Finding the right Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program can often be a little stressful and overwhelming. These are a couple of helpful tips and tricks to look out for when finding a great program.

Who is part of the team?

Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA): Individuals who completed a qualifying Master’s Program and participated in clinical hours to become approved by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). These individuals:

• Uses evidence-based Applied Behavior Analysis assessments and interventions to create individualized goals to enhance skill development.
• Create a Behavior Intervention Plan based on a conducted Functional Behavior Assessment.
• Conducts Parent Trainings.
• Supervises the Registered Behavior Technician in their application.

Registered Behavior Technician (RBT): Individuals who have completed a Board Certified 40-hour program and passed an exam by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. These individuals:

• Implement Applied Behavior Analysis interventions created by the Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA).
• Receive ongoing supervision by the BCBA.
• Gets reviewed by the BACB Annually.

Developmental Therapist (DT): Individuals who have completed a qualifying Master’s Program and are part of the therapy case manager team who are experts in child development as a whole. Developmental Therapy may not necessarily be available at other agencies. These individuals:

• Identify where a child’s functional performance meaningfully impact a family’s life and ability to participate in daily routines.
• Use role play and functional play schemes to enhance a child’s volition and motivation when participating in recreational activities.

Why choose ABA at Blue Bird Day?

 1. Multi-Disciplinary

Here at Blue Bird Day, ABA therapists collaborate with other disciplines to create a holistic intervention program for your growing kiddo. We work together with Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Social Work, and Nutritional Therapists to improve all skills.

 2. Group and Individual

Blue Bird Day offers a unique blend of individual and group services to work alongside your child in a variety of scenarios that are similar to everyday situations they might encounter such as:

• A playground
• Family game night
• Individual functional play
• A school setting
• Play dates
• Grocery Shopping with the family

 3. Multi Environment

We acknowledge that your children participate in different environments, and so our services can accompany you:

• In clinic
• In home
• Virtual (when applicable)

Learn more about ABA at Blue Bird Day from the recording of our Beyond the Nest parent caregiver training or reach out to us directly for more information.

Children with autism often have unique ways of learning and engaging with tasks. Breaking down activities into smaller, manageable steps can make tasks feel less overwhelming and easier to follow. Play, in particular, involves multiple steps that require thinking and problem-solving skills—something many children may struggle with during early development stages (Moor, 2002, cited in Chambers et al., 2016). By breaking activities into clear and structured steps, parents can help their child feel more confident and engaged, fostering valuable learning opportunities along the way.

What is a Play Plan?

Using Visuals to Support Play Plans

Visual aids can simplify and guide play activities, acting as a schedule or step-by-step plan for your child. These visuals are flexible and can be adapted to different types of play. For example:

• Turn-taking visuals help children understand when it’s their turn.
• Single-activity visuals break down one specific activity into steps.
• First/Then visuals show the sequence of completing one task before moving on to the next.

With visuals, play becomes more structured and less intimidating for your child.

Reinforce Positive Play Behaviors

Reinforcement is key to encouraging your child to complete play activities outlined in the plan. This can take many forms, depending on what motivates your child:

• Verbal praise like “Great job building that tower!”
• Preferred items such as a favorite toy, snack, or activity as a reward (outlined beforehand to your child in the play plan).

These rewards should be given immediately, right after your child completes the activity to strengthen the association with positive reinforcement. By recognizing their efforts, you’ll motivate your child to stay engaged and follow the play plan.

What if Your Child Resists the Play Plan?

There might be moments when your child doesn’t want to engage in a particular play activity. This is normal, but it’s vital to stick to the play plan. Follow these strategies to address their resistance:

1. Encourage Follow-Through: Ensure your child completes the activity before giving them any rewards or their chosen activity. This reinforces the idea that completing tasks, even unpreferred ones, is important.

2. Use Prompts When Needed: Offer gentle guidance or support to help your child complete the activity if they’re struggling. For instance, you can model how to engage with the toy or guide them step-by-step through the play.

If your child is consistently allowed to skip unpreferred activities, it can signal to them that avoiding certain tasks results in being rewarded with their favorite activity. This can make it harder over time to introduce less-preferred activities. Sticking to the plan helps set expectations and ensure they develop coping skills for completing less-preferred tasks.

Play Ideas to Try at Home with your Child

Functional Play Ideas (when a toy is played with as it should be, e.g rolling a ball):

• Playdoh- making balls, food, using playdoh utensils 
• Water play- use animals, dump and fill with bucket. 
• Cars, trucks and trains- pushing and pulling vehicles. 
• Dolls– feeding the dolls, pushing in stroller, putting to bed.

