Many parents and professionals in my online courses are waiting for ABA or they are there
because they don't think that ABA that's currently in place is working to its maximum extent.
So today I’m going to give you my thoughts on what to do if you feel that ABA isn't working.
Hi, I'm doctor Mary Barbera, autism mom board certified behavior analyst and bestselling
author of The Verbal Behavior Approach. I wanted to discuss this important topic from
people, parents and professionals who say either online or they say verbally to a lesser
degree that we tried ABA, it didn't work. Um, they believe that ABA is just for little
kids with autism. So they, they have all these misconceptions about ABA. So as a board certified
behavior analyst, I want to talk to you today about ABA, what it is and what to do if it
appears that it isn't working. So before I get into ABA as a treatment package for kids
with autism, I do want to explain that ABA, which stands for Applied Behavior Analysis
is the science of changing socially significant behavior. It is a science. It's literally
like the laws of gravity. If behavior is reinforced, it goes up.
If it's not reinforced, it will go down. But it's also ABA is also a treatment package.
So when people say ABA is not working or we used to do ABA and it wasn't good, they are
talking about a treatment package, not the science because literally it, the science
is never wrong. Right. So once I heard a really renowned behavior analysts, Dr Dave Palmer
speak at an ABA conference, I believe, and he was talking about a feather and how if
I had a feather here and I wish I had a feather but I don't, if I had a feather here and dropped
it, it would drop. Right? And it would, the laws of gravity would make it drop. But if
I had a feather in a closed room with, with fans going to a certain degree, um, to basically
keep the feather in the air, it would look like we are going against the laws of gravity,
the feather wouldn’t fall. But that's because of the fans or the external
variables that are causing the feather to stay up. So when people say ABA doesn't work,
the science is clear. If you reinforce the behavior, it will go up. This has been proven
over decades and decades of work. But if you have all these confounding variables, the
current treatment package of ABA may not appear to be working. So just like the external variables
of the fans keeping the feather floating around seeming to defy the laws of gravity, um, confounding
variables, the environment, the people, how much stuff is in the room, how, what, what
people are saying and doing in the, in the presence of problem behavior, all of that
can complicate things and make it that it doesn't look like ABA is, is effective. So
in that situation, it's kind of like weight loss programs. Like the laws of science are
calories in exercise and now hormones and those sorts of things.
All contract control, weight loss and weight gain. But you can do different treatment packages
of weight loss programs. You can try Jenny Craig or weight watchers or whatever, just
because you try weightwatchers and you probably aren't following it to a t and then you're
going to parties and making exceptions. So there's other variables at play. So you, you
decide weightwatchers is not for me. Usually what people do if they still want to lose
weight is they go to another type of weight loss, uh, system or treatment package. Um,
you don't just then say, well there's no point in doing anything because weight loss systems
in general don't work. It doesn't work. The science doesn’t work. You would then have
to, okay, this program didn't work for me. We would need to go to a different weight
loss approach all within the science. So I really encourage people to look at it like
it's the science. The science is not wrong. The science will
always work. But if you are, whether you’re a behavior analysts, speech pathologist, a
teacher or a parent, if someone is doing ABA, Applied Behavior Analysis, treatment and the
child is not making progress, the child is, continues to throw himself on the ground and,
and elope from the building and not make progress and is aggressive, then you have every right
to question what's going on, what's the data, what's the um, treatment package that we,
we are in, have in place? What should we be working on because no one should stop making
progress. Just because you're a teenager with severe autism doesn't mean you're not entitled
to continue to make progress. It may not be very fast progress, but we should always be
looking for the way to make progress, to make progress with language and, and self care
and uh, imitation and vocational skills eventually and to be looking to decrease problem behaviors
so that each child can reach their fullest potential.
So if you don't think ABA is working currently, if you have a child or clients, there are
some things I would recommend that you learn more about. Number one, I would encourage
you to learn more about functions of behavior and ABA principles such as reinforcement,
extinction, shaping and chaining, all which are very important to make sure that the treatment
packages working. Number two, I would also encourage you to learn as much as possible
about verbal behavior principles, including the importance of the mand or requesting and
how to teach children using errorless teaching procedures and transfer procedures, which
I did a video blog on fairly recently. I would also encourage you to learn as much as you
can about how to assess and make a plan based on the skills of the child so that you're
not using cookie cutter type goals or transferring goals to kids that aren't ready for those
goals. The next point is I would encourage you to
learn how to collect the right data in a simple format as possible, and help make treatment
changes that result in the best progress possible for each child, both at school and at home
and in the community. We have to work together, both parents and professionals can learn all
of these skills and members of my online courses and community, um, are learning together every
day and they're collaborating with each other to make sure that they can apply all of these
procedures that make ABA the science of ABA work as good as possible for each child. We
will always have those confounding variables, those fans in the room making the feather
kind of fly when it shouldn't be flying and we just need to get to the bottom of it and
it's going to be different. It's going to be a slightly different for each child. So
when people feel that ABA isn't working, they're usually stressed out. So gaining new knowledge
and having a community to ask when treatment struggles arise is key. And to find out more
about joining my online courses and community, which include type two BACB CEU’s for you,
you behavior analysts out there. I would encourage both parents and professionals with toddlers
through teens to check out a free workshop at marybarbera.com/workshop.
And I hope to see you here next week.