Methods used in ABA

 Reinforcement can be anything from a certain toy a child likes, praise from an adult, a certain food or drink, and interactions from an adult (tickles, cuddles) to name but a few, reinforcement is specific to each child. Reinforcement is extremely important with ABA, without reinforcement there is no ABA. This gives the child motivation to want to learn and the higher the value and desire for the item, the more likely the child will try their hardest to get that item they desire. 

Before any adult start to work with any child, one of the most important things to begin with is pairing. Pairing is when a child associates a certain person (e.g. a tutor) with reinforcement; the child understands that this person delivers reinforcers, fun and other positive events. Over time, you will see whether a child is paired with certain people, if the child sees that person, and is happy and excited to play this is due to past experiences of fun things happening around that person, they are reinforcing to the child. 

 A prompt is a cue to encourage the desired response from an individual. Prompts are often ordered into a prompt hierarchy from most intrusive to least intrusive. Prompts are a necessary component of Applied Behavioural Analysis, and help a child move from being completely unable to do a skill, to doing that same skill independently. The goal of teaching using prompts would be to gradually fade prompts to sure independence. When a new skill is being introduced, it is a normal procedure to use a most to least intrusive prompting hierarchy, so the child has no opportunity to get the answer wrong. However, if the skill is mastered, or has already been introduced, use a least to most prompting hierarchy to avoid prompt dependency. 

 ABC of behaviour stand for:

· (A) Antecedent -This is something that happens before a behaviour occurs. For example: An adult says: " Put your coat on"

· (B) Behaviour -The behaviour that happens after the antecedent. For example; the child drops to the floor and cries. 

· (C) Consequence -  what happens after the behaviour occurred. For example, the Adult puts the child's coat on. 

Manding means a child asks for desired items that they love. Situations are set up to help to encourage manding; this is the first step to help get verbal language from the child and help them learn if they try to ask for an item then they can get it. This helps the child learn that other behaviours will not get them the item but trying to communicate using words will.

Discrete Trial Training (DTT) is a method of teaching in simplified and structured steps. Instead of teaching an entire skill in one go, the skill is broken down and “built-up” using discrete trials that teach each step one at a time and normally follows in this sequence: MT (Mass Trial), DT1 (Discrete Trial 1) ,DT2 (Discrete Trial 2), RR ( Random Rotation).  

This is where you immediately prompt the correct answer to stop the child making errors. The idea being the child learns the correct answer straight away, until the child illustrates the skill independently, this is using any prompt to allow no errors to be shown. The goal of teaching using prompts would be to gradually fade prompts to sure independence. When a new skill is being introduced, it is a normal procedure to use a most to least intrusive prompting hierarchy, so the child has no opportunity to get the answer wrong. 

and many many more....