What is autism and how does ABA therapy work?

most often parents already know that their child has autism they're just waiting for an expert to sit down with them and formally diagnose it there are times where a parent doesn't know that's going on and comes into the appointment unaware of what it's called now we just have one diagnosis called autism spectrum disorder previously it was broken up into succinct categories and the categories were to help people understand different levels and different functioning levels of kids and persons with autism now it's all one it's all one disorder and then we talk about different severity levels and functioning levels autism is sometimes the a word that you know you don't want to hear it because you think it's going to be terrible but autism is a spectrum and there are children that have just a little bit of autism and who are in the mild range so a low functioning person on the spectrum would have intense behaviors that are impeding their ability to be independent in their life little to no communication skills unable to interact with other people and their environment without additional supports then you're going to have the higher functioning level spectrum so in the past it used to be called Asperger's disorder people who have more of the stereotypic behaviors repetitive interests but their communication skills are there they can communicate with other people they can interact with others but they still have some challenges and some barriers in those area areas so difficulty with socializing with other kids repetitive behaviors such as toe walking rocking spinning those are the classic signs the kids who are classically autism you can almost Agnos right in the waiting room as soon as you greet them there fairly obvious that and pediatricians are generally good at identifying those if they're a young child some of the things that you want to look for our lack of eye contact lack of being able to engage in pretend to play so for example if you have a toddler and they are not interacting with baby dolls they're not really using them to try to play pretend a to rock them or put them to bed another one would be social interaction so oftentimes they prefer to be alone as opposed to be with other people they don't start interacting with other kids we call that parallel play moving to more of an interactive play they prefer to just continue to stay solitary many kids with with autism spectrum disorder have these heightened sensitivities to things tactile things auditory things Oh factory and and thermal and as a result of that they they often recoil from situations and and develop an intolerance for for being in certain places and in certain environments and the reason many of these kids have food related issues is because of sensitivities that they have from an aural standpoint they can't tolerate various textures in their mouth they can't tolerate the the the smell of food or even the taste of food for example so those would all be some early indicators I think parents are afraid of the label of autism sometimes and afraid that this is going to change the course of their child's life and really I've had no one come back and say they were [Music] they wish they hadn't labeled their child autism because I'm beginning to accept a diagnosis of autism starts the therapy for it so it really opens up their world it doesn't close it down [Music] the origins of ABA therapy hearkened back to the research of a groundbreaking psychologist by the name of BF Skinner dr. Skinner believed that behavior is changeable through positive reinforcement Skinner found through his research that we all learned through the consequences of behavior behavior that is reinforced tends to rewire us and becomes our default behavior he also found that behavior that is not reinforced will dissipate over time Skinner's research is commonly seen in every one of our lives as children we learn to walk talk and avoid picking up hot things through repetitive training from our parents or loved ones we learn most of our basic life skills through appetitive reinforcement reinforces are essentially the outcomes of the rewards or Consequences from our own behaviors for example rewarding a child for cleaning his room with money is a positive reinforcer cheering a child as she takes her first steps conveys to the child that the awkwardness of her first steps is worth the risk ABA therapy simply expands this training in intensive ways until each child struggling with autism reaches new milestones and develops the habits he will need to leave a full life as an adult ABA therapy is a changing behavior by looking at what is reinforcing the behavior so things that happen after a behavior occurs where you can either expect that behavior to continue or expect that behavior to stop and we look at the principles of learning in how we can change that behavior so can we set up specific environmental situations we call those antecedents to ascertain a specific behavior and then if the behavior happens that we want how do we reinforce it so that we can next that behavior to occur again in the future they have the way to help kids with autism down to a fine science that has little tiny goals that get added together to take a child from not being able to interact with other kids being focused on their own internal world into kids that can tolerate other kids can be at school can follow a circle-time can answer questions for you can get their needs met and communicate and that doesn't come from broad sweeping goals it comes from this daily battle with these kids with tiny little goals let's say we were trying to teach a child colours and we've got some different objects out for them and we're trying to teach them which one is the red object and they just keep picking the yellow one over and over so there's different principles of behavior there's different learning strategies that we may use where we elicit the behavior that we're looking for we elicit the response that we're looking for so we may move the red apple a little bit closer to them that would be one type of prompt that we could use and then when they pick the red apple that's the red object that we were looking for then we would give them some kind of reinforcer it could be praise it could be a high-five it could be something that they like an edible item it could be a toy for them to play with something to let them know that the behavior that they just had or the the response that they just gave us is what we were looking for and that's a good thing and then we would expect based on that principle of reinforcement that the next time that we asked them the same question which is the red object that they would be able to give us the correct answer so they're going to first you know be able to point to a choice between two objects and they're going to be able to point between two pictures of what they desire then they're going to be able to say one of the words and they're going to be able to request one of the words and that process takes weeks to develop but if they can slowly work at it they'll get child there so at home parents can be frustrated for years that they can't understand what their kid once they can't communicate with their child and they don't have the time and the expertise to know what are the little steps that their kid needs to make to get their ABA therapists know that and have the time because it is one-on-one therapy at such an intense level they get the child to where they need to be which seemed impossible before ABA existed it doesn't matter you know whether whether an individual has a physical disability or a cognitive disability that they're they're not diminished in terms of value from anybody else and I think that just becomes something so critical to to keep in mind daily as you're interacting with with individuals is that the preciousness and and the beauty of a life and and just communicating that value to to them in every possible way and communicating your understanding of that value to your community is just it's just critically important you

Channel: Hopebridge Autism Therapy Centers

Views: 844,885

Keywords: aba, autism, autism therapy, autism therapy centers, applied behavioral analysis, asd, autism spectrum disorder, hopebridge, skinner, autism signs, what is autism, what is applied behavioral analysis, what is aba, autism treatment, autism symptoms

Id: RBB_81ao7uo

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2018