Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)

We teach a lot of skills across the TLC Curriculum, all using the same framework. Whether our clients are receiving an intensive 40 hour a week program for 2 years or a 2 week consultancy to work on toilet training, we use the principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) to help them succeed. The science of ABA is backed by almost half a century of extensive research to prove its success as the gold standard treatment within the field of early intervention for autism and related disorders. ABA is a systematic approach to the assessment and evaluation of behaviours, and the application of interventions that alter behaviours. It is based on principles of learning and operant conditioning and relies on consistency and reinforcement to teach new skills and reduce inappropriate behaviours. There are several strategies that utilise ABA principles, these include, but are not limited to:

 

Discrete Trial Training (DTT)

DTT is a teaching strategy utilising ABA principles which enables the learner to attain complex skills by breaking the skill down into multiple components, learning each of these individually and then combining them into the original complex skill. This technique is used in highly structured settings to teach skills within the areas of language, self-help skills, social skills and motor skills.

Natural Environment Training

NET involves teaching skills and behaviours in a less structured setting, based around the child’s interests, using materials he or she encounters outside of the therapy setting. This technique focuses on maximising functional and spontaneous language, thus minimising the requirement for complex generalisation. Therapists and supervisors mix language targets so that verbal interaction is more like that of a typical conversation.

Pivotal Response Training (PRT)

PRT takes the structure and repetitive features of DTT and combines it with the natural environment of NET to teach new skills and generalise previously learned skills to more natural settings.

Precision Teaching (PT)

PT ensures that the programs that we design are functional and effective for each individual client. The skills our clients learn need to be fluent to be useful for day to day living. Fluency refers to the accuracy and speed; or frequency of the skill. It is important that foundation skills in the areas of language, literacy and numeracy are fluent in order to build a more complex skill set that relies on those skills. By tracking the rate at which our clients learn to be fluent in their skills, we can also track to effectiveness of our programs and tailor our teaching style to suit each client to maximise their success.

Verbal Behaviour (VB)

VB takes into account the many different functions of language and is a superior teaching strategy to the previous, simplistic view of language as a dichotomy of receptive and expressive. VB focuses not just on learning language, but learning communication, the meaning of words and teaching independence across each function of language. The VB model ensures clients learn to understand (receptive) language and speak (express) but also to imitate (echoic), ask for what they want (mand), talk about what they can see/hear/taste/feel/smell (tact) and to have simple and complex conversations (intraverbal).