When receiving a diagnosis for your child with autism, you might not know what your next steps are. As a parent you want what's best for your child, when seeking the best therapy for your child you might find that to be overwhelming. Here are some therapy choices you might want to choose from:
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Therapy
What is ABA? ABA therapy is used to understand your child's behavior. ABA focuses on teaching new skills such as socialization, communication, self-care and strategies to handle life's challenges. ABA is delivered in a variety of settings, such as school, home, clinic, and other community settings. The main goal of treatment when using ABA therapy is to increase your child's adaptive functioning across settings. There is no cure for autism, but ABA therapy is tailored for your child's specific needs. ABA therapy may be delivered by a BCBA alone or in a tiered system a behavior technician under the supervision of a BCBA (supervisor). The time spent in ABA therapy will depend on your child's need and should be discussed with the provider. Focused ABA therapy is used when a limited number of behavior targets need to be addressed. Comprehensive ABA is used to target a multiple behavior targets to increase adaptive functioning skills, communication skills, emotional regulation skills and behavior management skills. Focused ABA therapy is generally applied 10-25 hours a week, while Comprehensive ABA therapy is applied 30-40 hours a week.
ABA Therapy also offers parent training on behavior management and adaptive functioning instruction/support strategies. The therapist will collaborate with teachers and other therapist involved in the care of your child to best support the needs of your child.
Speech Therapy
Speech therapy assesses and treats communication problems and speech disorders. Some individuals on the autism spectrum are not able to speak. Speech therapy helps to improve a child's ability to develop early language skills, understand and express language, verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and social communication. The techniques a speech language pathologist (SLP) or speech therapist uses are meant to develop your child's ability to understand and express language. They also focus on the coordination of the mouth to produce sounds that enable your child to form words and sentences. Many children are able to make improvements with 1 hour a week of speech therapy in a school and/or clinic-based setting.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to treat a variety of conditions, including autism. It focuses on helping your child learn how to handle their emotions and to control their impulses. CBT can support your child with becoming more self aware by discovering their own triggers. It is structured to be a problem focused approach to psychotherapy that teaches your child how to cope and deal with situations they may encounter. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a goal oriented system that finds ways to improve the overall behavior of your child.
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