Pretend Play Ideas (imaginative play where your child pretends with their play, e.g. pretend cooking with playdoh): 

• Dress up 
• Food and kitchen 
• Tea parties 
• Play house 
• Grocery shop 

Interactive Play Ideas (child takes turns with a peer or adult during turn-taking games, e.g. playing board games):

• Hide and seek 
• Board games 
• Red light, green light 
• Physical play / tag / chase

Parallel Play Ideas (this is when your child is near yourself or others while playing with their own toys):

• Train tracks 
• Cars 
• Blocks 
• Books 

Co-operative Play Ideas (your child and a peer using a toy together, e.g. building a tower):

• Block building 
• Puzzles 
• Tug of war 
• Ball play

Supporting your child’s play doesn’t have to be complicated. By breaking activities into steps, using visuals, reinforcing positive behavior, and encouraging follow-through, you create an environment where they feel supported and capable. Remember, every little accomplishment builds their confidence and helps them grow.

Resources

Chambers, L., McDaniel, L., McGill, T. and Wells, K. (2015) Autism in Early Childhood: Teaching object based play. Retrieved from.  

Meadows, T. (2014). Let’s Play. I Love ABA!. Retrieved from.

What is Token Economy? Token economies are based on the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and emphasize the use of positive reinforcement to target behavior change. Token economies help children visualize progress, accept and work for delayed reinforcement, learn to self-monitor, and learn to regulate behavior.  

 Developing a Token Economy: When developing a token economy, first identify and define the behavior you want to increase (i.e. target behavior). Then, determine what items or activities will be motivating to the child. To help identify these items/activities, it is helpful for parents and teachers to complete a reinforcement survey and use direct timed observation. This, in turn, develops a list of items and activities that have been identified as possible reinforcers will serve as back-up reinforcers for the child.  

Back-up reinforcers should be items/ activities that are easily introduced and removed; generally, access to back up-reinforcers should be 5 mins or less. The individual's back-up reinforcers can come from the survey completed by parents and teachers. reinforcers include tangible items (Legos, trains, cause and effect toys) bubbles or a song.  

When possible, limit access to reinforcing items/ activities that were identified when token economy is in use. This will reduce the possibility of the child getting bored with any one reinforcer and increase the motivational value of the reinforcer.  

Next, determine how many tokens need to be earned before gaining access to the back-up reinforcer. Start with a small number of tokens (learner dependent- ask BCBA) and gradually increase that number when BCBA advises. Decide what to use as tokens and match these to the level of the learner. For example, a Preschooler may have Elmo tokens whereas a Kindergartener may have smiley face tokens. 

Teaching and Implementing Token Economy: BCBA will initially introduce this technique with teaching instructions to follow. During the initial stages of teaching the token economy, social praise will be paired with the token by providing learner specific reinforcement (i.e., tickles, a thumbs up, or a pat on the back) while at the same time labeling the behavior with "great sitting!" or "awesome coloring!" 

All key parties play a vital role while implementing token economy. Therapists and family members working with the child will be taught by the BCBA how to distribute tokens, but as stated previously, should be consistent in their distribution of tokens and exchanges of the back-up reinforcers. Flood the child with tokens in the beginning so that access to the back-up reinforcers is frequent.  Once the child demonstrates an understanding of earning the tokens leads to the back-up reinforcer, the BCBA will determine when to lengthen the time between delivering tokens and/or increase the number of tokens required. As requirements to earn tokens increase, continue to pair token delivery with lots of specific social praise. This will teach the child delayed reinforcement.  

Prior to presenting demands, a difficult task/ transition,  the adult will ask the child "What are you working for?", "What should we play with?"  or "What do you want to earn?" – these options will come from the pre-assessed list of items/activities known as back-up reinforcers. For a visual learner who may not have the words to label their desired item/activity, it may be helpful to provide a choice board. When the child has earned the pre-determined number of tokens, he/she should be encouraged to count the tokens from the board and in exchange, immediately earn access to their reinforcer.  

Allowing a child to participate in the token economy at this level may increase their own sense of control over the situation as well as ensure that the selected reinforcer is indeed motivating to the child in the moment of time.  

Using a Token Economy correctly can help motivate your child as they visually track their earned rewards for desired behaviors.  

