When a child starts ABA for the first time, some parents and clinicians have noted the occurrence of a so-called “honeymoon” phase, where the child is extremely happy to be at the clinic and is picking up new skills with very little resistance. Eventually though, as the child gets more comfortable, they may start to show more and more maladaptive behaviors and the sessions may shift from skill building to focusing on more replacement behaviors. Why may this happen?

Pairing and Demands

At the beginning of ABA, the therapist’s aim is to make sessions as fun and rewarding as possible. The goal is for the child to enjoy being there, create a therapeutic bond and see the reward for learning new skills. This process is called pairing. This also means that demands are fairly low, and the skills that are being taught may most of the time be things the client already knows how to do to a certain extent. However, ABA Therapy is still structured, which may be something new to the client. This structure can be challenging for the child as they learn boundaries and encounter social situations and skills that test their abilities. Along with growing in comfortability in the clinic, for some kiddos, this may lead to an uptick in behaviors.

An Approach Adjustment

In order to meet the child where they are at, the therapist may switch to focus on more of those problem behaviors, taking data to find the function and reinforcing safe ways for the child to communicate. After the child has successfully been able to employ that safe communication, the next step is to work on tolerance so that the client is able to recognize that while they may often times be able to get what the want, sometimes preferred things will have to wait until after necessary demands are met.

For example, lets say that during early table time sessions, the client is eager to participate because the tasks are simple and familiar. However, as the skills start to build and require more focus, the client may no longer want to transition from play time to table time, and may resort to maladaptiove behaviors. The therapist may then set the table time skills on the back burner and focus on teaching the child how to request for “more time” on their play acrtivities instead of using unsafe means. After the child successfully and independently is able to request “more time,” the therapist may then gradually go from honoring the request every time to every other time, and adjusting table time sessions to be more rewarding. Through this approach, the client is now able to both learn safe communication and build a tollerance for less prefered activities.