Other Approaches to Applied Behavior Analysis

Applied behavior analysis is a treatment approach designed to teach age-appropriate developmental skills to children diagnosed with autism and autism-spectrum disorders. Autistic children struggle to learn life skills from observation, so ABA utilizes instructional methods and positive reinforcement to help children acquire developmentally appropriate skills. ABA utilizes several different approaches.

Discrete Trial Training

• Discrete trial training helps children learn simple, everyday tasks.

  Discrete trial training involves instructing a child to perform a simple task. Positive reinforcement, either verbal or tangible, is given upon successful completion of the task. The instructor provides physical guidance to complete the task if the child cannot. Autistic children benefit from the repetitiveness of discrete trial training and generalize the learned task in everyday situations.

  Example: The instructor tells the child to "Pick up the toy." She picks up the toy. The instructor gives the child a cookie and says, "Very good job." If child does not pick up toy, the instructor gently takes her hand and places the toy in it, repeating the phrase, "Pick up the toy."

Pivotal Response Training

• Pivotal response training allows the child to make choices about learning.

  Pivotal response training is a child-directed approach to developing everyday skills. Pivotal skills are targeted, such as motivation, initiation and self-management. Strengthening crucial pivotal skills allows the child to apply those skills to other areas of development, such as social and play skills. Natural reinforcement is used to reward a child for successful attempts or the completion of a task. Rewarding the child for attempting tasks keeps frustration and discouragement at a minimum.

  Example: The child wants to play on the swings at the playground. He points and says, "Swing." The instructor will take the child to the swing set and push the child on the swing as a reward. If he points to the swings but says, "Slide," the instructor will still take him to the swings, but will correct him by saying "Swing" while doing so.

Fluency Building

• Fluency building makes a complex task easier to master.

  Fluency building helps autistic children develop more complex skills. The instructor breaks down a complex task into several simple tasks, allowing the child to master one before moving on to the next. The instructor observes the child to determine how simple to make the tasks for mastery. As with other ABA techniques, positive reinforcement, repetition and prompting continue to be important in fluency building.

  Example: The instructor will teach the child to wash her hands. Breaking the task into four simple steps, the instructor teaches each until the child is fluent. Steps include recognizing hands are dirty, turning on the water at the faucet, putting soap on the hands, then rinsing and drying hands. Each step will be taught as many times as necessary until the child masters hand-washing.