ABA Therapy and Learning Patience

Patience may be a virtue, but it’s something that most children have trouble exhibiting on a consistent basis. A child often wants things immediately and doesn’t want to wait for them.

Yet, patience is a basic skill that all children must learn to master. When children can exhibit patience, it helps them to be in an environment that is understanding and supportive.

Regardless of a child’s abilities, it’s not easy to learn patience. It’s often even more challenging for children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as they may struggle with communication and social interaction skills.

This can be taught over time with applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy), which is the gold standard treatment plan for children with autism.

In this article, we’ll discuss how ABA therapy helps children on the autism spectrum learn the important skill of patience.

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Why is Patience Important?

Patience can significantly impact multiple aspects of people’s lives.

Those who are able to display patience are able to more effectively communicate and build meaningful relationships. They are more effectively able to learn other things, build skills, progress through educational journeys and build successful careers.

Patience plays a key role in fostering a safe and inclusive environment, as can be seen in the relationships between children, between teachers and children, between parents and children, and between adults.

In ABA therapy settings, patience is critical — both for the therapist and for the children they’re supporting. Therapists need to be patient with the children, as they likely will face challenging situations as they’re attempting to teach.

For the therapy to be effective, children also need to be patient, as it helps them to stay focused, on task and engaged. When children with ASD learn how to be patient and wait, they will also learn how they can better manage their expectations and emotions.

In essence, learning patience in ABA therapy is an example of finding a  positive replacement behavior for negative and/or harmful ones.

What Are Some Strategies that ABA Therapy Uses to Teach Patience?

While ABA therapy is a very personalized treatment plan, there are some common ways in which patience is incorporated into sessions.

Visual timers are often used in ABA therapy for a variety of reasons. In regard to patience, visual timers can help set expectations for children.

By being able to see a countdown, children can grasp the concept of needing to wait before they can move onto the next activity. Therapists can tell a child that when the timer goes off, they can have access to one of their toys.

Oftentimes, visual timers are much more effective at teaching the importance of waiting than just verbalizing the same point, such as saying, “You can have the toy in five minutes.” Children with autism are often visual thinkers, so providing the visual aid of the timer helps them understand better.

Another common tool therapists use to teach patience is social stories. These are also visual aids that help teach children different skills through stories that incorporate personal experiences.

The stories are customized to the individual child, their environment and others around them, incorporating their name and picture, and that of other familiar people, to teach and reinforce the concept of patience.

Therapists will often use modeling as a way to teach patience. By showing children what is expected of them by physically doing it, children can see a behavior that they can then imitate in similar situations.

 

 

How Do Therapists Choose Which Strategy to Use to Teach Patience?

As with any skill or behavior the therapist is targeting, it’s important for them to fully understand the child’s unique strengths, challenges and preferences. This information can all be discovered through initial evaluations, and through ongoing collection and analysis of data while sessions are happening.

Specific reinforcement tools and schedules will be set based on the things that motivate your child to learn and keep them engaged. This includes selecting rewards that appeal to them, such as a toy they love.

Therapists will then try the various strategies to teach patience, collecting data along the way. They will then analyze the data to assess what’s working and what’s not so that strategies can be tweaked to ensure the best possible outcomes.

Blue Gems ABA Helps Children with ASD Learn Patience

It’s extremely important that children with ASD learn patience, as it leads to the acquisition of many other skills down the line. This can be a challenging thing to teach, but there are many different strategies and tools therapists have at their disposal to support them in these efforts.

At Blue Gems ABA, our team of dedicated therapists is experienced in administering ABA therapy and tweaking treatment plans based on each child’s unique needs. By tailoring our plans to the individual child and the behavior or skill we’re targeting, we can more effectively help them build essential skills such as patience over time.

To learn more, please contact us today.