Children with autism may require therapy to manage their symptoms, fostering childhood development. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is a science-based autism therapy focused on behavior management and learning. Thus, children with behavioral and learning difficulties, like autistic children, benefit significantly from ABA therapy. Autism therapy helps patients overcome behavioral issues in various ways while learning how to communicate and socialize with people. Autism therapy is effective because, besides studying how behavior works, the therapy accounts for environmental and social triggers and the behavior learning process. Below are some behavioral learning techniques that ABA therapy applies to optimize behavior learning and improvement:

Positive Behavior Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is a common and effective ABA technique for learning new behaviors. Under the positive reinforcement technique, the patient receives a reward immediately after engaging in a desirable behavior. Positive reinforcement acts on the brain's dopaminergic system, responsible for rewards. Every time someone engages in positive action, the brain rewards the person by releasing dopamine. Thus, this form of autism therapy taps into this scientific phenomenon by inducing dopamine releases every time the patient does something positive. Usually, the reward must be valuable to the patient to induce them to try again. The person is likely to repeat the behavior because of the reward, which helps build positive habits. 

Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence

Patients who receive ABA as the preferred autism therapy may also undergo Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence techniques (ABC techniques), focusing on how a patient reacts before and after a particular behavior. That way, the therapist identifies the trigger and the possible solution to inhibit an unwanted behavior. The antecedent that occurs before behavior can be a command, a sound, light, or gesture that sets behavior in motion. The behavior refers to the patient's response to the antecedent, while the consequence is the response to the behavior. The consequence can be a positive reinforcement for positive actions or no response for negative behavior. Over time, the patient's brain is rewired to accommodate good behavior and shed the unwanted behavior. 

Flexible Approach

In addition to positive reinforcement and the ABC technique, autism therapy also uses a patient-centered flexible approach. All patients are not the same, and some patients react differently to therapeutic approaches. Thus, autism therapy should be adaptable to meet each patient's unique requirements for maximum effectiveness. ABA therapy is offered at home, school, or in the open in a specific environment that works best for a patient. The program teaches students valuable skills and behaviors essential to their daily lives and can be done either individually or in groups depending on what works.