The difference between ABA and normal teaching

So what's the difference between using ABA approach and normal teaching? ABA approaches are sometime also called Discrete Trial Teaching (DTT). This is also the approach i use to teach my ASD kids. Ok, let me talk about DTT for a little bit first.

DTT:
1)breaking a skill into smaller parts
2)teaching a sub skill one at a time until it's mastered
3)provide concentrated teaching
4)provide prompts when the kids are unable to do it and to
increase their success rate. Fade prompt when necessary.
5)reinforcers are a must in these teaching

In DTT, it involves many trials, with each trial having a beginning and an end. It follows the ABC models, each concists of a (A) an antecedent which can be an instruction or a request, (B)a behaviour which is the response from the kid and (C)a consequence which can be a feedback ranging from positive to negative.

Now that you know DTT, let me give an example of DTT and normal teaching and you can compare and see the difference.

Scenerio 1
Teacher ask the kid to do a sum of 10 questions.
Teacher:Ok, let's do all these questions
Child:(look at teacher and start doing the question)
Child completed 3 questions.
Teacher: ok, let's do the rest.
Child continues doing it.
Child finally finshes all 10 questions
Child: I'm done
Teacher:(mark the questions)not bad, you got only 2 wrong, let do another 10 questions (look at the kid and smile).
This pattern carries on....

Before i carry on the 2nd scenerio, i just want you to think what will be the child reaction after doing 30 questions? Would he feel motivated? would he carry on doing the questions or be restless after 30 minutes?

Scenerio 2
Teacher: ok, today we are going to do some questions. Lets do the first question for me first.
Child does the questions.
Teacher:(marks the 2 questions)Well done, you got both of them right. Are you ready to get more right, smart kid? Let's do the next 2.
Child carries on.
Teacher:(marks and child got 1 wrong) Not bad this time, i know you tried(teacher goes through the question he did wrong)
Teacher:Ok, the next question is a hard one, lets do it together this time round
Child and teacher do the question together and do it right.
Teacher: Well, see it's not that difficult after all. Ok, you do the next one on you own.
Child does the question. This pattern carries on until he finishes 10 questions.
Teacher: Excellent job, you've done all the questions and you did really well. You can have a ten minutes break .

Can you spot the difference between scenerio 1 and 2? Which one is normal teaching and which is using ABA?

OK, scenerio 2 is using ABA. It uses DTT, folows the ABC model. It always start with an instruction, follows by the childs' behaviour or response then end with a feedback depending on the childs' actions. Also, unlike the normal teaching whereby the kid keeps doing the questions, DTT is broken down into smaller part, also prompts are given to help the child so they he can do it and be motivated. The child is also being praised for the tasks that he has done. And after all the questions, he is being reinforced unlike normal teaching where he has to do more questions.

In a way, in many teaching environment, most people are using normal teaching to teach the child but they don't realise it that it's not effective and the child will not be motivated. Who would be if you have to do so many boring tasks and not get rewarded? What i want to say is, DTT is a much more effective and it not only can be used to teach ASD kids effectively but also regular kids as they would understand the concept of rewarding and praises better.

So next time, always not to forget to praise you kid when they did something right and reward them accordingly. Too often, we tend to remember the bad stuffs and not the good=)