Applied Behavioural Analysis Program
Little Souls – Applied Behavioural Analysis Programme
Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) utilises methods based on scientific principals of behaviour to bring about comprehensive and enduring improvements in a wide range of skills for most people with Autism.
Typically developing children are learning from their environment all their waking hours simply by watching and imitating other people in their everyday lives. Children with autism have great difficulty learning in this way, and for many, imitation is not something that occurs naturally and is therefore a skill that must be taught.
ABA therapy helps children learn by breaking tasks down in to small manageable steps and creating artificial opportunities for them to practice these steps until they can successfully perform them independently. Essentially the normal patterns of life are broken down into easy to manage steps that are then practised and rewarded over and over. ABA is a teaching method which relies heavily on positive reinforcement.
The primary objective of ABA is to teach children with Autism a wide range of skills including -
- Imitation skills
- Speech and language skills
- Attention skills
- Social play skills
- Gross and fine motor skills
- Academic skills
- Self-help skills
At Little Souls Taking Big Steps, our strong belief is that each ABA programme should be designed, only after each child’s individual strengths and weaknesses are assessed. This ensures that the programme is individually tailored to the needs of the individual child rather than a “one size fits all” approach.
A functional analysis of a child’s maladaptive or inappropriate behaviour is an important component of ABA. Understanding why a child is behaving in a certain way is the first step towards helping them replace their “bad” behaviour with a more appropriate or functional behaviour and ultimately reducing frustration for both the child and others in his/her environment
