Helpful Handouts & Toolkits
ASD Toolkit Handouts: This American Academy of Pediatrics resource site has many beneficial and helpful toolkit handouts specifically about ASD topics.
Autism Navigator: Autism Navigator was created by faculty and staff in the Autism Institute at the Florida State University College of Medicine. These online courses offer interactive slides with an unparalleled library of video clips. Topics are from early detection of toddlers with autism at 18–24 months to evidence-based intervention strategies and supports for social communication, active engagement, and addressing challenging behavior.
ADHD Toolkit Handouts: This American Academy of Pediatrics resource site has many beneficial and helpful toolkit handouts specially about ADHD topics.
Mental Health Toolkit Handouts: This American Academy of Pediatrics resource site has many beneficial and helpful toolkit handouts specifically about mental health issues in children and adolescents.
A Parents Guide to Autism: Autism Speaks Toolkit for the first 100 days after a diagnosis.
Scientific and Professional Organizations
Autism Speaks states that “ABA is widely recognized as a safe and effective treatment for autism”; and “Behavior analysis is a scientifically validated approach to understanding behavior and how it is affected by the environment.
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry concluded: “ABA techniques have been repeatedly shown to have efficacy for specific problem behaviors, and ABA has been found to be effective as applied to academic tasks, adaptive living skills, communication, social skills, and vocational skills” (Volkmar et al., 2014).
National Autism Center’s National Standards Report (2009) noted that behavioral interventions based on ABA were found to have an established level of evidence to support their use. Examples include behavioral packages, antecedent packages, comprehensive behavioral treatment for young children, modeling, schedules, pivotal response training, and self-management package.
The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders provides a list of several treatment options or components founded in applied behavior analysis (e.g., antecedent-based intervention, differential reinforcement, discrete trial training, functional behavior assessment, functional communication training, extinction, prompting, reinforcement) which have been demonstrated to be efficacious in children with autism spectrum disorders.
The Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT) found that “…ABA is effective in increasing behaviors and teaching new skills….ABA is effective in reducing problem behavior…and also indicates that, when implemented intensively (more than 20 hours per week) and early in life (beginning prior to the age of 4 years), ABA may produce large gains in development and reductions in the need for special services.”
Federal Agencies Support & Research
The Centers for Disease Control (see types of treatment) indicated that a “… notable treatment approach for people with an ASD is called applied behavior analysis (ABA). ABA has become widely accepted among health care professionals and is used in many schools and treatment clinics….”
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) noted that ABA has become widely recognized as an effective treatment for individuals with autism (see treatment options section).
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development stated that “… applied behavior analysis (ABA), [is] a widely accepted approach that tracks a child's progress in improving his or her skills…”
The Surgeon General of the United States stated, "Thirty years of research demonstrated the efficacy of applied behavioral methods in reducing inappropriate behavior and in increasing communication, learning, and appropriate social behavior" (1999).
Dimensions of ABA
Applied Behavior Analysis is a well-researched science and is not a therapy or curriculum. The practical application of principles and methods delivered with treatment fidelity is the therapy!
The 7 Dimensions of ABA (Baer, Wolf, and Risley, 1968) serve as the field's overarching guidelines and evaluation criteria. These dimensions are:
- Applied - indicates that the behavior of interest is important to the learner and/or society.
- Behavioral - indicates that a study or intervention program can be precisely measured and behavior change can be identified.
- Analytic - indicates that a study or intervention program has demonstrated control over the target behavior and a functional relationship exists.
- Technological - indicates that a study or intervention program has listed all components of the intervention as well as fully described the components.
- Conceptually Systematic - indicates that a study or intervention program has related all of the procedures back to the principles from which they were derived.
- Effective - indicates that a study or intervention program has altered the target behavior to a significant degree such that the change is socially important.
- Generality - indicates that a study or intervention program's behavior change is seen over an extended period of time, across different settings, different people, or among other relevant behaviors.
Reference:
Baer, D., Wolf, M., & Risley, T. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1(1), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1968.1-91