ABC Center Singapore - The ABC Approach to Autism Spectrum Disorders

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ABC Staff Singapore US Operations

Singapore U.S. International

ABC's Approach

Applied Behavior Analysis, also known as ABA, is the theoretical foundation that underlies all of ABC Center’s clinical practices and educational development. Each child with autism or other developmental disabilities receives a comprehensive functional assessment that identifies core deficits and excesses interfering with the child’s ability to learn and participate in daily life at home, school and in the community.

To play and to be social are crucial aspects of the human experience and are repertoires that many children with Autism have extreme difficulty in learning. Thus, deficits in these skills require attention and remediation. To this end, ABC’s intervention includes ways to measure and impact this particularly important facet of a child’s life.

Working within the parameters of applied behavior analysis, ABC’s evaluation includes an assessment of the child’s standing on standardized developmental milestones including play and social repertoires. This provides a more accurate depiction of where to direct therapy. These milestones are assessed throughout and at the end of intervention. This gives a clearer picture of the effectiveness of the intervention; and in our experience results in greater generalization of the acquired skills needed.

Because play and social skills are such an integral part of each child’s program, the same assessment and outcome measures are used to evaluate these types of deficits found in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to develop appropriate programming curriculum.

ABC Center's Singapore school for children and adults with autism

Unique and Individualized program for each child : Each child's program is uniquely created for his or her needs. The child is first given a comprehensive functional assessment that identifies core deficits and excesses that interfere with his abilities. This is the basis upon which a Individualized Intervention Program is uniquely created, tailor fit to his/her unique needs and learning style, and continuously adapted as the child's progresses to higher skill levels.

Parent involvement and training is core: Parents play a central role in a child's development. One of our goals is to provide the best guidance, advice and training to ensure a consistent approach in caring for your child in both our center and at home. Hence, we have an open door policy where parents can come and observe the programs anytime upon appointment. We also automatically include parent/caregiver training individualized for your specific child's needs as part of our package. This maximizes the effectivity of our program for your child.

Language skills are prioritized : The acquisition of language is one of our most primary goals. Communication is a critical aspect to every program and is emphasized throughout. Each child learns to request his or her wants/needs, taught to comment about the world around them, answer questions, imitate the language of others, and eventually read, write and finally to respond in their own words. The rate at these are learned are determined by the child's overall deficits and competing excesses. We use several methods to stimulate language, including the use of PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), particularly for chidren who have significant deficits in vocalizing. We use PECS to build a functional communication repertoire where the child can request/reject, comment and interact with others. We concurrently teach vocalization to give the child the foundational skills for language development.

Data-based analysis is fundamental : One of our fundamental beliefs is that the collection of data specific to behaviors of each child is a fundamental basis upon which we create an individualized program. Hence, data of how the child reacts is meticulously collected during each session, this is then analyzed fully -- daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly-- to determine the child's rate of improvement, and serve as the guide to determine how to progress on the child's program.

Generalization of skills is emphasized : To address the difficulties faced by children with autism in generalizing skills, ABC Center's five-level generalization program was developed in 1996 by Co-founder Brenda Terzich, referred to as R.E.A.L (Recreating Environment to Accelerate Learning; Terzich, 1996). Each child's program is guided to more successfully generalize learned skills from a structured environment to the natural environment, for the eventual integration of into daily life.

Positive Programming Oriented: To address serious behavior problems that often prevent children from leaning new skills or maintain existing appropriate behaviors, ABC uses Positive Programming Procedures . We analyze the environmental antecedents and consequences to see what is evoking the problem behavior or what the child gets out of the behavior. Intervention plans are developed based on the outcome of the functional analysis and continues throughout the intervention to determine the effectiveness of the procedure in reducing the problem behavior. Many problem behaviors are prevented by extinction and /or redirection and can suffice to solve the situation. Others are easily decreased by teaching alternative functional behaviors to replace those that serve to get attention or escape. Overall, we believe problem behavior is a result of poor environmental contingencies, and it is these contingencies we change rather than try to suppress behavior with punishment.

1:1 Child/Adult Ratio : ABC believes in ensuring a 1 to 1 ratio to ensure appropriate focus is given to each child. Only when a child is ready and can benefit from social interaction do we then enhance the program to enable interaction in pairs or small groups.

In the News: ABC US operation feature, Newsweek, July 31, 2000

For the amount of gain that a child makes from the age the child starts the program, until they reach age 3. See Outcome Research Posters below.

Outcome Research

(click on poster to enlarge)