FAQs

Autism is a developmental disability that typically appears during early childhood. It can impact a person’s social life including relationships and self-regulation. Autism is a “spectrum condition” that affects each individual differently, and to varying degrees.

A person with autism might:

• Have nonverbal or atypical speech patterns e.g. avoiding eye contact
• Have trouble understanding and communicating with others
• Have difficulty making and keeping friends
• Find it difficult to adjust to changes
• Have repetitive or rigid behaviours e.g. repeating the same phrase over and over

ADHD is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a person’s behaviour. It is often first diagnosed in childhood and lasts into adulthood.

A person with ADHD might:

• Have trouble concentrating
• Daydream a lot
• Talk too much in any situations
• Have difficulty making and keeping friends
• Forget or lose things a lot

ABA is an evidence-based therapy based on the science of learning and behaviour. It is used to improve behaviours such as communication, social skills and poor academic performances. The goals of practicing ABA are to increase social significant behaviours and to decrease behaviours that cause harm or hinder learning.

ABA can help:

• Enhance language and communication skills
• Improve social skills, attention, memory and education
• Reduce the chance of problematic behaviours

It is a common misconception that ABA is specific to autism – In reality, the methods of ABA are scientifically proven to be feasible in the treatment of various developmental disabilities, such as:

• Autism
• ADHD
• Anxiety disorder
• Developmental delay i.e. language delay

PBS is an approach in ABA that uses positive practices to support behaviour change and teaches children ways to behave appropriately. Its main goal is to reduce problematic behaviours and create meaningful and durable behaviour improvements by scientifically understanding why a child is behaving inappropriately in the first place. 

PBS emphasizes proactive and skill-building strategies in order to teaches children positive and socially appropriate ways to communicate and get what they want. This makes problematic behaviour unnecessary, and the child will less likely do it again in the future.

DTT is a structured teaching method in ABA that uses the concepts of behaviourism to break down skills into small and achievable , easy to understand components for individuals to learn. This teaching method is a rapidly paced adult-directed instruction which provide learner with repeated learning opportunities.

Behaviourism can be understood as a three-step process:

• Antecedent (a cue or instruction)
• Behaviour
• Consequence

For example, say you are sleepy (antecedent). You go to sleep (behaviour) and wake up feeling refreshed (consequence). Your experience was positive, and this increases the likelihood that you will sleep again when you are sleepy.

In DTT, a therapist will provide the learner an instruction with prompts (antecedent), followed by the learner’s response (behaviour). Depending on the learner’s response, the therapist will rapidly provide preferred items/activities such as a toy or tickling as reinforcements rewards (consequence) to increase or decrease the likelihood of a certain behaviour a correct response from occurring in the future.

One common misconception of ABA is that it is very systematic – In reality, that is not the case. NET is a scientifically proven teaching method in ABA that allows therapists to incorporate the learner’s natural environment into the teaching process. Learning is initiated by a learner’s interest in an object or an activity.

For example, a therapist might use the learner’s favourite toys to teach the concept of counting. The therapist can engage in play with the child and give natural instructions such as “let’s count how many toys we have!”. When the child demonstrates the correct response, the therapist can provide positive reinforcement rewards within a natural and unstructured setting, such as playing the toys and giving social praise. Children can learn different skills including social, communicational and academic etc. in games and activities. Learning can be fun! This increases the likelihood that the child will demonstrate another correct response in the future.

Our founder and clinical director Dianna Yip, MS, BCBA, IBA one of the few members in the Professional Advisory Board Committee of the International Behavior Analysis Organization® (IBAO®). Over the past 19 years, Dianna has served hundreds of families with children with Autism and/or behaviour issues at home, school, and different community settings in Canada and in Asia. She has provided training for many ABA therapists, teachers, early educators and parents. Dianna also lectures in Canada, Hong Kong, Macau and China and presents across the globe.

Every child is unique and their needs are different.  It is recommended to have intensive ABA training, especially at the beginning of intervention.  The program will be reviewed on regular basis and the amount of training time will be adjusted according to the child’s progress. 

You child will be working with a team of Registered Behavior Technicians (RBT) and Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analysts(BCaBA)/Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA).  Our consultants are all qualified BCaBA or BCBA, with rich experience in the field of ABA. Each case is led and supervised by one experienced consultant.

Our program is tailored made for your child, developed based on his/her strengths, weakness and developmental stage. Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT) and Natural Environmental Teaching(NET) are the two main teaching methods we adopt in our sessions.  However, a larger proportion of our teaching time will be adopting the NET approach, as we believe a child’s motivation is the key to fruitful learning and “Learn Through Play” is our philosophy.