How ABA Therapy Helps Build Daily Living Skills

ABA therapy is one of the most successful tools for teaching children with ASD how to build their daily living skills. 

Over time, with positive reinforcement at the core, applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapy can help children learn to master everything from daily hygiene and social communication to housekeeping, cooking, and other skills required for a more independent life.

5 Ways ABA Therapy Improves Essential Daily Living Skills

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy is a personalized, evidence-based approach that helps children with ASD and their families. 

Based on a foundation of personalized therapies and positive reinforcement, ABA therapists work with clients to cultivate positive behaviors and skills while minimizing harmful behaviors or those that negatively impact social relationships and academic learning. In many cases, ABA therapy is integrated with other modalities, such as occupational or physical therapy, creating a whole-child approach for learning and growth. 

These therapies are continually developed with a personalized focus on the child and their overall goals. In most cases, that includes helping them to build daily living skills that foster independence. Here are five examples of what we focus on when working with clients.

1. Cultivating self-care skills

If you’re child has ASD or another/additional neurodivergent diagnosis, there’s a good chance your household struggles with maintaining their basic daily self-care and hygiene skills. 

It’s not uncommon for these children to take longer to toilet train and to have aversions to certain sensory stimuli, including water or clothing materials/seams/etc. This complicates tasks that are “easy” for everyone else. If the daily routine causes friction, anxiety, meltdowns, or otherwise disrupts your household rhythm, cultivating self-care skills will be a top priority.

This includes:

• Creating a schedule and repeatable routine that helps activities become daily habits or rituals.
• The use of pictures and other visual cues helps non-verbal children and those who haven’t yet learned to read. Pointing to pictures also minimizes the repeated vocal cues or escalating tones that can create upset.
• Breaking down all longer tasks into separate parts so kids can tackle them one at a time.
• A set of positive reinforcement strategies that keep kids on task and inspired to keep trying.

HELPFUL HINT: Consider creating a sensory table or using sensory-centered therapy tools at home. This helps expose children to the same types of stimuli they encounter in daily life, such as water (warm and cool), slimy things, gritty things, and sticky things. In addition to serving as soothing stations, sensory tables help reduce children’s resistance to triggering textures or materials over time.

2. Creating healthier communication and social connection skills

Communication is essential to being in community, whether that be in a house, neighborhood, classroom, workplace, or other public settings. In addition to cultivating self-care skills, we use ABA therapy to build healthier communication and social connection skills.

This includes:

• Learning sign language (if possible) to support children who are non-verbal or who struggle to find/use their words when anxious or upset.
• Role-playing common playtime scenarios so they learn how to read social cues better, take turns in conversations, take turns with toys, how to handle inevitable losses, and so on.
• Supporting one-on-one playdates with classmates who have similar interests to keep things small and less overwhelming.

3. Establishing emotional regulation tools

Children who are highly sensitive or who don’t have the inherent ability to express themselves are far more likely to have meltdowns, tantrums, or to use other disruptive responses to communicate when they’re angry, mad, frustrated, experiencing physical pain, etc. That’s why emotional regulation is part of the top three daily living skills we build with ASD clients.

The foundations of emotional regulation start with:

• Learning how to identify emotions in ourselves and others.
• Breathing techniques.
• Learning how to “pause” before reacting (working on “responding” instead of “reacting”).
• Identifying self-soothing strategies.

We’ve mentioned before that we support children with ASD and their families, and developing emotional regulation skills is a great example of how we do that. Modeling emotional regulation is one of the best things parents and caregivers can do for their own well-being and to teach the same skills to their family. We’ll help you all identify the calming, soothing, and de-escalating tools that work best for you, and then create emotional regulation plans that can be brought into the classroom, to playdates, when you’re traveling, or into situations that are known triggers.

4. Building organizational skills

It’s not uncommon for children with autism, ADHD/ADD, and other neurodivergent diagnoses to struggle with organization. Time management is a struggle, rooms are a mess, desks/cubbies are overflowing, and it can seem like they have a talent for misplacing things or “forgetting.” This is all part of the different ways these kids process—or struggle to process— anything that requires executive function. 

Fortunately, ABA therapy uses tools that teach children how to:

• Create plans.
• Learn to prioritize.
• Break larger problems or tasks into smaller parts.
• Use a calendar and time management tools to stay on task.

Setting up organized rooms and workspaces helps children keep things neat (a place for everything and everything in its place) and minimizes distractions.

5. Integrating independent living skills

Over time, and as age/ability allows, we begin using ABA therapy sessions to integrate independent living skills. This is something to celebrate because, at this point, parents/caregivers can reflect on all the growth that has occurred as a result of the other four achievements we’ve set in motion along the way via daily self-care, communication, social relationships, and organization.

As with the other four stages of learning, this begins at home and is fostered in the classroom. It includes things like:

• Helping out with household chores (setting the table, washing dishes, sweeping/mopping floors, cleaning their bathroom, feeding pets, etc.).
• Ordering their own food in a restaurant or in a coffee shop.
• Learning how to read recipes and make simple meals.
• Creating grocery lists.
• Learning to read bus schedules.

Along the way, ABA therapists also support our clients by helping them learn to problem-solve for themselves. While structures and routines are essential as children with ASD build daily living skills, they also need to exercise problem-solving muscles to gain competency in handling life’s inevitable unexpected situations and events. 

Use ABA Therapy To Help Your ASD Child Gain Daily Living Skills & Foster Independence

Is it starting to feel like building daily living skills is impossible for your child? It sounds like it’s time to bring the Autism Response Team (ART) into the mix. Our personalized, assessment-based therapy plans are intentionally designed to support your child at home and across their daily settings, including schools, playgrounds, and other public locations. 

We know that our child clients’ success is directly proportional to the consistency and implementation of our support at home. For that reason, parent and sibling feedback and training are also provided, empowering caregivers and minimizing the long-term need for ABA services. Contact us to tour our clinics, observe ABA therapy sessions, and learn more about how we can help your child develop daily living skills that serve them for a lifetime.