imitate, and learn to accept compromise during conflict, with adult support. During the fourth year of life, conversation skills improve and become robust. Their social interactions with others advance through shared play and conversations. They begin to show support and help toward others.

As children age, they may interact with other children or more people in their environment. They may go to daycare or preschool, then on to kindergarten. In preschool, children are taught and reinforced to use language to communicate. They are taught to play, share, and play together, cooperatively toward a common goal. They are taught to wait. They use their imitation skills to learn how to dance and sing and observe and learn new skills from other children. They move on to kindergarten and are taught even greater communication and social skills that include learning how to negotiate and play a friend’s choice. They learn how to regulate their feelings and behaviors. They learn these in a group experience. During the fifth year of life, children can more comfortably create and maintain friendships through common interests and play. They can engage in more complicated games that require more attention and are guided by rules. There is a wide variety of words and actions in play and interactions, and they can directly express concern and help. As they move on to an educational setting, they are ready and able to learn in a group format. They can follow along with an adult leading the group, follow the directions, and manage themselves around others.

"BY PROVIDING EARLY INTERVENTION IN A GROUP, ABA-BASED FORMAT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, WE CAN BETTER PREPARE THE CHILD WITH AUTISM FOR GROUP LEARNING."

Children diagnosed with autism are not likely to demonstrate these skills and they are not coming into contact with reinforcement. Going back to the diagnostic criteria and symptoms of autism, we see that deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts result in challenges with interacting with others in a social setting and these crucial milestones being missed.

A new study by Blacher et. Al, 2022 found that nearly one in six kids with autism are expelled from preschool and daycare. Many of them, in the sample, were expelled more often from a private than a public program. Most of the children were expelled due to their behavior which included temper tantrums, hitting, and yelling. The study found that often the teachers were not trained or credentialed and didn't have the required courses in autism. to be fixed or eliminated.

Applied Behavior Analysis, ABA, is a science devoted to the understanding and improvement of human behavior. Applied behavior analysts focus on objectively defined behaviors of social significance; they intervene to improve the behaviors while demonstrating a reliable relationship between the interventions and the behavioral improvements. In the field of ABA, as it relates to supporting children on the autism spectrum, most people think of ABA instruction being delivered in a 1:1 format. The concern often happens when a child transitions to a daycare or classroom setting. The child learning in the 1:1 format may not have the skills to learn in a group format or learn alongside other children. Now we are back

to the statistic of one in six kids with autism being expelled from preschool and daycare. By providing early intervention in a group, ABA-based format as soon as possible, we can better prepare the child with autism for group learning. If you think of the very best teacher, you ever had in school, the teacher likely employed ABA strategies, such as: including environmental arrangements, priming, using visual supports, reinforcement/reward strategies, and using first this. That teacher likely considered motivation and created activities that were interesting and motivating to you while you learned. That is using ABA in a group format.

For many children diagnosed with ASD, a comprehensive program would look across all of these developmental areas, identify what skills are missing, and identify appropriate teaching methods to teach those skills. This comprehensive program would likely be heavily based on play and natural environment teaching. It would include caregivers in the programming as well as siblings and possibly other family members. It would include consultation with other therapies or providers the child may be receiving and coordinating care with those services. It would be intensive in the hours provided in the beginning, often 27-40 hours of ABA recommended according to research. This program would include opportunities to include peers and would be focused on teaching the child with autism how to learn. It would focus on teaching the child to be able to attend to, respond to, and participate in group environments as they prepare to attend daycare, preschool, or Kindergarten. The ultimate goal of the ABA-based, Early Intervention program should be to move from 1:1 therapy to a group learning experience, focusing on the developmental milestones described earlier, and allowing these skills to come into contact with reinforcement from other children. •

References

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kelly Bermingham

With over 27 years of experience in the field of autism and ABA, Kelly Bermingham is a respected expert in the field. She's a certified BCBA and ESDM therapist, a published author, and a sought-after speaker at national conferences. She is the author of Social Skills Solutions Tune into her podcast "A 25 Year Look Across the Spectrum" for valuable insights and advice.