ABA 101: An Introduction to Applied Behavior Analysis for Parents

“Your child should get ABA!”

 If your child has autism or is at risk for autism, has a developmental delay or just isn’t meeting his or her milestones on the “typical” timeline, I imagine you have heard this phrase at one time or another.  Maybe you understood this the first time you heard it, maybe you didn’t.  Maybe you didn’t then but you do now.  Maybe you feel like you SHOULD understand because your child has been in ABA therapy for months, but you really still don’t feel like you actually know what it means or what those people who come to your house are doing with your child.

 Today, I’m going to unpack this concept of ABA for you a little bit and explain what it is and why people may have told you that your child should get it.

What is ABA?

ABA is a science. What that means is that it is systematic, organized and testable.  Many teaching strategies that are out there today are not based on science. They are often based on anecdotal stories from people who report that something worked for them, but they might not be able to prove that their technique (and not something else) was what caused changes in their child or that their technique actually demonstrated measurable change in the first place.  To illustrate this, which would you be more likely to believe? Family A who said, “Our son used to tantrum seven times a day and his tantrums lasted between 10 and 30 minutes.  We did these lessons for three months, practiced what the teacher told us to do and for the last two weeks, he had less than 2 tantrums total and each one was less than one minute long and he followed directions and got back on task quickly each time.” Or Family B, who said “Our son had really poor behaviors before we did these lessons but now it seems like he’s better”? I probably should have called family “A” Family “ABA” because that example depicts concrete measurement of change or results, with detailed tracking of skills. This is what ABA does.   

So what does ABA actually mean? ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis.  Applied means it’s taught with applicability to real life in mind and that goals set are made with consideration of the individual involved and customized based on their own specific needs and situation. Programs and goals are designed to be meaningful for the individual and their family. Behavior is anything someone can do that is observable (you can see it), measurable (you can count, time, record, it), and clearly defined (anyone looking at the behavior can see the same thing as someone else). Behaviors are the focus of intervention.  Analysis means that the instructor tracks patterns in the behaviors of target over time in order to assess whether or not meaningful change is occurring. They state that behavior is changing when the data they collect visually depicts this (which they do by displaying the data they have collected on graphs or tables).  The behavior analysts are trained to do this and can determine how an individual’s behavior is changing by watching patterns in the graphs. If meaningful change is not occurring or if presence of behavior is moving in an unwanted direction (if positive behaviors or skills are not increasing or if challenging behaviors are getting more frequent or more intense), changes will be made to programming in order to support a move toward more desirable outcomes.   As per Family B in my above example, in contrast, teaching strategies not based on ABA evaluate change in a more loose way and reporting of progress is based on the instructor’s perceptions of change, not always concrete, data based examples that prove that change in meaningful areas is actually happening. Reporting relies more heavily on memory, which is not always reliable.

In ABA programming, target behaviors are selected, goals are set, instructional strategies are selected based on the individual’s current skill levels (and all strategies used or recommended are those that have been proven effective through research and data collection), and reinforcement (for now we will describe this as things an individual likes, but there will be more on reinforcement to come!) – is delivered when appropriate behaviors occur. As skills are learned, goals are adjusted and learning continues at the next level. Strategies are also chosen to use in response to challenging or inappropriate behaviors, to reduce the likelihood that these behaviors will occur in the future. By definition it sounds a little dry, but a highly trained behavior analyst can do all this AND record what they are doing while just looking like they are playing with your child.  

ABA is not a one-sized fits all teaching strategy. There are a range of research-based practices involved under the umbrella of “Applied Behavior Analysis,” that vary from extremely structured to more naturally occurring. In today’s world, all ABA companies will be unique in the way they adapt the principles of ABA to their own curriculum and programming can look pretty different from place to place. The ultimate goal of quality ABA programming is to reduce the need for services, by supporting the individual in becoming more independent. And, all ABA programs should share the common link of including rigorous data collection and progress monitoring. Though the programs are often intensive, devoting time to structured and intensive programming early on in your child’s life will support the development of skills over time.  

If the things I’ve described above sound too clinical to you, just think of it this way… Basic behavioral principles govern everything we do in our lives. If we do something (a behavior) and something great happens after we do it (reinforcement) we are probably going to want to do that thing again in the future. For example, if you empty the dishwasher (a behavior) and your spouse thanks you for it and tells you that you are pretty or handsome (reinforcement), you would probably not hesitate to empty the dishwasher again tomorrow. In regards to your children, when they clean up their toys after you ask them to (a behavior), you might give them a hug (reinforcement) and they might want to clean up their toys again next time you ask. Yes, I’m actually telling you that if you learn to apply the principles of ABA to your life, there is a good chance that your kids will start cleaning up their toys when you ask.  To me, that’s motivation enough to give this teaching practice a try. 

In future posts, I will be walking you through more details about the practice of ABA and its defining principles, including introducing different types of ABA, explaining what programs might look like, how funding works, where you can look for services, and talking about ways to look at and tackle challenging behaviors.