diagnosis, why are you allowing the child in your school in the first place? Exactly. Why are you allowing the child? All should be responsible for that. I think, I mean, do we even have special needs schools? So, I mean, they may be the odd one, but even the special needs schools, who monitors them? What's the standard or the parameters that the Ministry of Education has said to say that if you're going to set up this kind of school, then this is what you should have. And who is making sure that they have it? Okay, so the answer to that is that for the first 1,000 days of a child's life, would they delay? They have to have the opportunity to be trained in mainstream education. Once a child gets to about seven, then you can now start streamlining into special needs schools. The challenge we have is that most parents don't want their children to be in special needs schools because of stigma and kindling. And when there's lack of awareness. Good. And the special needs schools that we have are overburdened with children that can never be intervened. ABA is for intervention. Intervention means to restore to an extent so that the impact of the disorder is not going to be a detriment to the child further on in life. You have to properly monitor the disorder. Yes. I want to find out. It's a very interesting script. I'm trying to find out, is there a rule for it? You didn't mention it. What is the ministry of health doing? I didn't work with any development partners to address this issue because this ABA whole concept is quite new to me. And I imagine for most of our days it's also very new to them. But I don't know. The truth of the matter is that it's not a new concept. It's just been taken at a higher level. So, you know, when you go to school and you read special education to some extent you'll be taught ABA. But the empirical part of ABA has gone out of the framework of school and has now stepped into the hands of medical. For Nigeria purposes, it's best for us to start with the ministry of education because they are the ones totally responsible for the school settings. You know, if you want to take it through the ministry of health they've got so many other things. But we can also approach the ministry of health for them to push screening. So what we've done, what we do is that we've done the reverse. We are screening in schools to help the children to be identified on time. Because we can't wait. To help the school identify the children on time. Yes, because we can't wait. If we're going to wait for the medical profession to take this up then we're going to have, I mean, one in 44. I think our problem major in Nigeria is number one, awareness. Continual education. Oblique awareness. We are quick to judge, stigmatize and discard. Number two, inclusion. Not just inclusion, intentional inclusion from systemic point of view and government reinforcing it. You want to build a school. You talk about special needs school. It's not even a special needs school. Let's even assume you have just a school for everyone. What effort are you making to include everyone with different health challenges or whatever to be part of it, to get the best out of your school? Being enforced by the government. That's what it's going to be. Good. But the challenge is that, and I still go back to the fact that schools don't appreciate how ill these children are. If they understood how ill these children are, I know a lot of schools, good schools, that are ready to put in protocols to help. Do you understand? So I don't see a passionate educator knowing what we are advocating now will sit down and take those children on without the support of consultants. Okay. So I would like to ask Helene, what kind of, do you have the manpower to monitor these things? To implement. So for me, it comes down to implementation. What's the plan? How are we planning to implement? Capacity building, because schools at the moment do have people monitoring these children, but those people are not being supervised. So the bridge is already there. It's just for us to make it solid. And that's where the government has to come in. For me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, what happens then. One of the smaller students, when they see the situation of a parent who goes to cause to enforce the bridge of detail of 이거를 schools unless they want to cut how do they identify their patient? The problem is that no parent wants to be the one. So there appears to be a conspiracy of silence? SILENCE. The ! SILENCE. I feel that has happened to everything else. I mean, there's a conspiracy of silence. No one wants to talk. No one wants to be the one who's singled out go into a very very interesting topic and I would totally advise you to remain here.