The ABC's of ABA—Implementing Behavior Intervention in the Home

The ABC Acronym

Whether you’re starting ABA therapy and looking to get a better understanding of the principles, or you’re trying to help your child with behavioral challenges at home, the ABCs of ABA is a great acronym to use!

A—antecedent (what happens before a behavior)
B—behavior (what is the behavior of note)
C—consequence (what happens after the behavior)

Now let’s apply this to a real-life situation. Let’s say that you ask your child to come inside from playtime outdoors, but instead of coming in they get angry and start to cry. You respond by going outside to the child and try to comfort them.

In this situation, the antecedent was the parent asking the child to come inside. the behavior was the child resisting and crying. The consequence was the parent going outside to comfort. How does this help with intervention? Once we understand the objective data of the situation, we can start to see where the behavior comes fro and changes can be made to assist.

The Four Functions of Behavior

Sensory—a behavior results as a reaction to sensory stimulation, whether that be too much, not enough, or particular type.
Avoidance—the behavior results to avoid something (i.e. a demand, a situation, etc.)
Attention—the child engages in the behavior to attract attention
Tangible—the child engages in the behavior in order to get an item they want

Using ABC data helps a caregiver to establish why a behavior is occuring. This will almost always line up with one of the four functions of behaviar. By matching it to one of these, th ecaregiver can then better assess how to respond to a behavior, and what healthier replacememt behavior to guide them towards.

Often times, one of the first steps is teaching a safer way for the child to access what they are seeking, whether it be avoidance, a tangible, attention, or sensory input. After this has been thoroughly reinfroced and generalzed across multiple settings, a caregiver can then work on building tollerance for the occasions that that demand may not be able to be met.

Working with an ABA clinic can allow you to receive training specific to your child on how to implement this, and other principles like it. Your child will get one-on-one support with learning these skills, which can make a truly lasting impact on your child’s confidence, autonomy, and quality of life.

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