Direct Applied Behavior Analysis Intervention in Orange, CA
ABA Assessment, also called a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA), is a guide for our intervention. Our assessment includes both interactions with parents/caregivers and with your child. Our comprehensive assessments cover a wide range of areas with a specific focus in areas of difficulty for individuals with autism. Communication, social, behavioral, safety, self-help, and executive functioning skills are a common focus.
We work on skills like verbal communication, non-verbal communication, social cues, social responses, following commands, compliance, waiting, making friends, conversation, sharing, self-help routines like washing hands, and many other skills.
For children with ASD, the effects of playing in therapy are enormous and its efficacy is priceless. Here are some benefits regarding the use of play with ABA therapy:
Children Don’t Realize That They’re Working!
If kids have fun they don't necessarily know that they're working towards a goal.
It Provides A Possibility For Natural Reinforcement Over More Developed Motivators.
If we teach through play then playing itself becomes a more positive and reinforcing experience, so they'll want to engage in it more often. This also allows for longer teaching sessions. Many conventional approaches, such as work table time, are also valuable but do not provide as many incentives as the learner may lose interest faster.
Applied Behavior Analysis Interventions Heightens Generalization.
Playtime allows our kiddos to generalize most of what we're working on, particularly communication and social goals. We’re able to mimic so many things that arise in their daily, natural environments. The skills we teach through play are often more easily transferred outside of the center with classmates and siblings.
Some forms of ABA teaching, such as Natural Environmental Training (NET) or Pivotal Response Training (PRT), focus on the preference of the child. If the learner is automatically inspired by the games or similar stimulation, they are more likely to take part.
Our focus is on an appropriate level of trials per hour, as well as the quality of those trials, to ensure optimal progress. Each “trial” is a teaching opportunity, and Applied behavior analysis intervention provides many trials of each goal we are working on.
Applied behavior analysis intervention sessions will be spent in the home or in a natural environment, to work on the teaching of skills. Naturalistic, play-based ABA methods increase child participation and motivation, assist with easier fading of adult support, and result in decreased challenging behaviors during teaching sessions. In a play-based ABA session, your child has fun while the therapist systematically targets skills within the play routines. To the untrained eye, it may look like the therapist is just playing!
However, studies show that this type of teaching is very effective. This approach facilitates your child's engagement with age-appropriate toys and activities while teaching necessary skills utilizing his or her natural interests to reinforce new skills and desired behaviors. It also more closely replicates the way typically developing children often learn…through play!
It will include some Discrete Trial work which might occur at the table, lots of positive reinforcement using whatever is motivating for the child: praise, tickles, hugs, high-fives, opportunities to play, and sometimes foods or candies (if the parent has approved). Often, the therapist will do a variety of tasks in order to assure that there are focus and mastery versus rote repetition or boredom.
In order to be successful, the therapist must develop a rapport with your child. A process of pairing with reinforcement will take place during a portion of the session. If the child doesn’t like the therapist, he or she won’t do what the therapist directs them to do, so establishing that relationship is a critical requirement. This makes the therapy fun and engaging. During the first and last 15 minutes of the session, the therapist will be working on data collection, setting up or cleaning up the materials and checking in with the parent or caregiver. Sessions generally last several hours. The length of time that a session will occur will be a team decision, based on what is best for your child.
Acuity Behavior Solutions provides ABA Play Therapy in Anaheim, the city of Orange and all of Orange County. For more information about our services please contact us at Acuity Behavior Solutions.