Supporting Functional Communication Through ABA Therapy

Every parent has faced the frustration of their child throwing a full-on tantrum. The story typically goes that the child wants a snack, a toy, or even just someone’s attention. Instead of just asking, behaviors may look like crying, screaming or throwing themselves on the ground. It’s frustrating for everyone - for the child who is struggling to express their needs and for the parent who doesn’t know quite how to redirect the behavior.

These meltdowns often stem from a communication divide, a challenge commonly found amongst autistic children. While an explosive tantrum may be hard to watch and work through, these scenarios don’t happen due to them being “bad” - they just simply don’t have the words or skills yet to properly tell you what it is they need.

At Bloom Behavioral Healthcare, we focus on building functional communication through ABA Therapy. What this means is we work to teach your child the skills they need to communicate their wants, needs, feelings and thoughts in a way that is both comfortable for them and done in a way others can understand.

For some, this means learning to use words or sentences. For others, it may look like sign language, visual tools or a speech device. The beauty of compassionate ABA Therapy is that there is no one-size-fits all approach - we instead focus on what works best for your child and your family.

The Importance of Functional Communication

Communication is extremely important in a multitude of ways. The importance of learning functional communication is that it empowers children to advocate for themselves while reducing frustration for everyone. When they are able to clearly express what they want, they feel understood and more confident. When a parent or caregiver is able to understand what they need, they can provide that. Tantrums decrease while connection increases. It’s a win for everyone!

Here are ways that we work to support functional communication within ABA Therapy:

• Motivation: When starting out, we begin with things that interest your child, things they actually may want to communicate about. This may include a favorite toy, snack, activity or special interest. The motivation to want to communicate is a key component to laying the groundwork for future improvement.

• Modeling: ABA Therapy uses prompting and modeling to encourage communication improvement. We will first model the word, sign or picture for them, and then gently prompt the child to either imitate or respond.

• Reinforcement: It can take time to see obvious progress when it comes to communication, but every attempt is important and should be celebrated. We provide positive reinforcement with every attempt to communicate, building confidence that helps them want to continue.

• Skill Expansion: As that confidence continues to grow, we will build on their current skills in a way that feels organic and helpful for them. This looks like expanding vocabulary, working on sentence structure, and implementing social communication.

Learning and improving functional communication is a game-changer. It will open doors for your child to better express themselves, build stronger relationships, advocate for themselves and generally just navigate the world with more ease.

If you are interested in learning more about how Bloom Behavioral Healthcare can support your communication goals, please contact us today! We’d be happy to schedule a consultation to see if we’d be a good fit for your family’s ABA journey.