ABA Therapist
General ABA Terms
Below you will find some familiar terms that your BCBA may ask you to explain at some point during your training or implementation of programs. Please familiarize yourself with the terms described below so that you will be able to narrate back to the BCBA and parents when you are asked about them.
Rapport Building: Rapport building is the first step to a successful client-tutor relationship. The tutor must “pair themselves with reinforcement”. This means that they should provide reinforcement for the client’s approach behavior and interaction with the tutor. Also, it is very important the tutor avoid placing any demands during the pairing process. The child should want to play with the tutor or at least want to be with them and their reinforcers so that over time demands can slowly be faded in. Please allow much of the first session to play with the client and build rapport.
Range of Affect: A tutor’s range of affect is the biggest test for training day, but your professionalism is also assessed. Several key elements we look for in a tutor is whether or not they are excited to be at the session, if they are comfortable talking to and playing with the child, and how independently they can jump right into working with client. Does the tutor hang back on the sidelines seemingly shy or timid while you play with and interact with the child or does the tutor jump right in and play along with the child as well? For a child to be motivated to play, the tutor will need to provide smiles, energy, a powerful voice, and they need to be fun.
Controlled Choice: Giving a child a choice of what they will earn and what they will work on is critical to effective teaching. Without having any choice, the child will most likely exhibit more maladaptive behaviors and be less likely to work with you. Controlled choice is a method in which the implementer provides activity choices to the client from an array of controlled activities. This way, the
Below you will find some familiar terms that your BCBA may ask you to explain at some point during your training or implementation of programs. Please familiarize yourself with the terms described below so that you will be able to narrate back to the BCBA and parents when you are asked about them.
Rapport Building: Rapport building is the first step to a successful client-tutor relationship. The tutor must “pair themselves with reinforcement”. This means that they should provide reinforcement for the client’s approach behavior and interaction with the tutor. Also, it is very important the tutor avoid placing any demands during the pairing process. The child should want to play with the tutor or at least want to be with them and their reinforcers so that over time demands can slowly be faded in. Please allow much of the first session to play with the client and build rapport.
Range of Affect: A tutor’s range of affect is the biggest test for training day, but your professionalism is also assessed. Several key elements we look for in a tutor is whether or not they are excited to be at the session, if they are comfortable talking to and playing with the child, and how independently they can jump right into working with client. Does the tutor hang back on the sidelines seemingly shy or timid while you play with and interact with the child or does the tutor jump right in and play along with the child as well? For a child to be motivated to play, the tutor will need to provide smiles, energy, a powerful voice, and they need to be fun.
Controlled Choice: Giving a child a choice of what they will earn and what they will work on is critical to effective teaching. Without having any choice, the child will most likely exhibit more maladaptive behaviors and be less likely to work with you. Controlled choice is a method in which the implementer provides activity choices to the client from an array of controlled activities. This way, the