ABA Therapy Strategies for Parents
When it comes to helping kids with autism learn and develop skills, consistency can be your greatest ally. That means working with the clinicians, teachers, and other caregivers in your child’s life to develop consistency across your approaches, and maintaining consistency in your own practices at home.
Below, we’ve collected some strategies that can be adopted in the home to thoughtfully, intentionally, and sustainably create a nurturing environment where your child can continue to grow and learn vital life skills.
Time-Based ABA therapy Strategies
Transitions can be incredibly difficult for children with autism. One of the ways we can make them easier is by consistently preparing the child for what’s ahead of them. Ways to do this include:
- A visual schedule: Hang this in a prominent place where your child can easily see it. Pre-literacy, visual markers can help convey the shape of the day to your child, setting expectations of who and what they’ll see, how long they’ll be in a given environment, and what to expect after you leave. This provides an artifact around which you can discuss upcoming events with your child, including why you’re going and any aspects of the event that you think they may find challenging. This approach works for daily schedules, too, with arrangeable visuals for day-to-day tasks. Go over the schedule with your child at the start of each day, so they can prepare for the day’s expectations instead of being surprised by them.
- Timers and priming: Using timers to count down before a transition – between activities or places – can help your child mentally and emotionally prepare for the change and feel less loss-of-control over it. If you tell them that you’re going to the park in an hour, having an hour timer visible to them allows them to prepare and provides an easy way for them to see how close they are to the transition as time goes by. “Priming” them for a transition is the same principle on a shorter time scale. For example, “I’m going to be turning off the TV in 1 minute,” followed by “I’m turning the TV off in 5 seconds” and counting down.
Expectation & Engagement Tactics
A common source of stress among children with autism is not understanding why they “have” to do things. Setting clear expectations and engaging them directly to either explain a chosen course of action or empower them to choose one themselves can help address this.
- Social stories: Creating social stories can be a helpful tool for some kids. These step-by-step narratives show what they can expect and what is expected from them. It’s important to include all steps of the process within the story, framed in a positive light. For example, if you’re flying soon, you can start the story with your family deciding where to go and planning the trip, talking about why it’s a good thing and why the destination was chosen. Be sure to include each step of the process: driving to the airport, checking bags, going through security, waiting at the gate, boarding, and so on.
- Offer choices: Look for ways to include many opportunities for choice in your child’s day. How you travel short distances, what plates to eat dinner off of, where to sit – all are great opportunities for your child to create some comfort for themselves through a modicum of control. It’s important to note that you should frame these choices in ways where both or all answers “work” for you. For example, instead of “do you want to go to the doctor,” try “how do you want to get to the doctor’s office today?”
- Use “start” directives rather than “stop” directives: If your child is doing something disruptive, it can be second nature to tell them to stop. However, negative reinforcement can cause stress, especially because children often don’t know what they are expected to do instead of the thing they’re being asked not to do. So, instead, you can tell them what they should do, instead of not to do what they shouldn’t. For example, instead of saying “stop jumping on the couch,” you could say “let’s put our feet on the floor.”
Ready to take these ABA strategies to the next level?
Parents and parental strategies can do a lot to help a child feel accepted and make progress on their learning journey. Customized ABA therapy planned and implemented by healthcare professionals helps build on those successes to create tailored approaches to your child’s specific goals and challenges based on proven best practices. It can also help you develop additional at-home practices to help maintain consistency and comfort.
Triangle ABA is a clinician-run applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy clinic, and one of the leading clinics in Raleigh, North Carolina. Schedule a free consultation with us today to discuss your child’s progress so far and begin planning their care.
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