ABA Therapy for Panic Disorder

A lot of the attention of applied behavioral analysis, or ABA therapy, is placed on the wonderful benefits that it can bring to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is certainly true that ABA therapy is the leading treatment for children on the autism spectrum, but it doesn’t only treat that neurodevelopmental disorder.

In fact, ABA therapy can be used to effectively treat children with many types of challenges, including those diagnosed with panic disorder. Using the same science-based approach to learning and behavior, ABA therapy can help children with panic disorder gain the skills and coping mechanisms to overcome the challenges that they face often on a daily basis.

The one-on-one treatment plan is highly customizable and adaptable, two key characteristics that play a huge role in why it’s so effective for treating children with panic disorder.

Below, we discuss at greater length how ABA therapy helps children with panic disorder and why it’s such an effective treatment.

Table Of Contents

What is Panic Disorder?

Panic disorder is used to describe someone who suffers from anxiety.

Children who suffer from it will often experience a lot of fear quite often. This can result in them having heart palpitations, breathlessness, chest pain, stomach aches and dizziness. All of these symptoms can be quite debilitating.

People who suffer from panic attacks often suffer from intense worry over when they might experience another attack. As such, they might avoid certain places where they’ve experienced a panic attack in the past.

ABA therapy will seek to help individuals deal with their panic attacks when they have them and also look to reduce the instances of panic attacks in total. This is much different than how panic disorders have traditionally been treated in the past, through medication, psychotherapy or some combination of both.

How Does ABA Therapy Treat Panic Disorder?

A main focus of ABA therapy is called behavioral activation. This process involves trying to decrease the behaviors that an individual will avoid as a result of their panic disorder by using positive reinforcement.

BA is used in all forms of ABA therapy, though it may look a little different based on what it is being used to treat. That’s one of the great parts about ABA therapy — it’s highly individualized because it’s customized to each patient’s unique strengths and challenges.

The strategies that are used will look to modify the approaches that the patient takes to certain behaviors, while also eliminating any negative reinforcement that’s associated with their avoidance behaviors.

In this way, children with panic disorder are taught how they can approach situations that would normally induce anxiety while also learning to reduce fears through exposure.

How Does ABA Work in This Regard?

What ABA therapy will do for people suffering from panic disorder is help them become more aware of what external and internal triggers they have that result in emotional responses that would be considered negative. In this sense, it could refer to them experiencing anxiety in large social settings and avoiding hanging out with friends as a result.

In having them recognize these triggers, they can also identify how patterns of negative behavior can easily develop.

Once all this identification and discovery is done, ABA therapy principles will be applied to help the patient re-engage in healthy and positive behaviors, which is done through developing coping strategies.

The Importance of Root Causes

There are many reasons and underlying factors why someone might be experiencing anxiety. As such, a big part of ABA therapy for panic disorders is not just addressing behavioral aspects but also addressing all underlying factors once they’re identified.

This plays in perfectly to the approach of ABA therapy based on antecedents as well as consequences.

Once therapists are able to identify the root causes with the help of patients, they can then develop an ABA therapy treatment plan that’s individualized to that patient so that these factors are targeted directly. Part of the ABA therapy might address deficits in social skills, sensitivities to certain sensory stimuli or difficulties with communication.

Blue Gems ABA Helps Support People with Panic Disorder

Panic disorder can be extremely debilitating to people who suffer from it. Luckily, ABA therapy has been proven as an effective treatment plan to help these people identify root causes and build better coping mechanisms so they can exhibit more positive behaviors.

At Blue Gems ABA, we have a team of experienced therapists who administer ABA therapy to people who are suffering from panic disorder.

To learn more, please contact us today.