How ABA Therapy Improves Your Child’s Social Skills

Thriving in group settings like school, work, or church depends on many different factors. However, one of the most important of these is adequate social skills. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that social skills are a common area that behavioral therapists target because increasing these skills allows children to communicate, collaborate, and share with their peers, ultimately creating lasting, meaningful relationships.

How Does Autism Affect My Child’s Social Skills?

Social skills are the rules and customs that serve as a guide for our interactions with others. For children on the autism spectrum, these skills aren’t picked up on as quickly because it can be hard for them to read the situation and respond appropriately.

Therefore, in your local ABA clinic, you’ll find that your child’s therapist will work with them on learning social cues in a controlled environment. Not only will this encourage them to determine the appropriate responses in any situation, but it will also allow your child to recreate these positive responses in the outside world with their peers.

What is ABA Therapy?

Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA, is a highly successful form of therapy that was first made famous in the 1970s. By taking an in-depth look at how each child learns and behaves, often through play, therapists are given a better understanding of how specific environments can affect a child’s behavior.

ABA therapy is an essential building block for a child on the autism spectrum and involves individualizing the treatment plan tailored to your child’s particular needs. Every child is different; therefore, every ABA therapy session is as well, based on each specific child’s strengths and weaknesses. That’s what makes ABA therapy so successful for a variety of disorders.

Below we’ve listed a few areas in a child’s life that can be positively impacted by ABA therapy.

• Self-care skills
• Home environment
• School environment
• Social skills

Both children and adults on the autism spectrum often require intervention when it comes to developing the social skills needed to interact and socialize with others, whether at home, school, work, or anywhere in between. That’s where ABA therapy comes in!

How Does ABA Therapy Help Improve My Child’s Social Skills?

By setting up opportunities for your child to try out newly learned social skills in a controlled environment, your ABA clinic can aid in positively reinforcing the good behaviors they are working to have your child repeat in broader social settings. Because social skills rely on interaction with others, we created an intervention group called BLOOMS, that is focused on building those much-desired peer relationships while also working through group skills needed to ready your child for the classroom.

A few social skills that ABA therapy can improve on are:

• Interactive play
• Initiating conversation
• Turn-taking
• Following directions
• Social communication
• Rule following
• Coping skills
• A reduction of problematic behaviors
• Appropriate eye contact
• Identifying and understanding social cues

Your Local Detroit-Metro ABA Clinic

Here at Blossom Children’s Center, we believe early intervention is critical for children with autism or ASD. We’re committed to providing the highest quality therapy for your child, and we only use proven programming and interventions shown to make an impact on a child with autism or ASD. Contact us today to learn more about how an ABA clinic can help impact your child’s social skills, readying them for the classroom and beyond.