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Anyone heard of ABA (applied behaviour analysis) therapy to treat autism? How does it work? Is it suitable for high functioning special need children?

sheryl wrote:Anyone heard of ABA (applied behaviour analysis) therapy to treat autism? How does it work? Is it suitable for high functioning special need children?

My boy went through ABA when he was first diagnose with autism. They use strategy like token economy to get him to comply. He improved a lot in term of learning ability, compliance and eye contact.

However, bear in mind that you need to cut your kid off ABA and move him/her to more advanced program once you see improvement . I had given my boy too much of ABA (3 years), now he is reliance on 1:1 instruction. He doesn't understand group instruction or other social cue like body language.

I have just moved him to social thinking program. I could have start earlier when he showed the sign that he was ready to move to group setting therapy a year ago. Perhaps that might help to minimize the issues he faced in school now

As far as I know, ABA is one of the earliest therapies used to manage autism in the States. It makes use of a reward system to engage the autistic child to achieve set objectives.

A lot of therapists now use the ABA concept to engage autistic children in some form, ie. making use of what interests them most to engage them and teach. In fact, there is some saying that you can use stimming as a form of reward to engage the child, and as the child learns new things, the stimming will in turn reduce.

I am no expert, there are a lot of self-help books on autism, and most of them talk about this. There is a book by Catherine Maurice 'Let Me Hear Your Voice' that is a auto of a mother with two autistic children and speaks of various therapy that the family tried. Quite good resource material.

Hope this helps.

I'd not heard the term before, but when I looked it up, it seems to be behaviour therapy - getting someone to change their behaviour. I have a daughter with Asperger's, now 15yo. We knew from the time she was about 4yo that she was more 'difficult' to train than her sister, but didn't get a formal diagnosis till she was much older. We seem to have done the right sort of things anyway - breaking down tasks into managable bites for her to learn, rewarding her for mastering them, then moving on to the next step. We did lots of repetitions, role plays, social stories... I can't remember everything we did offhand, but we did a lot of different things as and when they seemed necessary, all at home. She's managed in mainstream school (overseas) all these years although quirky in many ways and not a top-scorer. Anyway, to answer the initial question, yes, I believe it helps, and it's easier with high-functioning kids because they can use their cognition and memory to learn faster.

It is suitable for high functioning ASD kids. Google for ABA more and you will learn that ABA is very effective to train an autistic kid to perform more functionally. If the kid is already high functioning, the better cognition they have can make them leap faster. Not saying the other forms of therapies are useless, I think that some of them are working good too. However my boy now is sticking to ABA first, together with a special kindergarten programme. ABA is on 1-1 basis, and the kindy he goes is 1-2 or 1-3sometimes. At home every afternoon i put him to home-schooling cos i want to teach him the subjects that he would learn in the normal kindergarten, using the DTT approach same as in the ABA centre.
He has been in the ABA for 9 months now. He responds to the therapy pretty well and has developed many more expressive skills. He relates to us most of the time. His temper control is so much better. His self help skills also catch up. His social skill is improving. His academic skill improves a lot too. I am glad that it seems like a good decision we have made to let him stop normal school and start this therapy in full strength. Now the gap of delay between typical kid and him is much narrowed down. Thanks to the ABA.

Hello,
I came across this thread and wanted to share a few things... I have heard of the ABA approach not being very effective. Not being a professional, I am not giving a medical opinion. However, I have a friend in the Klang Valley, who's son is in a speech/communication program, and they come to their home. He has improved a lot in just a short amount of time. If you would like more info, please let me know!

Hi YellowBelt,

Would like to enquire if the same speech/communication program is available in Singapore?

Thank you
David

Do realized that this is a old thread. Hope my information will still benefit those that have similar questions.

I started off as a ABA therapist. ABA stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis. In Psychology, there are many school of thoughts. For example, we have cognitive psychology, behavioral psychology, evolution psychology, bio psychology and so on. The same behavior can be explained in different ways by different theories, depending on which is your school of thought. Take for example, the habit of smoking. A cognitive psychologist may argue that it is because one think that it is cool, and thus he or she continue to smoke. A biology psychologist may argue that it is because of the addictives within the cigarette that is causing the addiction.

In ABA, it uses the methodology of behaviorism. To summarize behaviorism, it works by pairing up behaviors with positive and negative rewards and punishment. I believe you can google it and it will give you a more in depth understanding. ABA happens daily. Addiction to XXXXX is ABA at work through partial reinforcement. ABA is also the most researched on method. If you are interested, i have posted a journal article on ABA in this link.
http://www.autismstep.com/articles-and- ... ba-review/

I think many parents will have this question of is ABA the best or a good intervention for my child or children with autism? I have been practising ABA for the last 8 years and i have seen great results. However, there is no one best method. It is just like there is no one explanation for smoking (the example i quoted earlier). It depends on who are we talking about. ABA is good for behavioral management and teaching concrete concepts. For children that are higher functioning, a mix of cognition and behavioral therapy (CBT) will work better. I have personally move from practicing solely ABA to CBT as i seen how the cognitive part can benefit some children. So there is no clear cut answer until your child is being seen by a professional.

Feel free to ask me anymore questions
Hope it helps

Liyuan
www.autismSTEP.com

Thanks for sharing peopler

May I know roughly how long and how intensive is the programme is needed to see improvement?
The ABA therapy charges are really high. My son is going to Mainstream next year, high functioning and we just found out he has strong traits of it. A/W assessment and IQ test, guess the consultant is looking at Pathlight but did not say a thing yet. Besides ASD, he also has traits of ADD, which the doc mentioned the medication may be helpful for his behavioural issues as well as impulsiveness. He is smart, can express very well but lack of social skill.
our plan
- private OT (work on sensory, regulation, behavioural) on weekly basis
- Behavioural OT - 2 times a month arranged by CDU
- Private social skill group using ABA method - 2 hourly weekly

Any suggestions or recommendations are welcomed, do share more information with me.