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Individualized Treatment Plans: ABA is provided based on a treatment plan that was created based on a professional evaluation of your child that is designed specifically for the child.

One-on-One Attention: ABA is done one-on-one so that your child is getting individual focused attention.

Frequent Sessions: ABA is meant to be provided often so that there is repetition to make sure desired behaviors and skills get reinforced. 

Positive Reinforcement: ABA works with positive reinforcement to encourage and reward desired behaviors and important skills.

Consistent Progress Tracking: ABA is provided based on consistent monitoring of your child’s progress and is regularly adjusted in order to adapt to your child’s specific needs. 

This is a partial list of some of the more common methods used:

Positive Reinforcement

Positive and negative reinforcement is one of the most common ABA teaching techniques used by professionals and parents alike. But in order to make the most out of this technique, it has to be applied consistently. If a child acts inappropriately, the consequences have to be consistent. If not, they may get confused about whether they can repeat the behavior in certain situations and not others. The same principle applies to positive reinforcement. Even when a positive behavior becomes consistent for a child, the continuation of the reward will ensure that they understand what they are doing is the right thing to do. (Dream Big Children’s Center, 2024)

Prompting and Fading

Prompting and fading is an ABA therapy technique that uses prompts or cues to teach children. A therapist might use physical or verbal prompts to help a child learn a new skill or complete an activity.

A physical prompt might be guiding a child’s hands while they complete a task or using a hand gesture to show them how to do something. These physical prompts are meant to be gentle and helpful. 

Verbal prompts are words or phrases used to encourage a child to do a certain thing. You could use a verbal cue to remind them to say hello when they meet a new person or to wash their hands before they eat. Again, verbal prompts should be helpful and non-judgmental whenever possible.

Part of the technique is then fading the prompts. This involves slowly providing less obvious prompts and allowing the child to remind themselves how to do a task or how to behave in a certain situation. It provides room for them to grow and become more independent without prompts. (Dream Big Children’s Center, 2024)

Natural Environment Teaching

Natural environment teaching encourages children to learn in real-life scenarios. Instead of trying to teach them at home how to behave in the grocery store, you take the child to the grocery store and teach them there. This is one of the more challenging ABA therapy techniques but it is highly effective. (Dream Big Children’s Center, 2024)

Behavior Chain

For children with autism, learning a new task can be overwhelming. But the behavior chain technique can make it simpler by taking one large activity and breaking it up into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Therapists will often use the behavior chain technique along with prompts until the activity becomes easier for the child. They may start with step one or start at the end and work backward depending on the specific task. (Dream Big Children’s Center, 2024)

Generalization

Generalization involves teaching a child how to take a particular concept and use it in a different way or a different environment. If your child is working with home-based ABA services, a therapist might use the generalization technique to help the child use what they’ve learned at home when they go to school. (Dream Big Children’s Center, 2024)

BCBA stands for Board Certified Behavior Analyst. It is a graduate-level certification in behavior analysis. BCBAs create treatment plans and oversee the implementation of ABA therapy. They may supervise the work of RBTs (Registered Behavior Technicians) and other professionals who implement ABA interventions.

An ABA therapist, or RBT (Registered Behavior Technician), works under the supervision of a BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst). They provide ABA therapy following the guidance and direction of the BCBA.

There is no proven link between autism and vaccines.
Explore these articles for further information explaining and debunking the myth of the connection between autism and vaccines:

MayoClinic:  mayoclinic.org

CDC: cdc.gov

CHOP Vaccine Education Center: hchop.edu

Autism Speaks: autismspeaks.org