The value of consistent therapy

When I’m called to work with children it’s because there is a challenge or problem behavior. This can be a behavior that is hindering the child’s learning and development of new skills. I am called in to figure out what the child’s motivating operations are (or M.O.). This is the fuel behind the problem behavior, what is driving this particular child to exhibit this behavior and what are they getting out of it? There is reinforcement, or a pay-off, for every behavior and every behavior is a form of communication. Part of my job is to figure out what your child is trying to communicate or what the payoff is. Sometimes it is something easy, other times it can take a few weeks to uncover. I’ve heard some people say that ABA doesn’t work because after a week or two their child was either still exhibiting the behavior or the behavior had escalated and this is typical. It may seem that when your child is yelling or having a meltdown with their therapist, that the therapist is ignoring your child’s needs. This, in fact, is not the case. The therapist is ignoring the behavior, not what can look like the child’s needs. If I want a child to sit down I’m going to reinforce the good behavior, and if the child is knocking the chair over or throwing objects I’m going to ignore that behavior. What I will do is keep placing the chair right side up and will reiterate my request (sit down) quietly and calmly. If this is a particularly difficult task (e.g. if the child doesn’t yet understand what “sit down” means) then I’m going to model it for them as I verbally prompt. As soon as the child does what I’m asking, or even an approximation of the request (e.g. if the child sat down but not where I prompted them to) I will immediately reinforce the appropriate behavior. While your therapist is working on teaching new, possibly more difficult, skills you will see your child go through meltdowns. As a parent,real world I know how this can stab at your heart, but let’s look at the bigger picture here. Would you rather have a few sessions of your child having meltdowns because your therapist is trying to teach them a skill that they wireal-worldsituations or would you rather have your child struggle? Trust me, the meltdowns will subside and it’s what we call an “extinction burst”. You may have read another one of my blogs where I described this. This happens when we are trying to teach a child a replacement behavior that is more appropriate than the challenging behavior they are exhibiting. This behavior is serving a purpose for the child, albeit a negative purpose, and it’s our job to help them discover a more appropriate and functional behavior. Developing new behaviors is not something that can be taught in a few sessions. Just like learning your math facts took time, concentration, and perseverance (and certainly didn’t happen overnight!) so does learning new skills for children with Autism. What your therapist should provide is an outlet to exhibit those behaviors and gently teach more appropriate ones while fostering the relationship between themselves and your child.