Can ABA Therapy Help With Homework?

Homework might seem like a drag to children, but it’s an essential aspect of schooling. By giving children homework, teachers aren’t just forcing their students to do work after school hours; they’re helping to emphasize the main concepts taught in a classroom in the students’ home environment.

This is an essential and core strategy of school in general. It encourages independent learning, stresses the most important concepts that are taught in class and gets other family members involved in their child’s education.

Homework can create unique challenges for children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), disrupting their daily routines and adding anxiety. Since homework is such an important aspect of learning, it’s a topic that is often addressed by a child’s applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) treatment team.

Below, we’ll discuss some of the ways that parents can help their children with autism achieve homework success by following the principles of ABA therapy.

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Make It Part of Their Routine

Children on the autism spectrum thrive on routine. They tend to feel less anxiety and, as a result, be more compliant when they are able to predict what’s next.

This has a lot to do with comfortability and feeling safe. Children with ASD often seek out structure, as it helps them avoid the anxiety that often comes with uncertainty.

Homework can be very uncertain to children with autism, as it combines things they typically do in school in a separate environment where they typically don’t do that type of work.

You can help them overcome these challenges, and make homework a familiar thing, by incorporating it as part of their daily routine. Creating a daily schedule where homework has its own specific and set time will make it a predictable activity that your child can anticipate.

Using visual aids and creating a visual calendar can help tremendously in that regard, too. A countdown timer for each upcoming task is also a great idea, as it helps your child prepare for what’s next.

Set Aside a Separate Space for Homework

It’s easy for all children to become distracted at home, especially if they are around things that they love — books, toys, stuffed animals, electronics and even other family members. This can be an even bigger challenge to children who have autism.

It’s very important for parents to set aside a separate space where their children can complete homework. This space should be dedicated to homework every night and should minimize distractions and interruptions as much as possible.

This type of environment will encourage your child to focus on the homework and enable them to concentrate better.

At the same time, it works hand-in-hand with establishing a routine. When you set aside a separate space for homework, your child will be able to more accurately identify that it’s time for homework, which helps them focus more on the task at hand.

Simply the Homework

A key principle of ABA therapy is breaking down bigger tasks into smaller, more manageable steps. This helps children with autism grasp concepts better and understand the most effective ways of learning new things.

Children on the autism spectrum can become easily overwhelmed if they don’t understand how to do something. By breaking homework assignments down into smaller steps and segments, you can help them avoid these feelings, which enables them to more successfully complete the homework.

If the homework is from your child’s classroom teacher, you may need to help do this with them. If the homework is coming from your child’s ABA therapy, then the therapist may have already done that for you.

Be Involved

ABA therapy success revolves a lot around family involvement. After all, parents, siblings and other family members are the ones who spend the most time with the child in real-world scenarios.

That’s why ABA therapy integrates family members into the treatment plan, so that they can learn effective strategies and tools they can follow to help their children with ASD be successful and independent in life.

The same goes for homework. Family involvement is a crucial aspect of successful homework completion for all children, but especially for those on the autism spectrum.

At the very least, parents should be directly involved in helping their children complete their homework, but it’s also a good idea to incorporate your child’s siblings if they have any.

The level of direct support and guidance your child might need with homework depends on their abilities and skills, of course. And this is something that your child’s ABA therapy team can certainly help with.

Blue Gems ABA Helps Children with ASD Gain Independence

Homework is an important aspect of both school and ABA therapy. It’s a strategy that is used in both environments to emphasize important topics and reinforce the things that are taught in school and during therapy sessions.

At Blue Gems ABA, we incorporate family members into the ABA therapy process to ensure that all our patients are getting the support and guidance they need after sessions end. Our experienced therapists can also help parents set up strategies for homework, so that their children can successfully complete it and feel good doing it.

In this way, and many more, we help our patients live more independently.

To learn more, please contact us today.