ABA Parent Training

As professionals in the applied behavior analysis field, we not only need to use our knowledge and experience of ABA, but we also need to use many skills that help us to work effectively with parents in the context of training and providing guidance and support. We need to be able to incorporate more than just memorized facts about ABA into our interactions with parents in ABA parent training. We should be able to provide a delicate balance of empathy, education, and guidance. Thinking about the purpose of ABA parent training, we know that our main job as ABA service providers is to help parents help their children improve skills and decrease maladaptive behaviors while also helping the parent learn skills themselves that will either directly or indirectly help the identified client. We may also help the family unit as a whole. One area in which we may help parents learn to approach their child's maladaptive behaviors is by educating them on what the functions of behavior are from an ABA perspective. We should be able to clearly explain the functions of behavior to the parents we are working with yet sometimes we forget that they may come from a different background and likely have not had the same training as us. With that being said, there is nothing wrong or inferior about the knowledge parents have. Certainly, they have insight into their child better than we may even have. However, when it comes to ABA terminology, we should be gentle and compassionate yet appropriately assertive and confident in our ability to help them to learn about the functions of behavior. Ultimately, the ABA professional and the parent are looking out for the best interest of the client. The two individuals should feel as though they are on the same team. So how do we talk about the functions of behavior with parents? We can talk about this topic in our ABA parent training services by explaining that behavior is maintained by its consequences and influenced by its antecedents. We should further clarify that, in ABA - in the way we are discussing behavior, consequences are not really what the general public may think of as consequences. Instead, consequences are the things that happen after the behavior. This also goes for antecedents. Remember to mention that antecedents come before the behavior. Then, you can return to explaining the functions of behavior by pointing out that the consequences of behavior are what tends to make a behavior more or less likely to happen again. Key Term #4 [for CEU students]: applied