Believing In Change

Pivotal Response Training (PRT) is a naturalistic and one of the best studied and validated behavioral interventions derived from Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). It is play based and child initiated. PRT has been shown to be effective in increasing communication, play, imitation, joint attention, and social skills in children with autism.

The basic premise behind Pivotal Response Training is to use the child’s natural environment to create learning situations that result in improved social and communication skills.

PRT Principle goals are to increase communication and social behaviors and to decrease disruptive/self-stimulatory behavior.

Pivotal Response Training targets “pivotal” area of a child’s development. These include motivation, response to multiple cues, self-management and the initiation of social interactions

Each program is tailored to each child and goals change depending upon the child’s needs and progress. Skills are taught in the natural environment, making skills easier to generalize. Motivation strategies are an important part of PRT and “natural” reinforcement is provided. For example, if a child requests a car then the reinforcement would be getting the car instead of a piece of food.

Naturalistic interventions receive more social validity than higher structured interventions.

NET is utilizing principles of Applied Behavior Analysis to teach in the natural environment, “the real world.”

This intervention is child lead and uses activities and materials in the child’s home, outside, day care setting, etc. This helps the child generalize and learn in different environments with different people and stimuli.

Characteristics of NET also include capturing motivation, pairing, errorless learning, and using probe data as opposed to trial by trial data. Capturing the motivation of a child to teach new skills is especially important at the beginning of a program when a therapist/teacher is still developing rapport with a child.

Teaching is embedded in a child’s natural routine.

Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBI) is a scientifically validated set of interventions, derived primarily form the fields of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and developmental psychology. These interventions are called Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBI) to reflect the essential combined contributions of these two disciplines. The teaching targets selected in NDBI typically come from a broad range of developmental domains, including language and communication, play, social interaction,, cognition, and motor skills. The skills are selected based on the cascading effect (i.e., flow or progression from lower level skills toward higher level skills) and the foundational role they play in later development, especially in regard to the core social deficits of ASD. These skills include imitation; shared and reciprocal engagement; joint attention; and functional communication via the use of gestures, facial expressions, and words, among others. In addition, various domains are targeted concurrently during learning episodes, in contrast to more highly structured methods that may teach each domain separately. This distinction reflects a developmental systems approach, whereby different skills are integrated from the start to promote generalization.

Project ImPACT (Improving Parents As Communication Teachers) is a unique blend of intervention techniques drawn from the developmental and behavioral literatures. It is a parent-mediated intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related social communication delays. It was developed with the specific goal of supporting the use of best practices in parent mediated intervention by community providers. Project ImPACT is a naturalistic developmental-behavioral intervention (NDBI).

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a therapy rooted in the science of learning and behavior. Using principles of ABA, children and adults can learn to improve their communication skills, social skills, and daily living skills while also addressing problematic or challenging behaviors. The primary goal of ABA therapy is to teach helpful skills that promote independence and reduce harmful behaviors. Here's our complete guide to everything you need to know about ABA therapy.

It's a big decision to make for your family! Applied behavior analysis (ABA) seeks to improve communication skills, introduce productive habits, and reduce harmful behaviors. Watch out for ABA providers who look to "cure" autism.

High quality ABA therapy does exist where the goal is not to “fix” children, make them appear “less autistic”, or change who they are. The goal is to help people learn all that they can so they can live to their potential while embracing their unique, individual personality traits. Here's our complete guide to start and end ABA therapy.

ABA is usually covered by insurance if you have an autism diagnosis. Autism is typically the only diagnosis insurance will authorize for ABA services since its benefits have been researched extensively.

Always check with your specific insurance plan to confirm that ABA is covered for your child’s diagnoses and that the provider you are seeking care at is in-network. Here's our complete guide to everything you need to know about ABA therapy.

“Early Intervention” might be the provider’s way of describing services that they provide to babies or young children. However, it might also indicate that the provider is a vendor for your state’s publicly funded program. This means the services with this provider might be covered by your state! 

The first step in accessing these free services from your state is to get an evaluation. The evaluation will help the state determine what services your child qualifies for, if any. You can find your state’s local EI program by clicking here.