Ideas to use Token Economy at Home and in the Community 

1. Difficult activities the child may not enjoy  
2. The bathroom routine 
3. Cleaning up after play 
4. Transitions 
5. "Chores" – making the bed, putting clothes in the hamper, feeding the animal 
6. Playing a family game 
7. Mealtime 
8. Riding in a car  
9. Going to the store 

Building language and understanding of “Verbal Behavior” is commonly used in Applied Behavior Analysis to increase language, adaptability, and generalization, and to decrease some challenging behaviors overall. This occurs by building and teaching skills within the world around children. Then, when they are presented with language or certain tasks within daily environments, they will have confidence in completing them and challenging behaviors will be less likely.

As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, the generalization of language is a daily treatment focus for each child and family. I am often asked, “How can we incorporate this in the home?” or “What activities can we do in the home to support their goals?” Keep in mind that every child has different interests; learning tasks should be entertaining and fun in order to keep engagement!

St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to work on colors and the rainbow with your child. Colors are an important skill set for children to learn due to exposure to them in academic settings, as well as serving to increase their language. For instance, a challenging behavior may be avoided if a child is able to request for “the red lollipop” or even “red” when asked, “What color do you want?”

A fun activity in the home that targets colors can be working with your child to engage in sorting favorite toys, such as Lego’s. Start with just a few colors and add more as they grow more confident! You can make this easier by having one different color block, handing them a block, and having them “match the color” by stacking on the similar color. You can also hold out two options in your hand while playing Legos for the child to choose and match correctly.

If your child is more interested in sensory play such as shaving cream, paint, or water play: colors can be targeted during this play too. Mix shaving cream with food coloring, giving cars baths with different colors of water, or putting different colors of paint in various cups. For children with limited language, you can again continue to build skills by asking, “What color do you want?” before handing them the next cup or color. You can make this easier by asking your child to “show you where blue is” or “give you the blue.”

If your child has mastered labeling plain colors of items you can have them put colors of favorite toys in rainbow order and label them by color, or work on mixing colors. Remember to be creative and have fun! Our world is made of colors!

The Basics of ABA

Any parent of a child with special needs understands the fine art of behavior as a means of communication.  A child that does not have all of the tools needed to express themselves uses their actions to get a message across.  This form of communication can present challenges in a child’s ability to learn and succeed in everyday life.  Behavior Therapist, Kelly D, believes it is her job to break down these communication barriers so that her clients can learn and grow. To Kelly, the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.

Kelly is driven by what makes her clients tick and recognizing that their actions are meaningful.  The fascination with the use of behavior as communication is what directed Kelly to pursue the path to become a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She can use the methods of Applied Behavior Analysis to better understand and help her clients. She completed her graduate certificate in Behavior Analysis this summer and will be sitting for the BCBA board exam in February. The BCBA graduate certificate is just the latest accomplishment in her impressive fourteen-year career.

Kelly is Therapeutic Crisis Intervention and Collaborative Problem Solving trained, skilled in Augmentative Communication Devices, and holds a Masters in Elementary and Special Education.  Blue Bird Day is very lucky to have her expertise, passion, and talent as the Kindergarten Teacher at the North Center location opening this winter!

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a therapy that uses the clients’ actions and skills to shape learning.  For children with Autism and sensory disorders, ABA therapy is flexible enough to implement in many different environments and fosters their current means of communication.  The goal of ABA is to improve communications, social relationships, self-care, academic and employment success. ABA can be structured or applied to naturally occurring opportunities, but an imperative part of the intervention is that the treatment goals are designed specifically for each client.  The relationship based therapy at Blue Bird Day lends itself perfectly to these customizable approaches.

Kelly’s path to becoming an Board Certified Behavior Analyst came organically as she uncovered her natural ability to connect with children with special needs.  She fell in love with teaching early in her career at Americorps.  While teaching in Philadelphia she had her first interactions with special needs children and she felt an automatic comfort.  This natural strength paired with her curiosity and analytical side make her an asset to our North Center team.  It doesn’t hurt that Kelly has experience opening classrooms, Autism programs and has worked in a variety of public and therapeutic schools, including Easter Seals in Chicago.

Having worked in a setting with older special needs children, Kelly has a unique perspective and enthusiasm for early intervention.  She knows what these children will be experiencing in a few years as they enter elementary, middle and high school and she understands the impact early intervention can have on clients for the rest of their lives.  Kelly is motivated to use her position at Blue Bird Day to prepare them for what is ahead socially and academically.

Kelly sees North Center as an opportunity to give back to her community and the people that she interacts with every day.  An avid cyclist, Kelly not only has the bike route to North Center planned out, but her vision for the classroom, as well.  As the opening of North Center approaches, these details are going to help the facility hit the ground running.  However, Kelly is most interested in the big picture and collaborating with her new team to accomplish great things. Kelly’s reward is knowing that she is always her best self when she is with her clients.