Special Education
Teaching that adapts to the learner
- Reading, writing or number skills well behind classmates
- Reverses letters or numbers well past the age this is typical
Understanding behaviour, teaching skills
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Therapy
ABA uses the principles of behaviour analysis to help children build learning, communication and daily-living skills, and to understand and reduce behaviours that are getting in the child's way. It is most widely applied in autism, and is also used for broader behavioural and developmental needs.
- Session
- Typically 45 minutes
- Setting
- One-to-one
- Starts with
- Functional assessment
What it is
Understanding aba therapy
An ABA therapist uses the principles of behaviour analysis to help individuals improve their behaviour and learning skills. The central idea is that behaviour is learned and responds to what happens around it — so if we can understand what a behaviour achieves for a child, we can teach a better way to achieve the same thing.
Programmes begin by breaking complex skills into small, teachable steps, then building them up with clear instruction, meaningful reinforcement and enough repetition for the skill to become reliable. Data is taken every session, so decisions are based on what the record shows rather than on impression.
Challenging behaviour is treated as communication. A functional assessment works out what the behaviour is achieving — escape, attention, access, or sensory input — and the plan then teaches a functional replacement that meets that same need more effectively.
ABA Therapists
Deliver structured behavioural programmes that build communication, learning and daily-living skills and address behaviours of concern.
Who it's for
Children who may benefit from aba therapy
This is not an exhaustive list, and no single item on it means your child needs therapy. The assessment establishes what is actually going on.
- 01
Autism spectrum disorder
ABA is the most extensively studied behavioural intervention for autism, spanning communication, play, social and self-care skills.
- 02
Challenging behaviour
Aggression, self-injury, severe tantrums or elopement that place the child or others at risk.
- 03
Skill acquisition
Children who need structured teaching to acquire self-care, communication or pre-academic skills.
- 04
Attention and compliance
Difficulty following instructions, staying with a task, or working within a group.
- 05
Social skills
Turn-taking, sharing, joint attention, imitation and cooperative play.
- 06
School readiness
Building the sitting, attending and instruction-following skills a classroom demands.
Signs to look for
What parents often notice first
Children develop at different rates, and a single item here is rarely meaningful on its own. It is a pattern across several — particularly one that persists — that is worth raising with a professional.
- Limited or no functional communication of wants and needs
- Repeated behaviours that interfere with learning or family life
- Aggression or self-injury that has not responded to usual approaches
- Little interest in other children, or difficulty playing alongside them
- Strong resistance to any change in routine
- Difficulty following even simple one-step instructions
- Skills that appear in one setting but not in others
- Restricted play that is repetitive rather than imaginative
Benefits
What this therapy works towards
Goals are always individual to the child. These are the areas of change the discipline is designed to produce.
Functional communication
A reliable way to express wants and needs, which is often the single biggest reducer of frustration behaviour.
Fewer interfering behaviours
Replacement skills that meet the same need as the challenging behaviour, taught systematically.
Independent living skills
Dressing, toileting, eating and hygiene broken into achievable steps and built up.
Learning readiness
Attending, imitating and instruction-following — the prerequisites for all other teaching.
Skills that generalise
Deliberate programming so skills hold up across people, places and materials, not just in the therapy room.
Measurable progress
Session-by-session data means progress is visible and plans change when the data says they should.
The process
How a programme runs, step by step
- 01
Initial and functional assessment
Assessment of current skills across domains, plus a functional assessment of any behaviour of concern to establish what it achieves for the child.
- 02
Individualised programme
Priority skills are selected with the family and broken into teachable steps, with reinforcement matched to what genuinely motivates the child.
- 03
Structured teaching
Sessions combine structured trials with naturalistic teaching embedded in play, so skills are learned and used in context.
- 04
Data collection
Responses are recorded every session and reviewed to decide whether to advance, hold or change an approach.
- 05
Parent training
Parents are taught to apply the same strategies consistently at home, which is a strong predictor of how well gains hold.
- 06
Generalisation and fading
Support is deliberately thinned and skills practised across settings so the child performs them independently.
What to expect
Inside a session
- Session length
- Typically 45 minutes
- Frequency
- Set after assessment, based on need
- Setting
- One-to-one, structured and naturalistic teaching combined
- Parent involvement
- Parent training is an integral part of the programme
Questions
About aba therapy
If your question isn't answered here, call the centre — it is usually the quickest way to get a straight answer.
Parent resources
Reading that may help
Related therapies
Often provided alongside this
Where a child works across more than one discipline, goals are coordinated between the therapists involved.
