Autism therapy with applied behavior analysis (ABA), is it effective?

What is ABA therapy?

Autism is a disorder in children's brain development that causes disturbances in social interactions, impaired focus, and impaired language and communication skills. The severity of autism can vary, from mild to severe, so children need special attention.

ABA therapy (Applied Behavior Analysis) is a structured therapy program that focuses on teaching a specific set of skills for children with autism. This therapy teaches children with autism to understand and follow verbal instructions, respond to other people's words, describe an object, imitate other people's words and movements, to teach reading and writing.

Research shows that ABA therapy can have a positive impact on the development of social and academic abilities of children with autism. In addition, autism therapy also aims to:

Improve self-care skills
Improve playing skills
Improve children's ability to manage their own behavior

How do you do ABA therapy?

Your child's therapist will first observe the child to see what abilities he has and what difficulties he has. Then he will set specific goals, for example the objective goal of your child's ABA therapy is to be able to look into the eyes of the person who is talking to him. The therapist will also determine objective measures, such as how many eyes the child looks at in 10 minutes of chatting.

To achieve this goal, the therapist will design a technical plan as detailed as possible regarding the child's activities during therapy. For example, to make a child successful in establishing eye contact, he will:

Sit face to face with the child, together with the therapist's assistant who is usually behind the child.
Throughout the therapy, calling the child's name while holding an interesting object (fishing rod). The object will be placed in line with the therapist's eye in order to lure the child to look at the therapist's eye.
The therapist will call the child's name while saying simple command sentences. For example, "Mira, look" while her hand points the rod at eye level. The goal is for the child to look at the therapist's eyes.
The therapist will continue to say "Mira see" until the child establishes eye contact with the therapist spontaneously.
Any inappropriate response made by the child will be responded to by the therapist by answering "no" or by mentioning the child's name "Mira, no".
If the child is able to build eye contact, the therapist will give praise to the child. For example, "Mira is great, Mira is very smart". The therapist will repeat various kinds of praise when the child succeeds in doing what is targeted.

The gaze that the therapist sees in the child's eyes will be used as an objective measure; How far has the child shown changes in making eye contact.

Once the child has succeeded in establishing eye contact, the therapist will continue the therapy with new goals. For example, to make the child respond with "yes" when his name is called or to train his motor skills to catch the ball or drink with a glass. The more that is learned, the more complex the task the therapist will give to the child.

From these little things a complete behavior will be gathered. The more new abilities they learn, the more complete their ability to interact socially with their environment.

At the end of the therapy session, your child's therapist will evaluate the progress of the program and make changes if needed.

Who has the right to provide ABA autism therapy?

ABA autism therapy is not an arbitrary program. This program should be carried out by someone who is already certified as a behavioral therapist and has extensive experience working with children with autism. Teachers, parents, and other health professionals can actually teach ASD children directly, but prior training is required.