You may have read about ABA intervention. You may have even seen certain elements of it in place even though it may not have necessarily been called ABA. Good teachers use a variety of ABA strategies as part of their daily classroom interactions with their students. For example, many teachers provide encouragement when things are difficult, they revise tasks to enable children to be successful, they organize lesson plans to facilitate the transfer of newly learned skills and most of all they reward students with positive feedback for good performance.
The acronym ABA stands for “Applied Behavioral Analysis”. It is the science of behavior. Behavior is anything we say or do, from asking for juice, or a child telling their parent they hear an airplane, to playing on the beach. In simple terms it involves breaking down tasks into small achievable steps, each step building on the previous one. Data is taken to guide teaching and rewards called ‘reinforcers’ are given for correct responses.
Typically developing children usually learn without any intervention. In other words the typical environment they are born into provides the right conditions to learn language, play and develop appropriate social skills. Most children learn from their environment at an astounding rate, completely unassisted. However, after a few years, this breaks down and they no longer learn thing as naturally. They require a more structured environment to learn to read, write and do arithmetic.
Children with learning disabilities such as speech or language delays, hearing loss, ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism, Down Syndrome, Dyspraxia or PDD learn much less from their natural environment. They are very much capable of learning but they require a more structured environment right from the start. The point of ABA is to teach the prerequisites to make it possible for a child with disabilities to learn more naturally where they are not “picking up” information or skills such as social, motor, verbal behaviors or reasoning skills on their own. ABA can help provide a wonderful environment to enable children to learn and can be used by teachers, parents or certified behavior analysts.
It is often said, this methodology is not just for children with special needs; it can be successfully used with typical children of all ages and populations. IT IS SIMPLY GOOD TEACHING.
What is ABA?
You may have read about ABA intervention. You may have even seen certain elements of it in place even though it may not have necessarily been called ABA. Good teachers use a variety of ABA strategies as part of their daily classroom interactions with their students. For example, many teachers provide encouragement when things are difficult, they revise tasks to enable children to be successful, they organize lesson plans to facilitate the transfer of newly learned skills and most of all they reward students with positive feedback for good performance.
The acronym ABA stands for “Applied Behavioral Analysis”. It is the science of behavior. Behavior is anything we say or do, from asking for juice, or a child telling their parent they hear an airplane, to playing on the beach. In simple terms it involves breaking down tasks into small achievable steps, each step building on the previous one. Data is taken to guide teaching and rewards called ‘reinforcers’ are given for correct responses.
Typically developing children usually learn without any intervention. In other words the typical environment they are born into provides the right conditions to learn language, play and develop appropriate social skills. Most children learn from their environment at an astounding rate, completely unassisted. However, after a few years, this breaks down and they no longer learn thing as naturally. They require a more structured environment to learn to read, write and do arithmetic.
Children with learning disabilities such as speech or language delays, hearing loss, ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism, Down Syndrome, Dyspraxia or PDD learn much less from their natural environment. They are very much capable of learning but they require a more structured environment right from the start. The point of ABA is to teach the prerequisites to make it possible for a child with disabilities to learn more naturally where they are not “picking up” information or skills such as social, motor, verbal behaviors or reasoning skills on their own. ABA can help provide a wonderful environment to enable children to learn and can be used by teachers, parents or certified behavior analysts.
It is often said, this methodology is not just for children with special needs; it can be successfully used with typical children of all ages and populations. IT IS SIMPLY GOOD TEACHING.