ABA therapy is widely considered to be one of the finest autism therapies around. It is an entirely scientific approach and very specifically integrated to help improve skills and behaviors in autistic children.
ABA therapists are highly specialized, and working with them can greatly improve your child’s behavior. Moreover, they also advise and suggest unique techniques that you can practice with your child in your own home as a way to further reinforce the sessions.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled half a dozen proven and common techniques you can use at home.
Let’s begin.
ABA Therapy Definition
ABA therapy, in essence, is a treatment that focuses on skill and behavior improvement in autistic people. These specific behaviors include communication, social skills, and domestic activities.
The process starts with the ABA therapist identifying a skill needed to improve, then as the child participates in the development of this skill, they’ll gain access to items for reinforcement.
This reinforcement, over time, further encourages the child to continue on the development path.
ABA Therapy at Home – Proven Techniques
We’ve learned that ABA therapy aims to improve skills and behavior, so the therapies you’d want to do at home should reflect this objective.
Here are some of the most common and proven techniques you can do with your autistic child at home:
1. Looking at the person
Maintaining eye contact is an excellent exercise to encourage your child to make and maintain eye contact with you at first and then with other people.
The way this works is by using visual stimuli such as playing by blowing bubbles in front of your child. This can work well with the next exercise, which is sitting in a chair.
2. Sitting in a chair
One of the great struggles with autistic children is having them sit still in a chair while doing various activities.
To successfully perform this exercise, have your child sit on the opposite chair, facing you. Then try to make your activity as fun as possible, and don’t forget to praise your child when anything is achieved during this exercise.
3. Sorting household items
The following exercise is somewhat of an opposite to the previous one as it requires your child to do a physical activity. It’s one of the best Abacus ABA therapy exercises and works on gaining both mental and physical strength.
This exercise is done by placing illustrations and boards in various rooms of your house with typical items that can be easily found and identified. Once you do this, you need to ask your child to find these items and place them in their corresponding place in each room.
This will help your child build on some of the real-world skills needed, as well as enjoy some playtime.
Again, don’t forget the praise!
4. Matching the colors
Every household with children probably has tons of toys lying around waiting to be sorted. You can turn this disorder into a very fun game while also being educational.
What you need to do is select a handful of toys and objects lying around the house that your child can immediately recognize. Then, choose one of those and ask your child to match all other items of the same color and sort them in one place.
5. Identifying emotions
Struggling with emotions is something that many children with autism go through, and it’s an aspect that definitely needs to be covered with regular exercises.
This next exercise will do wonders in helping your child better understand and identify emotions.
What you need to do here is print out a set of emojis that personify emotions. Place them face down, ask your child to pick one, and then identify the emotion.
Depending on the age of your child, you can then incorporate discussions so they can better understand these emotions.
6. Identifying function
This exercise requires printing visual material and asking your child to select the associated activity written in that material.
Each printed image will have text in the form of “Which dessert should you eat” while giving a choice of four products, one of which is the right answer.
Once your child acknowledges and picks the right one, praise them immensely!
Wrapping Up
ABA therapy is a truly effective and scientifically proven approach to improving skills and modifying behavior in autistic children.
Collaborating with ABA therapists positively impacts your child’s behavior and by trying out these homemade techniques, such as the six we listed in this article, you can further improve the overall mental health and the skills of your child.