From my experience, ABA has been very effective for helping kids with autism, and even the kids in my school who are classified as BD/ED.
It is not very complicated and it works. To the outsider it may seem strange but it is important to keep in mind that the main idea is to not provide punishments, but to rather create a compromise between the child and the task. We use ABA in my school and operate on a token economy, as well as provide 5-10 breaks at the end of every period for the kids to do what they would like. With ABA teachers have to be consistent and in my opinion, that is just what kids need anyways.
