What is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)? ABA is a friendly and effective way of understanding and improving behavior in people of all ages. It's like a toolkit for helping individuals with various needs, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), developmental delays, or challenging behaviors. ABA is versatile and can be adapted for anyone! It's especially helpful for individuals with ASD, where it addresses communication challenges, social skills, and repetitive behaviors. It also supports children with developmental delays and those with challenging behaviors like aggression or non-compliance. In ABA, we carefully observe behavior, conduct assessments, and create interventions tailored to each person. By focusing on reducing challenging behaviors and promoting essential skills, ABA empowers individuals to lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Promoting independent and fulfilling lives is a key goal in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Here are some examples of ABA strategies and interventions aimed at fostering independence:
By incorporating these ABA strategies, individuals can develop the skills and behaviors needed to lead more independent and fulfilling lives across different aspects of daily functioning. The goal is to empower individuals to actively participate in and contribute to their communities while maintaining a high quality of life. The best part? ABA isn't just for schools, clinics, hospitals – it's for homes too! It's a fantastic tool for families dealing with various behavioral challenges. ABA creates a supportive and structured environment, helping individuals develop essential life skills, improve communication, and reduce problematic behaviors. Parents are superheroes in this process! Their insights into their child's behaviors, preferences, and routines are invaluable. They collaborate with ABA practitioners to tailor interventions and set meaningful goals. Their participation in assessments and goal setting ensures that interventions align with their child's needs. And let's talk about generalization – it's like using the skills learned in different places. Parents, your role is vital here! Implementing ABA strategies at home and in the community, which you learned during parent training, helps your child apply these skills everywhere. In essence, ABA is not just a tool; it's a friendly guide for positive change. Whether it's at school, home, or in the community, the collaboration between parents and practitioners enhances the effectiveness of ABA interventions, contributing to the overall success and well-being of individuals undergoing ABA therapy. Together, we're making progress, one positive behavior at a time! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our ABA manager, Amanda Williamson, BCBA at mandy@littlepeach.org. -Anna Marie Fuller, RBT
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Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and there are so many things to prepare! From getting treats ready for school parties to making cards for people we love, it can be a busy time for everyone. When getting different tasks accomplished, it can be easy for parents to get all of these tasks completed alone; however, we encourage you to include your child as much as possible! No matter their age, they can be included in the festivities. Looking at books, coloring, baking in the kitchen, and making homemade valentine cards are all great ideas to work on developing skills. For some extra help, our awesome therapists have put together some specific ideas! Physical Therapy Ideas (Mrs. Jillian, PT)
Occupational Therapy Ideas (OT Staff)
Speech Therapy Ideas (Mrs. Shelby, SLP)
We hope these ideas can help you work together with your child for some extra fun this holiday! Feel free to post a picture and tag us on Facebook (Little Peach Pediatric Therapy) or Instagram (@littlepeachpediatrictherapy) of what you did together! If you have any questions, reach out to us at Kristen@litlepeach.org Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, your friends at Little Peach Kristen Owens, M.S., CCC-SLP Happy New Year! For some, a new year means new resolutions, new plans, new everything! This year, we hope to foster closer relationships with our clients and provide more information regarding speech, occupational, and physical therapies. Our goal is for this blog will be a place to find information to help your child grow. To kick it off, we are providing a few tips to help start your year with success! Beginning with… BOOKS! Reading plays a vital role in a child’s development, and you can take advantage of targeting all 3 disciplines while reading with your child! Speech and Language (Mrs. Kristen, SLP)
Physical Therapy (Mrs. Elizabeth, PT)
Occupational Therapy (Mrs. Marissa, COTA)
These are just a few of the many skills you can focus on while reading with your child. Overall, books play a vital role in all areas of development. We encourage you to limit screen time and increase one-on-one time with your child this year. If you would like more information about our favorite books or books to target specific skills, email us at kristen@littlepeach.org! We would love to hear from you! Happy New Year! Kristen Owens, M.S., CCC-SLP
School’s out for summer! With school out and summer in, you might be wondering about activities to build your child’s speech and language skills at home or on vacation. Here are THREE easy and fun activities to engage your child in with minimal to NO-PREP! 1. BUBBLES! As a speech pathologist, bubbles are a must. So many language goals can be targeted with bubbles whether at home, the beach, or the lake. Target utterance expansion by modeling “more bubbles”, “Let’s get more bubbles”, “small bubble”, “big bubble”. Target verbs while popping, stomping, blowing, or catching bubbles. So many great ideas for bubbles! 2. iSpy! This is a great activity to do outside, in the car, at home, or anywhere. Describe items to see if your child can guess that item and vice versa. If your child can guess the category of the item if that is one of their goals (ex. ‘iSpy something with four wheels and drives. Do you think that it’s a vehicle, food, or clothing?”) It’s also great for children working on/s/ and /s/-blends like spy, sky, or “I see something _____.” 3. Scavenger hunts! This is a fun and engaging activity that allows the child to move while targeting their goals. Easily target following directions like “Look behind the couch and then in the bathroom” or give them clues on the next room by having your child answer wh- questions for the home (ex. “Where do you make food?” “What do you use to brush your teeth?”) If your child is working on specific speech sounds, ask your speech pathologist for articulation cards to hide around the house to find and practice! If you plan on going out of town but would like additional resources to practice while gone, please ask your speech-language pathologist for additional resources or ideas! Spring break is upon us, and we’ve been getting some nice weather in between the rainy days here in central Alabama! We are getting ready to celebrate all that spring brings with it. One of our favorite holidays, Read Across America Day, encourages us to continue the celebration of our love of reading every day. That’s one of the reasons why we love gifting books to our friends and family for holidays and birthdays. Books serve multiple purposes here at Little Peach. We love all of the language exposure and the quality snuggles reading time provides. There are tons of great books out there, and sometimes the huge amount can be overwhelming. So here’s a list of my top 10 favorite books and series that why we love incorporating into our family reading time.
This is a short list of all the books we use with our kids during story time and also to encourage language and preschool skills. There are so many more books and series out there that we love and have in our libraries! We’d love to hear if you have any favorite book/series we didn’t include? Let us know in the comments! Martha Verbruggen, M.S. CCC-SLPMartha is a bilingual speech-language pathologist with Little Peach Feeding and Speech. She is a mother of toddler boy/girl twins and a baby girl. If you wonder if your child is just a typical picky eater or if there's something more serious going on, watch this video by Melanie Potock CCC-SLP, a feeding specialist and speech-language pathologist. Melanie shares that 25% of typically developing children have a feeding disorder, while 80% of children with developmental disabilities will have a feeding disorder. If you believe your child may have a feeding disorder and you are living in the Prattville, Alabama area, call to schedule an evaluation by our feeding specialist and speech-language pathologist, Laura Hall CCC-SLP.
Becoming an SLP has done something to me - I am slightly obsessed with toys. There is something about seeing a child's face when tinkering with a toy: you might see concentration, awe, joy, and occasionally disinterest. It's important to remember that it's much less about finding the one magical toy that can increase your child's language and much more about finding a toy that you can use TOGETHER to grow the language. Language is all about interactions between people, and that's how children learn best! To avoid the trial-and-error of finding the right toy to play with your late talker, here are my favorites that you may strike gold with as well!
Battat Pound and Roll
Shape Sorter
Gazillian Bubbles
Piggy Bank
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? Book
Those were my Top 5 Toddler Toys for eliciting language. Remember - it's all about enjoying these toys and experiences together!
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