Approach

At momentum I provide a consultancy service to parents and caregivers who have a child diagnosed with ASD or any other developmental disability. Autism and other developmental disabilities such as ADHD or PDD oftentimes impede the learning of social behaviour, communication, play, daily-living, academic skills or skills necessary for executive functioning. Unfortunately, a deficit in these skills as a child grows up can lead to a dependency on others to manage many functional aspects of their loved-ones’ life in the long-term. In addition, many children and adults with a diagnosis of ASD also exhibit some form of challenging behaviour, which can result from a deficit in functional skills such as communication and can result in impaired ability to form positive and meaningful relationships.

 

ABA Approach

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The way in which I teach and train teams to deliver vital skills to our learners is done so following knowledge from and training in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and in the following ways:

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• Fun! If our learners are not motivated to learn, then we are seriously doing something wrong! Our science tells us that learning, when associated with enjoyment and positive reinforcement, is absolutely under the right conditions for acquiring those long-term skills that you and we value for our children and learners. We embrace your child’s individual learning history, passions and interests as these are really essential supports that inform us as practitioners to help power their learning. Interventions involve learning through preferred play-based activities (for younger learners) or leisure-based activities (for older learners). The types of activities are selected based upon your child’ s preferences, that way we can ensure that giggles and smiles are always the fuel to learning.

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• Achievable steps. Many skills that neurotypical children acquire are seemingly learnt easily and without much teaching – they learn naturally from their social environments (home, school etc). However, when we really look closely at those skills, they comprise of a multitude of necessary steps that are actually quite complex. Learners with ASD often struggle to piece together these necessary steps of complex behaviours. In our science, we are highly skilled at breaking these down into more easily achievable parts for them and gently building them up at the learner’s pace. Each step learnt is cause for celebrations, however big or small.

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• Useful, meaningful skills. The science of learning is so powerful that we can effectively use it to teach anything. However, just because we can teach anything, doesn’t mean we should! We only set meaningful, functional goals that will make a significant difference to the quality of life of your child and your family. Long division is a meaningful and functional skill to learn, however, if your child is struggling to ask for a drink or a cuddle, then we need to prioritise communication skills first. Goals are always guided by your child’s current needs. You, the parents are the experts on your child and their needs, what is valuable to you as a family, is valuable to us as we support you, therefore goals are selected together with you.

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• Independence. This is a big one, it means so much to us as parents and practitioners. If we can bring about meaningful changes to the lives of our learners, the most significant aspect of these changes is that they foster an increased level of independence. No matter how big or small the new skill learnt; it may be getting the bus independently, reading a book or using a spoon to eat a yoghurt, if our learners can do these with independence, then we are on the right road. The science of learning shows us highly effective methods to guide learners to pick up skills with our help, then we gently fade that help when they start to show readiness for independence.

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