Helping your child succeed.

Focused: Therapy is provided directly to the learner to address a limited number of behaviors or skills associated with symptoms of autism. For example, social skills, or functional skills such as teeth brushing and toileting. The intensity of therapy varies between 15 and 30 hours per week depending on the nature of the behaviors and other considerations, individualized to the learner. For example, social skills such as initiating play and turn taking with age-matched peers may warrant lower intensity therapy than challenging behaviors that put the learner or their caregivers at risk of harm, such as self-injurious behavior or aggression. Targeting challenging behaviors for reduction includes targeting adaptive alternative behaviors to be developed and strengthened to promote the learner’s health, safety, and overall functioning. Focused ABA therapy is more likely to be implemented in home and community settings directly in the contexts where the learner can benefit most. For example, during bath time, at bedtime, during play dates, at the grocery store, or special events at the local library.

Comprehensive: Therapy is provided directly to the learner to address multiple affected developmental domains and symptoms of autism. For example, social skills, cognition, communication, play, independence, self-care, and more. Between 30 and 40 hours of therapy per week is often the intensity needed to produce meaningful improvements in quality of life through changes in many different behaviors (e.g., hundreds) or skills targeted across domains. These aspects of comprehensive ABA therapy are based on research showing that the largest improvements are the result of high-intensity ABA therapy. However, the intensity of therapy is individualized to the learner’s characteristics and additional factors such as medical necessity, chronological age, history of ABA therapy, and more.