What is ABA?

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) employs methods based on scientific principles of behavior to build socially useful repertoires and reduce problematic ones (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 1989).

The following is excerpted from the Catherine Maurice Book – “Behavioral Intervention for young children with Autism 1996.”

ABA treatment for autism focuses on teaching small, measurable units of behavior systematically. Every skill the child with autism does not demonstrate – from relatively simple responses like looking at others, to complex acts like spontaneous communication and social interaction- is broken down into small steps. Each step is taught by presenting a specific cue or instruction. Sometimes a prompt is added (such as gentle physical guidance) to get the child started, (A word of caution: Prompts of all kinds should be faded quickly to avoid making the child dependent on them). Appropriate responses are followed by consequences that have been found to function effectively as reinforcers – that is, when those consequences have consistently followed the child’s response, it has been shown that the response was likely to occur again. A high-priority goal is to make learning fun for the child. Another is to teach the child how to discriminate among many different stimuli: his name from other spoken words; colors, shapes, letters, numbers, and the like from one another; appropriate from inappropriate behavior. Problematic responses (such as tantrums, self-injury, withdrawal) are explicitly not reinforced, which often requires systematic analyses to determine exactly what events function as reinforcers for those responses. Preferably, the child is guided to engage in appropriate responses that are incompatible with the problem responses.

Teaching trials are repeated many times, initially in rapid succession, until the child performs a response readily, without adult-delivered prompts. The child’s responses are recorded and evaluated according to specific, objective definitions and criteria. Those data are graphed to provide pictures of the child’s progress, enabling the teacher or parent to adjust the teaching procedures whenever the data show that the child is not making the desired gains. The timing and pacing of teachings sessions, practice opportunities, and consequence delivery are determined precisely for each child and each skill. In this way, instruction can be highly personalized and tailored to each child’s learning style and pace.

To maximize the child’s success, emerging skills are also practiced and reinforced in many less structured situations. With some children, certain skills can be taught entirely in relatively unstructured situations from the outset. Such “incidental” or “naturalistic” practice opportunities have to be arranged carefully, however, to ensure that they occur frequently, and that consequences are provided consistently. Ideally, there is a gradual progression from one-to-one to small group to large group instruction. Simple responses are built systematically into complex and fluid combinations of typical, age-appropriate responses. The overall emphasis is on teaching the child how to learn from the normal environment and how to act on that environment in ways that will consistently produce positive outcomes for the child his/her family, and others (Harris & Handleman, 1994; Koegel & Koegel, 1995; Lovaas et al., 1981; Lovaas & Smith, 1989; Schreibman et al., 1993; and Chapters 6 and 7 in this book).

Simply stated, children with autism are slowly and purposefully taught how to learn. The most basic skills that most of us learn naturally are broken down into pieces small enough for the child to understand and they are repeated over and over until they become part of the child’s repertoire. This repertoire is built upon, until the child begins to understand how to learn on his/her own. In some cases near normal functioning can result, but in virtually all kids, learning will take place, and regardless of how fast the child learns, life is made fuller, easier, and more satisfying for the child and their family.