Research recommendations suggest ABA therapy should be intensive (20 - 40 weekly hours), individualised and comprehensive to target a wide range of skills and therapy should be conducted in the form of one-to-one format before transitioning to groups or other natural settings (Maurice, Green & Foxx, 2001). However, with a child that attends school, or other training, it is understandably hard to achieve this. At ABLE, we are flexible to work around you and your child’s schedule to achieve significant outcomes from our ABA therapy.

Using ABA therapy, we aim to work with children as young as 18 months to adolescents to teach functional life skills for engaging independently in activities of daily living. ABA therapy can work for ANYONE who’s willing to learn new skills. It is suitable for children who have (or suspected to have) behavioral, social-emotional issues, and/or with special learning needs: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Asperger’s Syndrome, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Anxiety disorder, Developmental Delay, Language delay etc. Children that come to ABLE do not need to have a diagnosis for training. We work with any individuals that want to acquire and maintaining skills, and improving behaviors. Primarily the focus will be to equip and improve children’s social, play, language, academic, self-management skills in a one therapist to one student ratio or in small groups.

Since signs for ASD or other problem behaviours come to light at around 18 months but assessments may not be done until at least 2-3 years old. It doesn't matter whether a child has a diagnosis or not but it is recommended to start ABA therapy as early as possible. It also means that the child has fewer opportunities and time for problematic behaviours to develop and they can learn the appropriate behaviours from the start.

Vietze & Laz (2018) provided ABA therapy to 106 toddlers under 40 months, with an average child receiving a mean number of 290 hours of 1:1 instruction (approximately 1 year of therapy with 5 hours a week). When they reassessed their performance, they showed statistically significant improvements across all areas of functioning including IQ, communication, motor, socio-emotional, adaptive behaviours as well as a reduction in ASD symptoms and barriers to learning. Other studies have shown that children who received ABA therapy before 4 years of age make greater improvement compared with children older than 4 years that received ABA. (Lovaas & Smith, 1988; Turner & Stone, 2007).