Applied Behavior Analysis Aids Children on Autism Spectrum

By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant

Children on the autism spectrum often struggle with social skills, academics, communication and other activities of daily living in varying degrees. Applied Behavior Analysis is a kind of therapy that uses observation, recordkeeping and positive reinforcement to find what triggers unwanted behaviors and what promotes desired behaviors.

Its goal is to help children achieve their potential for independence.

Psychologist Ole Ivar Lovaas developed ABA in the 1960s, based upon behaviorism. ABA doesn’t “cure” autism but helps children with autism better understand the rules and expectations of a world that oftentimes seems inconsistent, incoherent and frustrating to them. Caregivers and teachers at school and parents use ABA to help understand how to best support their children’s development.

Although early versions of ABA included negative reinforcement for unwanted behavior, the current version of ABA uses positive reinforcement to help foster desired behavior. ABA has garnered criticism for its intention to force children on the spectrum to behave in ways socially and academically acceptable rather than to consider autism an example of neurodiversity.

For some people, some behaviors manifested by their autistic neurodiversity hamper their ability to learn and function. That’s why ABA can prove helpful for some.

“ABA definitely has a lot of positives,” said Susan L. Scharoun, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse and psychologist with Elmcrest and Toomey Residential Services in Syracuse. “It’s used very successfully with some children.

I can’t say it’s a one-size-fits-all or every child with autism will benefit. It does come across as ‘everyone’ benefits.”

Tracking behaviors, antecedents and environmental factors is very time consuming. Scharoun said that some parents hire people to work with their children with ABA because it takes so much time.

“The vast majority of times, it’s successful when they have self-stimulating or self-injurious behaviors,” she said. “They often address those behaviors by altering the consequences. It focuses on the consequences: what does it give that child?”

The ABA method of discovering