Precision Teaching in ABA
As a science-based approach to learning and behavior, applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) involves a lot of data and statistics. Therapists who work with children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) not only craft personalized treatment plans but consistently track their progress toward reaching set goals.
One system that therapists have at their disposal during sessions is known as Precision Teaching. Relying heavily on data, Precision Teaching measures how frequent and fluent children exhibit certain skills, tasks and behaviors.
Overall, the system is used to discover why children are exhibiting certain behaviors and then gauge those behaviors and the child’s progress toward changing them.
There are many ways in which Precision Teaching is used in ABA therapy, from helping children on the autism spectrum speak to teaching them other skills and changing harmful behaviors.
Below, we’ll discuss Precision Teaching further and how it integrates within an ABA therapy treatment plan.
Table Of Contents
What is Precision Teaching?
Precision Teaching is a system that ABA therapists use to measure how frequent and how fluent children are at exhibiting certain behaviors. It relies heavily on tracking progress and data, and then putting that data on charts to create a more visual representation of the progress1.
Once ABA therapists teach children new skills, they then allow them to exhibit those skills in a natural environment. This can be everything from helping them learn to brush their teeth to exhibiting a more helpful behavior rather than a potentially harmful outburst when they need or want something.
The therapist will observe what the child does and record what happens. They’ll record how many times the skill or behavior was attempted, as well as how many of those attempts were perfect or imperfect.
The data that’s collected will be put on what’s known as a Standard Celeration Chart2, or SCC, to make it easier for the therapist and others to see how frequently the child is attempting the skills as well as how fluent they are at completing them successfully.
How Does Precision Teaching Work?
The goal of Precision Teaching is to enable therapists to take learnable tasks that they’re teaching their children and turn them into behavioral changes that are both measurable and directly observable.
This is important to the overall success of ABA therapy, since it can be hard to measure certain “final outcomes” of skills that are being taught. For instance, if the goal is to have the child learn how to use utensils when eating so they’re less messy, it’s hard to measure in data the final outcome of eating with utensils.
What Precision Teaching does is allows therapists to break down the steps the child takes to become less messy when eating into measurable tasks. This would involve observing the different steps that the child may take to improve physical coordination and motor skills so that they can use the utensils properly.
That data can then be measured by how often the child attempts certain steps, and how successful they are at doing so. Therapists can then take that data and put it on an SCC so they can better understand whether the ABA therapy plan is working for that child, or whether it needs to be adjusted.
What Does Precision Teaching Measure?
Precision Teaching measures either the deceleration or acceleration of different behavioral changes3. In other words, is the child making progress in changing their behaviors — i.e., working toward their goals — or are they regressing?
The SCC allows ABA therapists to measure whether the therapeutic approaches they’re taking for that child are actually improving their behaviors or not. In doing so, Precision Teaching will help therapists measure:
- Retention: Whether the child is maintaining new skills that are learned by consistently exhibiting them
- Application: Whether the child can apply a skill to other situations so that it’s more generalized
- Endurance: Whether the child can perform the behavior for a long time
- Stability: Whether the child can perform the behavior or skill with distractions present
The SCC will make it easier for therapists to understand whether their patients are really progressing toward their goals, or whether adjustments need to be made to the ABA therapy treatment plan.
Blue Gems ABA Uses Data to Help Support Children with Autism
Precision Teaching is a system that many ABA therapists will use to translate new skills they teach their patients into measurable and observable actions. The data that’s produced is then charted out to make it easier for therapists to see whether the treatment plan is working or needs to be adjusted.
At Blue Gems ABA, our team of dedicated BCBAs use Precision Teaching and other strategies to help support children on the autism spectrum. We administer ABA therapy on a one-to-one basis, and craft personalized treatment plans that address each child’s unique strengths and challenges.
To learn more, please contact us today.
617-297-7998
617-340-3371
info@bluegemsaba.com
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