Parenting is a hard role to fill and parenting a child with a behavioral concern or developmental disability can be very challenging. However, participation in parent training on a regular basis can have amazing lasting effects and really enhance your child’s progress. Here are some key tips to getting the most out of your ABA therapy experience.
Advocate for yourself:
Ask your supervisor for parent training frequently. As a supervisor, I often get caught up in the supervision and program development aspect of a case and as a result may forget to ask families to set up time to review their own goals for learning and skills. Your success depends on getting these times scheduled, so please try to ensure that you have multiple options available and take advantage if the supervisor has openings!
Set clear goals and be prepared to discuss.
I like to ask families to choose 2-3 things that they would like to change within the next 6 months. Try to make these as specific as possible (goals such as, they will talk more will often fall flat because there are so many smaller parts to this). Think about your daily life and what would be most helpful for you.
Ideas include, my child will play alone for at least 10 minutes, my child will be able to go to a playground for 15 minutes without attempting to run away, or my child will request items they want instead of crying or screaming.
Be open.
Come to training willing to try. Be prepared to answer lots of questions regarding the “ABCs” of behavior and to possibly be asked to try a strategy you may have used in the past (even if it didn’t work).
Collect Data (and write it down to share).
The best most effective parent training programs I have put together have focused on parents collecting data on progress and reviewing it every 1-2 weeks to ensure continued progress. This is what BCBAs are great at and is how we make programming decisions within programs, so if you can work on collecting this information and providing it to us, you are much more likely to be successful.
If you don't understand, ask.
Please don’t hesitate to ask “why” we are doing something this way. Our programming is based on the principles of behavior, so if you don’t understand why a particular technique is being used or why we are teaching a skill, please ask so we can explain it.
Speak up if what we are asking for is too much.
I would never expect a family to collect as much data as an RBT, or to spend hours each day implementing a program. Please let the supervisor know if you do not think you will be able to follow all the directions they are giving. We can work with you and break the skill up into smaller more attainable steps that will still get you to where you want to go!
Be persistent.
Stick with it! Behavior change will not happen overnight. Learning does not happen within 2 days. Please attempt to try all things we are implementing for the full 2 weeks before making a judgement on its effectiveness. We know it is hard, and we know you can do it!
Comments