ABA Strategies for Parents: Practical Ways to Support Your Child at Home

6 ABA Strategies for Parents to Use at Home

1. Use Positive Reinforcement for Skills You Want to Encourage

Positive reinforcement means providing something meaningful after a behavior to make that behavior more likely to occur again. It is one of the fundamental principles used in ABA therapy.

The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis examined whether positive reinforcement could help improve a 9-year-old child’s ability to stay focused on classroom tasks. In a controlled setting, researchers delivered reinforcement contingent on the child’s task-attending behavior, gradually increasing the time he needed to stay on task before receiving reinforcement from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. As the reinforcement program progressed, the proportion of observed task-attending behavior increased, and episodes of distraction became less frequent and shorter.

After these improvements were established, the researchers successfully transferred the strategies to the child’s classroom so the new behaviors could continue in a real-world setting. The study demonstrates that consistent, individualized reinforcement strategies can effectively increase attention and help children maintain these skills beyond therapy or research settings.

Now, for example, imagine your child is learning to put their shoes away after coming home. When they do it, you might immediately offer specific praise such as, “You put your shoes away!” Depending on the child and the goal, reinforcement might also involve access to a preferred activity or another consequence that is meaningful to them.

What works as reinforcement is individual. A reaction that motivates one child may mean very little to another, which is why a BCBA evaluates preferences and behavior rather than assuming the same reward system will work for every child.

2. Model Skills and Give Your Child Time to Respond

Modeling lets a child see or hear what a skill looks like before expecting them to perform it independently. Parents can model communication, play, social interactions, and everyday routines naturally throughout the day.

If your child is learning to wave goodbye, for example, wave while saying “bye” rather than repeatedly telling them to wave. If they are learning a communication response, model the appropriate word, gesture, or communication method in the situation where it would naturally be useful.

Another important part of teaching is allowing time to respond.

After giving an instruction or appropriate prompt, pause long enough for your child to process it. Repeating the same direction several times in quick succession can make it harder to determine whether the child understood the original instruction or needed more time.

If your child needs additional help, the type and amount of prompting should ideally follow the individualized approach established by their ABA team.

3. Use Visual Supports and Predictable Routines

Visual supports can make routines and upcoming activities easier to understand for some children with autism. Depending on your child’s needs, this might involve pictures, a visual schedule, or a simple first-then sequence.

Researchers evaluated whether visual supports, such as pictures or visual schedules, could help two elementary-age children with autism transition more smoothly between activities at home and in community settings. They found that when visual supports were used, both children began the next activity more quickly after receiving instructions, reducing the time spent resisting or delaying transitions. For one child, the visual supports also reduced the number of verbal reminders and physical prompts from the teacher.

A morning schedule, for example, could show getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, and putting on shoes. Before a transition, a parent might point to what is happening now and what comes next.

Predictability can also come from the routine itself. Doing familiar activities in a similar order gives children repeated opportunities to understand and participate in what happens next.

Visual supports should match the child’s communication and developmental needs. If your child already works with an SLP, BCBA, occupational therapist, or school team, ask which supports they currently use to complement them with strategies at home.

4. Practice ABA Therapy Techniques During Everyday Activities

Parents can incorporate ABA therapy techniques into everyday family activities, allowing children to practice important skills in real-life settings where they will use them.

For example:

• Snack time can provide opportunities to practice requesting or making choices
• Getting dressed can support independence and following a sequence
• Play can create opportunities for communication, imitation, or turn-taking
• Cleanup can help children practice following familiar routines
• Bedtime can provide repeated practice with daily living skills

This type of practice gives parents opportunities to use behavioral strategies they’ve learned with professional guidance while supporting generalization, or the use of a learned skill across different people, activities, or environments. A randomized clinical trial of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for children with autism found that the parent-led behavioral intervention was associated with reduced disruptive behavior and improved positive parent-child interactions.

A child who learns a communication skill during ABA, for instance, may need opportunities to practice it with parents, siblings, or in other appropriate settings. The BCBA can help families decide how to create those opportunities without making everyday interactions feel like constant therapy, so practice remains manageable for both parent and the child.

5. Notice What Happens Before Challenging Moments

When a challenging behavior occurs repeatedly, paying attention to what happens around it can provide useful information. In behavior analysis, professionals may examine the antecedents and consequences of a behavior to better understand its patterns.

An antecedent is something that happens before a behavior.

Let’s suppose your child frequently becomes upset when playtime ends. Instead of looking only at the behavior itself, notice what happened beforehand. Was the transition sudden? Did the same pattern happen yesterday? Does it occur more often with one particular activity?

Parents can write down simple observations and share them with their BCBA.

However, noticing a pattern is different from determining why a behavior occurs. Behaviors can serve different functions, and parents should avoid implementing complex behavior-reduction strategies based only on assumptions about the cause.

A BCBA can evaluate those patterns more systematically and recommend an individualized approach.

6. Stay Consistent Without Expecting Perfection

Consistency helps children encounter similar expectations and opportunities to practice skills across everyday situations. It does not mean parents need to respond perfectly every time.

If your child is learning to request a break rather than leaving an activity, for example, everyone involved should understand how that communication is being taught and supported. If one person responds very differently from another, learning the new skill may become more difficult.

Start small. Ask your child’s BCBA, “What is one skill we can practice at home this week?”

One realistic strategy used consistently is usually more manageable than trying to implement a long list at once.

When Should Parents Ask Their BCBA for Help?