Follow Up to Your Child ' s ABA Sessions, Why it is So Important

Parents of children with autism typically have a difficult time understanding how to help them or where to start. In many cases they are overwhelmed with all of the information that they receive. The read articles and see shows on TV that describe certain therapies, diets and procedures. In most cases parents learn what works best for their child by trial and error. The therapies for the most part are foreign to a parent and there is little out to help a family understand what a certain therapy does and how it helps. For many families, ABA is the best rout to take in order to further develop their child's skills. They put their trust in their ABA therapists and either drop them off for an hour or two at a clinic or leave their child in a room in their house, while they run errands or just have a break. Once the therapy is over, a parent does not know what to do or how to effectively follow up. Although these breaks are great for a parent, follow up to ABA therapy is imperative and a necessity to further develop a child's progress. This process is time consuming and forces a parent to be more immerced in autism than they probably want to be, but without follow up most children will not reach their maximum potential. As children we all participated in events that that our parents became a part of. In most cases our parents practiced with us or drilled us to hone our skills. Practicing ABA therapy is no different, it just takes time to learn and practice. Parents need to become a part of each therapy session or at least find a way to watch the therapy. Quality therapists will be able to provide you an outline of each session and give a parent tips. It is also important to attend seminars or find a way to learn all of the skills necessary to provide ABA. In order to effectively help a child, a parent must first understand the principles of ABA and how they work. State of the art therapy centers train their staff how to provide skills and work on programs, but they also teach the theory of ABA and how to utilize such skills as prompting, shaping, fading and data collection. Without knowledge of the skills of ABA, a parent will most likely keep spinning their wheels and not see much progress. Once the skills are learned, parents need use the outline that their therapist has used to practice the skills learned. Some of this will be discrete trials at the table, but most of this will be generalizing what was learned into the natural environment. Practicing these skills throughout the day in different environments will greatly increase the chance of mastering skills. Being a parent of a child with autism, does not mean that you should not know what is going on or have the capability to provide care to your child. Knowledge is power and the sooner a parent understands ABA the sooner they can begin working with their child to improve behaviors and skills.