ABA therapy Chicago is a common approach in order to understand the behavior of individuals, and also understanding how it is affected by the surrounding environment.
An ABA therapist will deeply look into and study particular behaviors of a child, and will also attempt to understand why that particular behavior occurs. Moreover, the therapist will teach the child more appropriate ways of repeating those particular actions or behaviors.
Thus, the overall goal of the whole ABA therapy is to increase desired behaviors and decrease or eliminate undesirable and bad behaviors of a child. Moreover, an ABA therapist also works extensively to enhance a child’s social skills, motor skills, communication skills, improve the child’s academic performance, and various other factors that will help the child to achieve high in life.
Thus, if you’re a parent looking for the best ABA therapy for your child who is suffering from Autism or other disorders, you might be overwhelmed and skeptical of which ABA therapy to go for. Because your child will be receiving therapy, it is crucial to keep the therapy fun and exciting at all times. Therefore, ABA therapists should devise new ways of making the overall ABA therapy fun for children.
In this article, we will tell you ways of making ABA therapy fun. Excited? Let’s begin.
Why Should ABA Therapy Be Fun?
Before heading on to the ways of making an ABA therapy fun for a child, it is important to know why it is crucial to do so in the first place.
It is important to keep the ABA therapy fun and exciting for the child. This way, the child will look forward to therapy every day and will be fully engaged in the activities planned out for them by the ABA therapists. A mundane and boring therapy will only make the child feel as if they are being tortured for the condition they might be suffering from. If a child starts to avoid therapy and thinks of it as a burden or punishment, the outcome and results will not be effective enough. The child will be unwilling and unable to learn new skills, such as communication skills, speaking and language skills, motor skills, and will even tend to perform badly at school.
Also, if the therapy is boring and not exciting enough for the child, they would refuse to take part in it and will even avoid therapy. If the child enjoys the ABA therapy throughout, he will be willing to learn more each day, and will thus, be able to learn a variety of new skills easily.
Ways of Making ABA Therapy More Fun
Working with children can be, no doubt, demanding, especially when it comes to children with various disorders. Thus, here are a few ways how you can make the overall ABA therapy more exciting.
Play-Doh
Play-doh is one of the most favorite pastimes of any child. This, making it part of the therapy plan would be a great idea. Children can get as creative as they can when it comes to play-doh. Moreover, play-doh is said to be ideal for enhancing a child’s fine motor and pre-writing skills.
Painting and Drawing Activities
Painting is enjoyable and exciting for any child, and they are free to be as creative and expressive as they want to be. Therefore, including painting and drawing activities in the ABA therapy would make the overall therapy more fun. No child wants to listen constantly to the therapist, thus, the painting would be a great way of expressing themselves. Therapists can even split various art activities that are targeted to each skill. For instance, rollers and stamps, letters, shapes, patterns, and face painting. Not only will the child learn various shapes and patterns, but will also have a lot of fun throughout the therapy!
Flashcards
There are numerous types of flashcards available in the market, and it would be a good idea to get your hands on most of the types you find. For instance, animal flashcards, colors, objects such as furniture, and so many more to choose from. Flashcards can be used to identify various things, and even to mix and match. Making use of new flashcards every time will definitely make the whole ABA therapy much more fun and exciting.
Emotion Identification Activities
Autistic children have a hard time figuring out and understanding emotions. Therefore, a fun way of understanding emotion during ABA therapy is to make use of emotion identification activities. For instance, make use of cartoon pictures or real photos so that the child can easily depict and understand what each emotion looks like. You can even make use of simple emojis and ask the child to study them and figure them out. If the use of pictures of emojis isn’t too effective, you can even make the child watch short videos of cartoons to help them figure out different emotions. Every child loves cartoons. Thus, these will surely make the whole therapy more fun and exciting!
Color Matching
Playing with and matching colors is a fun activity for children. Moreover, this activity can even help the child master several skills. A good idea would be picking the child’s favorite toys, and picking more of the same color. Then, help your child model and match the colors of the toys. First, start with the same colors, and then start introducing different shades once the child masters color matching. Not only will the child master the skills of color matching, but will also have a lot of fun with his/her favorite toys!
Make Jewelry
Making jewelry will greatly enhance a child’s motor skills. Children can be encouraged to make use of candy laces or even licorice to make the jewelry edible! Moreover, building and making things are a great achievement for children. And they would definitely be up for doing it again. Furthermore, the children would surely love the fashionable (and tasty) statement they’ve made!
Smelling Games
Incorporating games that will activate a child’s senses would not only be fun but will help the child enhance their skills. You can take ingredients such as lavender, citrus, or even coffee, and ask the child to identify the smells. This would make the therapy more fun for the child as Autistic children generally love to learn about their senses, as well as exploring their environment
Make Use of Regular Breaks
Breaks are important throughout the whole therapy. It would be a great idea to give the cold a ‘Go card’, that they can use anytime. This way, the therapy will not feel like a burden to the child. Moreover, the child will also start engaging in other activities in the therapy if he does not like the current one.
To sum it all up, there are various games and activities one can use to make the overall ABA therapy much more exciting. However, it is important to note that positive reinforcement should be applied at all costs throughout the therapy.
When a child successfully finishes an activity, they should be rewarded based on what they like. For instance, if the child is fond of chocolates, the child should be rewarded with them. This will definitely make any activity fun and worthwhile. And will make the child look forward to the therapy every day.
