ONE ON ONE THERAPY

Heal the World Behavioral Services provides quality ABA therapy to children diagnosed with Autism and related disorders.

Our one-on-one therapy sessions offer learners an opportunity to interact with toys and engage in novel activities that are functional. We create an environment that promotes effective learning of academic and language skills and keep the child engaged at all times. We make learning an exciting routine in their lifestyle, so fun that the child does not even know that he/she is learning!

Our goal is to foster independence, generalization, and maintenance of all skills taught by enabling the child to perform these skills in various environments, with various people and under different conditions. Thus, parental involvement in sessions is highly recommended so that they learn effective ways of communicating with their child as well as ways to increase learning opportunities.

Our one-on-one therapy sessions focus on individualized Verbal Behavior Programs that teach each child the following skills:

  • Manding (Requesting; i.e., requesting “water” when thirsty)
  • Tacting (Labeling; i.e., responding “It’s a dog” when shown a picture of a dog and asked, What is it?)
  • Receptive Language (Following directions; i.e., Standing up when told to do so)
  • Visual Perceptual Skills and Matching to sample (i.e., puzzles, block designs)
  • Independent Play Skills (i.e., playing with toys according to their function)
  • Social Play Skills (i.e., imitating peers during social play)
  • Echoics (Vocal Imitation)
  • Motor Imitation (fine motor, gross motor, and imitation with objects)
  • Listener Responding by Function, Feature, and Class (LRFFC; i.e., selecting a dog from an array when asked to find something that has a tail and says woof)
  • Intraverbal (i.e., Completing fill-ins, answering “wh” questions)
  • Academic Skills (i.e., Reading, Writing, Math)
  • Self-help skills (i.e., Feeding, Dressing, Bathing, Toileting)

STARTING ABA THERAPY

To begin ABA therapy, we first have to conduct an initial assessment using the VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program) in order to determine which skills your child has compared to typical children of the same age and which skills your child does not have and require intervention. Once the assessment is completed, we develop an individualized Verbal Behavior Program to be implemented by one of our qualified staff members.

Data on each skill being taught is collected daily and marked as an independent or prompted response. Skills targeted for acquisition are repeated so that the child comes into contact with several opportunities of each skill throughout the day. Once the child has achieved the mastery criteria for a specific skill, the skill is mastered and moved to maintenance skills, which are reviewed monthly for generalization purposes. Monthly parent meetings are conducted with the child’s therapist and BCBA to discuss mastered skills as well as new skills to be added for acquisition. Re-evaluations of the child’s assessment grid are conducted every 6 months to show skills/milestones learned.

However, ABA therapy for children with autism is not and should not be approached as a “cookie cutter” method. On the contrary, a successful ABA program is one in which the behavior analyst customizes the intervention to each child’s age, skills, interests, and family goals. And that is our goal- to implement teaching procedures that have proven to be most effective, such as errorless teaching, mixing and varying targets depending on the child’s behavioral momentum, following the child’s motivation, shaping difficult skills, and following a fast-paced teaching schedule in order to promote effective learning.