APPLIED BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT (ABA)
What is ABA?
ABA is an empirically-based method of teaching individuals with Autism. Using one-to-one instruction and programs tailored to each child’s strengths and needs, ABA instructors teach communication, socialization, self-help, academic, safety, leisure and play skills.
ABA techniques break down complicated learning sequences into smaller steps that are taught one at a time to the child. Reinforcement and prompting help children learn and retain new skills. The key to this type of intervention is the precise analysis of progress and accurate records made possible by continuous data recording and summary procedures.
Interventions Based on ABA
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the only intervention that has been scientifically proven to generate observable, measurable and lasting progress in children with Autism.
IBI (Intensive Behavioral Intervention) is based on ABA Principles. The Intensity comes from the child receiving on average 25 hours per week for a limited period of time. Where ABA is a lifelong teaching strategy, IBI is on average offered for a period of 1-3 years in duration.
WHAT WILL CHILDREN LEARN?
Your child’s ABA Program will focus on, but is not limited to, the following areas:
- Social Pragmatics (eye contact, attending, joint attention, turn-taking)
- Increasing compliance to instruction and decreasing challenging behaviours that interfere with learning
- Imitation Skills (gross and fine motor, oral motor and verbal imitation)
- Receptive Language (following instructions, tacting/labeling, vocabulary development)
- Expressive Language (the functional use of language: tacts/labels, mands/requests, and intraverbals/social use of language)
- Pre-Academic Skills ( colours, numbers, shapes, and letter recognition)
- Social Skills (peer interaction)
- Play Skills (age appropriate use of play materials and interactive play)
- Self-Help Skills (washing, toileting, dressing, and eating)
- Incidental Learning (opportunities to acquire new skills without intensive direct instruction)
All Applied Behavioural Programs will consist of one-to-one structured teaching sessions, play based language activities, opportunities to be part of our classroom setting and generalization skills.
Our Objectives
- To maximize the potential of children by providing educational and behavioural intervention based on ABA Principles.
- To provide the opportunity for children to interact and play with each other.
- To provide children with choices and varied activities that promotes and stimulates their interest and expands their opportunities.
- To ensure that children with a diagnosis of Autism can be part of a regular classroom setting and benefit from school readiness skills.
The Assessment
The purpose of the initial assessment is to determine your child’s baseline skill level in the areas of receptive and expressive language, social skills, play skills and adaptive functioning. The initial assessment can take several days to complete. Once the information has been collected and analyzed, and assessment report is written detailing your child’s baseline skills and immediate goals in programming.
Schedule
We can work with each family to develop and individualized schedule that best meets the needs of your child and the family as a whole. We offer sessions 7 days a week.
