Efficacy of ABA Programme for Children with Autism to Improve General Development, Language and Adaptive Behaviour

Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) refers to the basic theories of behaviour developed by Watson (1913), Thorndike (1921) and Skinner (1938) and later by other authors. Teaching methods based on ABA, include the research-based instructional strategies used with (1) Discrete Trial Training (DTT), it is effective for teaching academic and receptive language skills. (2) Pivotal Response Training (PRT), to teach expressive language, play, increasing generalization and social interaction skills and (3) Teaching Functional Routines (FR), daily routines and self-care skills are taught using this strategy (Arick & Falco, 1989; Rrantz et al., 1993). The ABA strategies provide a powerful tool for enabling children with autism to meet important daily living skills and special educational aspects. The aim of the study was to conduct ABA programme on 15 children with autism to evaluate the usefulness of ABA based comprehensive treatment and to compare with a group of 15 children with autism receiving treatment as usual, pre and post intervention model was used. Instruments validated were used to assess the severity of the disorder, developmental levels, language and adaptive functioning before starting intervention and one year after treatment. Instruments used are Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), Denver Developmental Screening Test II (DDST-II), Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Scale (REELS) and Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS). Paired “t” test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data obtained. Results: the findings revealed that the intervention group showed significant improvement in relation to symptoms reduction and improvement in Specific behaviours compare to control group. The overall score on CARS showed that the severity level of the intervention group had shown significant changes in the positive direction. Improvements in various developmental areas were seen in DDST-II. Similarly significant improvements in receptive, expressive language were brought out. VSMS showed significant improvement in all sub-domains. Comparatively no significant differences found for the control group except language area.