Leading Center-Based ABA Therapy for Autism in Arizona

Gain Independence

ABA Therapy’s goal is to improve a child’s life by teaching them socially significant behaviors: desired skills, or undesired behaviors, targeted during ABA Therapy. Socially significant behaviors improve the learner’s quality of life in some capacity and have long-term positive effects. Social significance is determined by factors such as age, whether the child can access reinforcement in their natural environment by engaging in these behaviors, caregiver needs and, the list goes on!

• For example, a 2-year-old who cannot yet communicate their basic wants and needs (e.g., asking for food, drink, etc.) will find no use in learning colors at this stage. To that child, learning to ask for specific needs is a socially significant behavior, and learning to identify colors is a meaningful skill to target at a later time.

It is the duty of the Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) to identify and prioritize socially significant behavior goals in collaboration with the child’s caregivers. In an effective and successful center-based ABA Therapy program, the learner acquires these skills in therapy and can generalize and use the skills outside of the therapy setting, thus gaining independence.

Peer Interaction

Often, parents of children with ASD express a variety of concerns with peer interaction. These concerns include that their child has either no interest in their same-age peers or expresses interest but is unable to initiate or sustain peer interactions.

So, how do we begin to teach something as complex and vague as peer interactions? They can be looked at as an umbrella term that encompasses many other sub-skills. Some of these may include sharing, taking turns, initiating greetings, engaging in cooperative play, making a request of a peer, and holding a conversation with a peer, among many other skills! Oftentimes, prerequisite skills need to be developed before peer interactions can be tackled. These prerequisite skills might include eye contact, parallel play, following directions, and tolerating sharing and taking turns.

When assessing social skills, ABA Therapy measures observable and countable social behaviors and defines the behaviors in specific terms that can be measured to ensure progress toward goals. Above all else, social interactions can vary significantly based on the child, so even peer interaction goals need to be very individualized to each child’s needs.