Applied Behavior Analysis Specialists

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• Fully Licensed

• One-Year Workmanship Warranty

- Founded in 1959

- Special Education Teachers

- ECDS- Early Childhood Developmental Specialist

Learn How Your Child Learns Best

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a therapy based on the science of learning and behavior. It helps us to understand:

How behavior works
How behavior is affected by the environment
How learning takes place

The Learning Center of Northeast Arkansas, Inc is a licensed and insured behavioral education center with that has been aiding child development for over 60 years. Call us today to discuss scheduling ABA therapy for your child!

ABA Therapy at The Learning Center

At TLC, we base our ABA Therapy on behavior principles everyone uses to learn. These behavior principles first attracted study in the 1950s. Doctors and psychologists did not create these principles; they already existed. All doctors did was study them.

Every living being learns from these same principles of behavior. The goal is to increase helpful behaviors and lead to further learning and decrease behaviors that interfere with learning by applying these principles directly to behavior.

Per ABA's definition, specialists must only teach skills with social significance to the individual or the individual's family. If lessons do not bear real-world relevance, then they do not meet the definition of ABA.

All ABA is research-based. Any procedure we use has already been used in a research study and has demonstrated reproducible results.

TLC Employs Positive Reinforcement

When you add something to the environment and increase the occurrence of a behavior, the behavioral principle applied is known as the principle of reinforcement. When you take something away from the environment, you have again used a principle of reinforcement.

Any time you cause an increase in behavior, the principle of reinforcement is applied. Children learn how to request wants and needs, control their environment, and dress themselves or play with another child through reinforcement.

Much of the ABA intervention session looks like play to the child. A sign of a good behavior technician is when the child runs to them as soon as they enter the door of their home or classroom.

The child has learned that this person is a motivating operation for obtaining good things and fun things while learning skills that help them learn even more. The Learning Center uses this powerful principle most of the time.

What Does Our ABA Program Involve?

Planning and ongoing assessment

Before beginning intervention, your child will be evaluated primarily in communication, self-help, social skills, and appropriate behavior. A behavior skills plan is written Based on this evaluation.

Any skill a child has or does not have is considered a behavior. Behavior is not "something bad or inappropriate ." All skills people exhibit are behavior skills in the field of ABA.

We identify any skills that seem underdeveloped for your child's age and draft a program of specific goals for teaching those skills.

Suppose the child has a behavior that interferes with learning. In that case, we incorporate goals to reduce that behavior so that learning can occur.
Techniques and philosophy
The techniques used by The Learning Center include:
- Pivotal Response Training
- Natural Environment Training
- Verbal Behavior Training through Discrete Trial Training (DTT)
- Social skills training
- Parent training
- Modeling
- AAC device usage for communication, transitional skills, generalization skills, equivalence relations, and transformation techniques when appropriate
All of these techniques are research-based. Most are evidenced-based interventions from the National Autism Center's National Standards Project.

We make every effort to help the child reach their full potential. We believe that we must show that the techniques used have demonstrated success in scientific trials. Therefore, we do our best to stay updated on the field's most current methods and practices.

Data changes drive changes made to the child's intervention plan. This flexibility means that if the child is not successful, we can modify the technique or process to help the child be as successful as possible in obtaining or learning a skill.

All practices under the scope of ABA follow the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for ABA.
What does a typical session look like?

A typical session lasts for 60 minutes. We spend about 10-15 minutes of the session in Discrete Trial Training (DTT). This part of the session consists of the child responding to requests, directions, or questions.

In DTT, we mix complex target responses with easy ones, responses that the child has mastered along with responses they haven't, and continuously reinforce new responses to keep motivation high.

Then we spend time helping the child learn how to make requests. Finally, target objectives are moved to the natural environment so that the child responds and requests through play and social interaction with others.

Play is the natural environment for a child. We also teach skills in the preschool classroom. Skills taught in a discrete trial may be generalized into a play situation within the school.
How does TLC determine goals and work with parents?

We include parental input in every intervention plan, targeting objectives critical to the parent as soon as possible. Programs are written based on the assessment administered before the beginning of the intervention, and we adjust that plan as the child masters their goals.

We invite parents to participate in the parent training sessions that we host, on average, three to four times a month. These sessions consist of time spent teaching parents about behavioral procedures and gaining input on new objectives to be added to the intervention plan, including goals specific to parents to work on at home.
How do you evaluate progress and re-evaluate goals?

Specialists evaluate your child's progress daily by looking at the data collected for that objective and through direct supervision from the supervising BCBA.

Re-evaluations occur every six months, with goals added to the intervention plan based on the re-evaluation results.
How many hours of ABA therapy per week is necessary?

Research has demonstrated that children who receive 25-40 hours of ABA intervention have shown the most significant improvement in acquiring behavioral skills. The Learning Center also provides EIDT preschool, PT, OT, and Speech therapy in combination with ABA.

Some children may need only focused ABA to address specific areas such as a deficit in social skills or communication. For these children, 10 hours or less may be enough.

Based on the skill level of the child and the time that the child is available for intervention, the child may receive between 10 and 25 hours of ABA at TLC. Additional hours of intervention may also be requested or recommended for the home.