Clinic Notes: The First ABA Program for a Child with Autism

I get many emails, letters, and phone calls from parents who want to start ABA. They give me a "shopping list" of behavioral problems in their child--usually starting with serious problems like self-injurious or aggressive behavior and continuing with sensory problems, compliance problems and communication problems. While all these behavior problems need to be addressed they leave out the behavior problem that needs to be dealt with first in many children with autism. Eye contact, both on command and spontaneous. It has been my experience that ABA is going nowhere if eye contact is not established. This is the first ABA program in my eBook and the one we always take up first in children who do not make eye contact.