Growing Your Child's Skills Through Early ABA Intervention

If you’re exploring applied behavior analysis therapy (ABA) for your child, you may wonder what progress could look like and whether their age makes a difference. Research on early intervention offers encouraging findings about the skills children can develop with individualized support.

Early intervention provides support during a child’s early years to build skills such as communication, play, and participation in everyday routines. Early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) uses ABA to teach these skills through individualized instruction and practice. At our clinic, our Director of Early Intervention is a BCBA and former special education teacher. Alongside our other BCBAs involved in early intervention, she brings experience supporting children’s learning and development to our program.

We want families to understand the research behind the services they’re considering, so we’re excited to share a study by MacDonald and colleagues (2014). It offers an encouraging look at the progress young children made during individualized early ABA intervention, including how outcomes differed depending on when children began.

The researchers followed 83 children with autism who started intervention between 17 and 48 months of age, assessing their skills when they entered the program and again approximately 7–15 months later. Each child received an individualized program, with goals selected for their learning needs. Teaching included structured practice and opportunities to learn during everyday activities. Supervisors reviewed progress weekly and adjusted instruction as needed.

The findings were especially encouraging for children who began before their second birthday. This group made significantly greater gains than the older groups on several measures, including a combined assessment of imitation and language skills, play, and aspects of joint attention. Joint attention means sharing an interest with someone else, such as following a parent’s point toward a picture or drawing their attention to an exciting toy.

To put the size of these gains into perspective, the youngest group’s average score on the 40-item assessment of imitation, language, and following directions increased from about 9 to 36 correct responses. Their average play score also rose substantially, from approximately 22 to 40 out of 72. These results show substantial changes in the skills children demonstrated during the assessments.

If your child is already older than 2, there is encouraging news for your family, too. Every age group studied showed improvement. Children who started later made statistically significant gains in following an adult’s point and on the combined assessment of imitation, language, and following directions. The study’s positive findings extended beyond the youngest children.

Researchers also captured progress among some children who demonstrated little or no independent responding when they began. By observing specific skills, they could recognize steps forward that might be missed by looking only at a broad developmental score.

For families considering ABA, this study offers an encouraging picture of learning during individualized early intervention. Starting early was associated with particularly large gains, and children who began later also developed skills. Each child’s progress looked different, making individualized goals and careful tracking of learning especially valuable.

Source: MacDonald, R., Parry-Cruwys, D., Dupere, S., & Ahearn, W. (2014). Assessing progress and outcome of early intensive behavioral intervention for toddlers with autism. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 35(12), 3632–3644.