Starting ABA therapy..

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Once we got the initial diagnosis it was very important for us to provide Early Intervention for improving Aarians language abilities, social interactions and to teach him new skills which typically growing children acquire naturally but kids on the autism spectrum struggle to acquire these skills. We did a lot of research and found ABA was the most promising intervention to help Aarian learn new skills and help in his overall development.

We decided to start Aarian on ABA therapy. ABA is short for Applied Behavioral Analysis. It is the science of behavior. It is the process of systematically applying interventions based upon principles of learning theory to improve socially significant behaviors to a meaningful degree. It is the most effective evidence-based approach for children with autism.

Aarian started ABA therapy in March 2009 immediately after his diagnosis. The ABLLS provides the tools you need to assess, instruct, and monitor children with autism. It helps you to identify deficiencies in language, academic, self-help, motor skills, and then implement and evaluate the intervention. 

A thorough ABLLS assessment was done and a basic program was developed to help Aarian across various domains. He started responding well to 1:1 therapy after the initial hiccups. That was very encouraging for us to see our son working on acquiring new skills.

 Receptive Language, Imitation which included both Motor Imitation using objects also imitating sounds on request, play and leisure skills, fine motor skills, Dressing skills were targeted at the beginning of the program.

In Canada, once the child gets a formal diagnosis of autism they are placed on a waitlist to get government-funded intensive ABA. It can take up to 4 years for the children to start receiving intensive 40 hours of ABA which is recommended for the best outcome. 

Waiting for that long was not an option so we started our son on ABA although 40 hours was something we could not afford at that time. This is the most important piece of advice to any parents out there is to start early and not wait as they say children who receive ABA at a very young age have the best outcome.




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