ABA vs Play Therapy.

If you've been reading for long, and if you've looked around this 'blog for information about me, you'll know that I was once a fairly good ABA therapist. That's ABA as in "Applied Behaviour Analysis" - more specifically, the type of ABA developed by Ivar Lovaas as an autism treatment.

This type of teaching requires one-to-one interaction between the autistic child and his or her therapist, in a room free of distractions. All of the teaching is done in a very clinical, discrete style. Once a skill has been learned in isolation, it is generalized with other, similar skills, and later moved into the "real world". The specifics of the program - what is taught, how it is taught, and how one knows something is learned - are laid out in the program binder by a consultant. Everyone working with the child is expected to run the program in the same way. Deviation from this program will result in confusion for the child, and the skills will not be learned as quickly, if they are learned at all.

Again, if you have been reading long or have delved into the personal information on this 'blog, you know that I have moved away from the discrete trial type of teaching and am currently employed by an agency that adheres to what they call a developmental play-based approach to autism treatment.

Play therapy of the type I do now is done wherever one happens to be, with whomever happens to be there. Siblings are included, as are parents. Teaching happens in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bathroom, and in the bedroom. There is no isolation of skills being taught; everything is generalized right from the start. The specifics of the program - what is taught, how it is taught, how one knows something is learned - are laid out in a program plan, which contains goals and strategies from behaviour therapists (who only tackle behavioural problems), occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech-language pathologists. It is up to the individual working with the child to create and recognise learning opportunities during the sessions, and to help the parents incorporate strategies into their daily lives.

This morning, as I followed my client around the house, imitating his vocalizations (trying to show him that we might converse someday), squeezing his feet (he's a deep pressure junkie), and taking the sudden opportunity to teach waiting (he wanted into the kitchen for a cookie but hadn't had lunch yet), I thought about how the work I do now is so much more challenging than the work I did as an ABA therapist.

As an ABA therapist, I was not required to be creative. In fact, it sometimes seemed to me that creativity was actively discouraged in some of the programs I worked in. An ABA therapist, when it comes right down to it, must simply do as he or she is told, without question.

I don't know if you've noticed, but that's not exactly my personality.

As a play therapist, I have to be creative. It's up to me to come up with lesson plans and ideas for teaching skills that we have on a child's program plan. My job is to actually get down on the floor and play with the child, relating to him or her as if I, too, were a child. At the same time, I have to retain that level of control, so that the child does not become confused about my status and authority.

I've been thinking about the difference between the two for a while now, and I am interested in trying something here on this blog.

I would like to take some goals - IEP goals, perhaps, or just a random goal - and write up a sample of how an ABA program would teach those goals and how a play-based program like the one I currently work for might tackle them.

If you would like to see the difference and have some goals to offer, please e-mail them to me at janna@thehoskincentre.com. I'll change the names, of course. If you're offering a goal that you or your child has achieved, I would love to know how it was achieved and how long it took!

Thanks, everyone!