"Children with Autism are not learning disabled, they are teaching challenged." - Dr.Vincent Carbone
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is an evidence-based approach to therapy primarily employed with children diagnosed on the Autism spectrum. The National Autism Center reviewed 775 forms of treatment for children with Autism and found that 11 treatments met the highest standards, all of which were behavioral-based.
Many critics of ABA therapy cite that it essentially "trains" children to act a certain way in return for contrived rewards, such as candy, and that reinforcement, one of the primary components of ABA, is unnatural with respect to the real world.
Those critics would be correct...about ABA circa 1967.
In truth, ABA therapy at its inception, by pioneers in the field such as Dr. Ivar Lovaas, was very rote and rigid and even employed some aversive punishment techniques that are no longer practiced. Today, ABA therapy still employs discrete trial instruction, which many opponents blame for producing rote responding, and also incorporates verbal behavior, pivotal response training, naturalized teaching strategies and functional communication training. The latter two components aim to fade the "unnatural" components of ABA, such as contrived reinforcers and table-time, in favor of naturalized reinforcers and the use of functional language rather than a problematic behavior, such as aggression.
For example, an ABA program may start by teaching a child to label objects by working for a preferred item such as a gummy bear or video game. As the child progresses, the child will request items or toys and the reinforcement will be the actual item, thereby making the reinforcer more natural (the item the child asked for), rather than a reinforcer unrelated to his or her's behavior (labeling objects). In this way the child learns to "work" for the natural reinforcers that typical children and adults work for every day, such as satisfying hunger and thirst, social approval and even a paycheck.
One of the biggest challenges parents of children diagnosed with Autism face is choosing a therapy or early intervention program for their child in a sea of options. Without even taking into account dangerous, alternative therapies currently in practice, the slew of programs that a parent has to search through can be very overwhelming. While many non-behavioral programs, such as Floortime/DIR, have their strengths, Applied Behavior Analysis is the only evidence-based approach currently in practice.
If parents are still uncertain about ABA, some local agencies employ ABA, in concert with social and adaptive skills training, verbal behavior, pivotal response training and DIR on an individualized basis, thus making the process of selecting a therapy more streamlined. Since each child diagnosed with Autism has such different symptoms and presentations, finding an agency that will provide services that addresses a variety of needs, from behavioral to social, can help ensure successful treatment for the child.
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