What to Do When Progress Stalls in ABA Therapy

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can make great strides with applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy). Over time and with targeted interventions that are personalized to them, children can improve their social and communication skills, learn daily life skills, modify behaviors and manage emotions as they seek to gain as much independence as possible.

How rapidly this progress is made depends a lot on the individual child. Autism can really affect individuals across a wide spectrum, so how much ABA therapy is necessary to see positive and sustainable change can differ greatly from one child to the next.

Progress in ABA therapy is also not always linear. In other words, your child may experience times when they are rapidly growing in treatment and times when they seem to hit a plateau.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. In this article, we’ll describe what to do when progress stalls in ABA therapy.

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General ABA Therapy Timeline

While every treatment plan is customized to each individual child’s strengths, challenges, needs and preferences, they do tend to follow a general timeline.

The initial phase usually lasts for about six months, during which time the child is building rapport and trust with the therapist as they work on basic communication skills and reducing any problem behaviors.

The next phase usually starts at the six-month mark and lasts until about 12 months after initial implementation. During this time, children will build on the foundational skills they’ve learned thus far, and layer on adaptive routines, social skills and becoming more independent.

Beyond the first year of ABA therapy, children will work on generalizing the skills they’ve learned to multiple real-world settings and with multiple people. Depending on their needs, therapy could also include community integration, academic skills and more.

How Plateaus in ABA Therapy Are Identified

ABA therapy relies heavily on data collection and analysis, which helps to produce objective results rather than subjective ones. Therapists will gather a lot of data during therapy sessions and then analyze that data later to see how the child is progressing toward their plan’s goals.

The data graphs that are compiled as part of this analysis is what will inform ABA therapy teams that a child might have hit a plateau. They may be able to see a graphical representation that the child’s progress has stalled if, for example, they are no longer improving in a certain targeted skill or behavior at the same or similar rates to what they had before.

What Happens When Plateaus Are Identified in ABA Therapy

Like initial evaluations, ABA therapy teams will use data graphs as just a guide to show them how a child is progressing. What the graphs don’t show is the reason behind the plateau.

At this point, the therapy team will work directly with the child’s parents, caregivers and others to identify potential underlying reasons why the child’s progress may have stalled.

It could be that the child isn’t receiving consistent reinforcement of the ABA strategies at home. In this case, parents and caregivers will be brought into ABA therapy sessions more to show how this reinforcement can be done consistently.

It could be that the reinforcement object or reinforcement schedule that was originally created for the child simply isn’t motivating to them anymore. In this case, a new reinforcement object or reinforcement schedule can be devised to ensure the child feels rewarded for their efforts and stays engaged and motivated in the therapy.

There could be other underlying reasons as well, including the need to shift from one ABA therapy strategy to another. For example, if the child feels as though they’re confident in a skill or behavior, they may become bored practicing and exhibiting that in a therapy environment or at home.

If this were determined to be the underlying reason for the plateau, then therapists may integrate Natural Environment Teaching (NET) to make the learning more motivating and meaningful to that child.

Blue Gems ABA Always Evaluates Children’s Progress

Through constant data collection and analysis, your child’s ABA therapy team can help to identify whether your child has plateaued, what might be the cause of that and what can be done to help correct it.

At Blue Gems ABA, we are constantly evaluating children’s progress toward their treatment plan goals. If the data shows that your child’s progress has stalled, we will work hand-in-hand with you and others to make changes to their treatment plan so we can continue to support them to achieve their goals.

To learn more, please contact us today.