How Do Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Therapists Motivate Children with Autism?
How Do Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Therapists Motivate Children with Autism? Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy requires children with autism to do a variety of tasks that may not interest them at all. How do ABA therapists motivate children with autism to actually learn from them?Answer: Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapists give children with autism small rewards for appropriate responses. Those rewards, called reinforcers, should be based on the interests and preferences of the individual child. More importantly, those rewards should be so interesting to the child that they are worth the hard work of responding to the therapist. All too often, behavioral therapists have little experience in real-life interaction with children with autism. As a result, they may have too few ideas for motivating their students (many use various types of food as the only options for reinforcement). The outcome: children who don’t, and won’t, respond to treatment. Dr. Jim Partington, PhD,
