Can ABA Therapy Help with Fear or Phobias in Children with Autism?

It’s not uncommon for children to feel fear or have a phobia. Most of the time, their fears are due to unfamiliarity with something or a perceived danger of a situation they’ve never encountered before.

Neurotypical children are often able to overcome these fears with exposure and practice. For instance, a fear of the water or jumping in a pool is common for many children, but they usually overcome those fears by exposure to the water and realizing that, with practice and support, it’s not dangerous.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), though, may not only face extra fears than their neurotypical peers, but those anxieties and fears may be more challenging for them to overcome.

However, applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) can help provide children with autism with the proper support and guidance to help them overcome their fears or phobias.

We’ll discuss how that’s done below.

Table Of Contents

Understanding the Source of the Fear

A core principle of ABA therapy is that the first step in targeting any behavior is to identify the source of that behavior. If you want to effectively help a child with autism overcome their fears or phobias, in other words, you need to first understand where they are coming from.

Children on the autism spectrum will commonly exhibit avoidance behavior, and for many different reasons. It could be because they don’t want to stop doing an activity they love, or it could be because they’re afraid or anxious about what’s next.

The only effective way to help manage these avoidance behaviors is to understand why they’re avoiding something in the first place. Once the reason has been identified, specific strategies can be developed to help them through it.

How to Teach Children with Autism Coping Skills

Helping children with autism with their fears or phobias is all about helping them manage the situations that are causing the fear or phobia. This can be done in a number of ways, but coping skills are often very effective.

Some useful strategies include deep breathing exercises and other techniques that can help them soothe their minds. Calming objects or specific sensory toys can often help, as they force the child to focus on something other than their fear or phobia, essentially centering them.

ABA therapy can also help children visualize the situation that they fear so they can feel more comfortable. This can be done through role playing, through social stories and through other visual aids.

Finally, cognitive restructuring techniques can help children with autism turn what are negative thoughts about a situation into positive ones. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of an upcoming social situation such as attending school with new classmates, for example, the therapist can help the child focus on the positive aspects, such as the time they’ll get to play outside.

How to Integrate Exposure Therapy

Another effective ABA therapy strategy is known as exposure therapy. It’s actually a cornerstone strategy in ABA therapy for helping patients address anxiety and fear.

The idea is to gradually expose the patient to the sources of their anxieties and fears in a very structured and controlled way. What this does is help the child realize that the consequences of the fears they have aren’t as significant as they anticipated.

This theory behind this strategy is similar to that of the example given above, with the child’s fear of water and a pool. By gradually exposing them to the water, they can understand that if they take the proper precautions, there is nothing to fear.

The approach that ABA therapy takes to exposure therapy for children with ASD will likely be different than that example, but the idea remains the same. Over time, the child will understand how they can control their fears, which allows them to better manage their emotions and behaviors.

Blue Gems ABA Helps Children with ASD Overcome Fears or Phobias

ABA therapy can certainly address the fears, phobias and anxieties that children with autism face. After first identifying the root cause of the fears, different strategies and approaches will be used to help the child overcome them.

At Blue Gems ABA, our therapy team relies on the core principles of ABA therapy to help children with autism overcome any fears and phobias they may have. We also help them build social, communication and daily life skills so they can live as independently as possible.

To learn more, please contact us today.