ABA stands for Applied Behaviour Analysis:

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Applied because it is for real life, what is important to you, your child, your culture? It is applied to make people better at what they do, happier and more connected.​

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Behavioural because we believe all things we do are behaviours, whether it is help with sleeping better, thinking more positively, being more assertive, understanding what others are thinking, or being better at maths. ABA focuses on each individual, broken-down behaviour and uses tried and tested techniques to change it for the better.



Analysis because we rely on data and facts, we don't say, "well I think he's behaving better towards his sister", we can say, "well the number of times he's kicked her has gone from 14 to 0 times a week, the number of times he asks her to play has tripled, and the number of times he allows her to share his toys has not changed..maybe we need to focus on teaching that some more!"



ABA has hundreds and hundreds of published studies demonstrating how successful its principles and techniques are in describing and changing behaviour for the better. There quite a few studies demonstrating that ABA is more effective than other techniques or approaches in teaching skills and socially integrating children with Autism and related disorders. There are also lots of studies suggesting ABA is the best approach for gambling, addictions, and many other behaviours people seek to change, and there are some pretty amazing programs for teaching mainstream classes of children, and helping maximise their learning in areas such as maths and literacy!





Here are a few studies...



Smith, T; Groen, A.D & Wynn, J.W. (2000). "Randomized Trial of Intensive Early Intervention for Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder". American Journal on Mental Retardation 105 (4): 269-285.



Sallows, G.O.; Graupner, T. D. (2005). "Intensive behavioral treatment for children with autism: Four-year outcome and predictors". American Journal on Mental Retardation 110 (2): 417-438.



Simpson, R.L. 1999. "Early Intervention with Children with Autism: The Search for Best Practices." Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps 24(3):218-221.