Applied Behavior Analysis is an evidence-based treatment for supporting children with a variety of mental health challenges to flourish in their daily lives. This also includes training to support children with autism in learning to navigate school successfully, become better learners, and adopt early functional skills that can support them for the rest of their lives.
At Elite DNA, our team is committed to providing compassionate and life-changing treatment for children with autism.
Interested in learning how ABA therapy can help your child? Contact Elite DNA in Fort Myers to learn more about how ABA therapy can help your children thrive.
What Is ABA Therapy?
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a time-tested approach for helping children with several different mental health challenges. While ABA for autism spectrum disorder is the most common application, it can also provide tangible benefits for children with challenges such as:
- Anxiety disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- Down Syndrome
For children living with these conditions, ABA can help cultivate communication abilities, independent living skills, and healthier coping mechanisms. It starts with early intervention, often from ages three to 10, by teaching them valuable skills that help them keep pace in school, learn to interact more productively with others, and grow into capable and happy adults.
At Elite DNA, ABA for children is delivered by a board-certified behavior analyst. These mental health specialists use natural environment training in therapy sessions to promote healthier behaviors and coping skills and can teach parents how to integrate these practices into life at home as well.
How ABA Works
Before starting therapy, children and their families meet with a dedicated mental health care team for a complete assessment and to gather information about your child’s specific challenges.
With this information in hand, our team collaborates with families to create specific goals to help children develop. This typically includes identifying target behaviors to be modified, specific learning or social goals for your children, or an increased sense of emotional stability.
From there, our team starts working with the children to observe their behavior, intervene with targeted treatments when necessary, and help your child build the tools they need to succeed.
Positive Reinforcement
ABA focuses on a few key principles to help children learn the skills they need to thrive. The first, and most important, is positive reinforcement. The theory of positive reinforcement is simple: when a child takes steps toward a desired behavior, they are reinforced with something that they value. In time, children can make impactful behavioral changes with this simple approach alone.
While positive reinforcement is simple in theory, it can often be incredibly complex during treatment. Even seemingly simple academic tasks, such as completing a homework assignment, can be a series of small steps and meaningful victories that take time to reinforce the behavior to the point that children can accomplish it independently.
The ABCs of ABA Therapy
ABA therapists use a three-step process to help understand why maladaptive behaviors happen and how children can respond differently. This process is typically referred to as the ABCs:
- A: Antecedent
- B: Behavior
- C: Consequences
The antecedent is the event or situation that happens right before a target behavior. For example, it could be a request for a child to complete their homework or telling your child that it’s time to turn off the television for the night. Antecedents trigger the targeted behavior, which is the next step of the ABCs.
The behavior is how a child responds to the antecedent situation. It can be a sudden outburst of emotion, yelling, a physical reaction, or a complete lack of a response altogether.
These behaviors are almost always met by a consequence. The consequence is how a parent, teacher, or caregiver responds to the behavior and can make a behavior more or less likely to occur again.
The ABC model helps therapists, children, and their families understand behaviors and why they happen. Further, this model can be used to shape desired behaviors and discourage problematic behaviors from happening again. For instance, if a specific antecedent is what causes the problematic behavior, it might be possible to eliminate this trigger altogether.
Alternatively, teaching your child that changing the behavior leads to a positive consequence, rather than a negative one, can reinforce healthier patterns of behavior.
Benefits of ABA Therapy for Learners
The evidence-based techniques of ABA therapy can help children diagnosed with autism or other mental health conditions learn to thrive in their school environments. Our therapists encourage kids to overcome their academic challenges, provide direct instruction on how to succeed in school, and provide positive motivations for completing educational tasks.
Some of the key benefits of ABA therapy for kids include:
ABA for Building Communication Skills
Most children who receive ABA services face significant barriers to healthy communication. They may struggle to express their needs clearly, respond to requests with intense emotion, or be unable to comprehend what other people are trying to communicate to them.
All of this can lead to setbacks and difficulties in the classroom. ABA therapy helps teach children effective behavioral strategies to address these communication gaps, build their ability to express their needs and implement strategies that help them succeed in the classroom.
ABA for Social Skills
School isn’t just about taking directions from teachers or authority figures. It’s also a space for children to build friendships and social connections that can last them a lifetime. Starting ABA therapy helps children understand the fundamental building blocks of healthy social interaction, allowing them to navigate this peer landscape with relative ease.
Part of this is a technique known as natural environment training. In case-by-case situations, an ABA therapist will provide interventions in the child’s natural environment. Natural environment training takes ABA outside of structured therapy sessions, and into real social situations that can support your child in cultivating their social skills. One progress is achieved, generalization and parent training is added for skills to transfer to life outside of the clinic.
ABA for Reducing Problematic Behaviors
A single challenging behavior can become a roadblock to academic achievement. Whether that’s sudden emotional outbursts, resistance to following instructions, or disruptive classroom behavior, ABA can help to identify and address these behaviors so that they’re less likely to interfere with your child’s education.
Problematic behaviors are typically addressed using the ABC model. The appropriate intervention may include modifying the environment to reduce antecedent triggers, teaching children new ways of responding to triggers, or changing the consequences to support desired behavior patterns and diminish problematic ones.
ABA for Focus and Academic Skills
Children with behavioral challenges will often struggle with the basic foundational skills and tasks required to succeed in school. An ABA therapist can help break these tasks into more manageable pieces and use positive reinforcement and other interventions to help make it easier for children to focus on each piece.
This approach is often referred to as discrete trial training and can lead to drastic improvements in your child’s academic skills. Discrete trial training is a specific use of ABA for academics, and can drastically improve your child’s ability to concentrate, complete academic tasks, and find success in the classroom.
Start Applied Behavior Analysis at Elite DNA
Elite DNA’s ABA therapy programs are offered exclusively in Naples and Fort Myers. These clinics provide parents and their children with actionable strategies to improve their quality of life and daily living skills. Our program is modeled with a family-focused therapy style, ensuring that the skills taught by our ABA specialists translate into consistent real-world applications for your child living with a mental health challenge.
Our admissions professionals are well-versed in options for ABA therapy in Fort Myers and Naples and can help guide you toward the solutions that work best for your family’s needs — and will be there to support you every step of the recovery journey.
Getting started with Applied Behavior Analysis at Elite DNA is as simple as reaching out to our Elite DNA clinic in Fort Myers and speaking with our team!
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