5 Everyday ABA Strategies Parents Can Use at Home

Parenting a child with autism or behavioral challenges is a journey full of love, patience, and—let’s be honest—some days where you wish you had just ONE more tool in your back pocket. That’s where ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) can help. While it’s often used in therapy sessions, many strategies work beautifully at home too. And the best part? You don’t have to be a therapist to use them. 👀

Here are five simple, family-friendly ABA strategies you can start using in your daily routine to support your child’s growth, independence, and confidence.

1. Positive Reinforcement: Celebrate the Wins

One of the most effective ABA tools is also the simplest—celebrating the behaviors you want to see more of.

Example: If your child puts away their toys, follow it with praise: “I love how you cleaned up right when I asked—thank you!”. If you want to kick it up a notch, you can offer a small reward like extra lovin’, extra playtime or a fist bump. You know your child best and some kids may give you a side eye if you clap and cheer (yes…. I’ve been turned down a lot in my career by my threenagers).

The key is being specific, consistent, and genuine. Instead of a generic “Good job,” let them know exactly what you’re proud of. That little detail goes a long way.

2. Visual Schedules: Take the Guesswork Out of the Day

Kids thrive when they know what’s coming next, and visual schedules make that crystal clear.

Example: Create a simple picture chart with the day’s events—breakfast, playtime, bath, bedtime. Photos, drawings, or printable icons all work.

Visuals help reduce anxiety, make transitions smoother, and give your child a sense of control over their day.

3. First-Then/When-Then Statements: Set Clear Expectations

This is a go-to strategy for reducing power struggles while building structure.

Example: “First we brush teeth, then we read your favorite book” OR “When our toys are in the bin, then we can go outside”

It helps kids connect a less-preferred activity (like brushing teeth) with a preferred one (like storytime). Clear, simple, and predictable.

4. Modeling: Be the Example

Sometimes the best teaching tool is simply showing the behavior yourself.

Example: Want your child to learn how to ask for help? Try: “I need help opening this jar. Can you please help me?”

Kids learn so much by watching the people around them. The more they see a skill modeled, the more likely they are to try it out themselves.

5. Offer Choices: Build Independence

Giving kids small, meaningful choices throughout the day helps them feel empowered and reduces resistance.

Example: “Do you want to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt?” or “Do you want to start with blocks or puzzles?”

Even limited choices build communication, independence, and problem-solving skills.

Final Thoughts

ABA at home doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Small, intentional changes in your routines can create structure, lower stress, and open doors for your child’s growth.

Remember—it’s not about perfection, it’s about progress. Every small win matters.

Want more tips like this? Follow us on social or reach out at amarilys@amabehavioralconsulting.com to see how our team can support your family’s unique journey.

Can ABA Help My Child with ADHD?

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Can ABA help your child with ADHD?

Research shows that ABA therapy is evidence-based therapy that can help other diagnoses including ADHD. Research shows that a combination of ABA therapy and medication can make significant changes in a child’s behavior. 

Oftentimes, we’ve worked with children who engage in behaviors that may seem “impulsive”, “off-task” and “disruptive” to others in their environment. From our experience, some of these behaviors typically have a reasoning as to why they're occurring. Sometimes the learner may be engaging in these behaviors because they cannot communicate their wants and needs. Sometimes these learners cannot concentrate on their tasks because they are distracted by something in their environment. Sometimes these learners don’t realize they are being disruptive with their actions to others around them. 

Step right up Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)! What do we do in these types of situations? One of our primary goals in ABA is to provide our learners with the tools to help them advocate for themselves. We teach our learners to request for needs and wants appropriately instead of being impulsive and grabbing whatever they may need (be it materials or someone's attention).

We observe the learner in their natural environment and analyze the patterns of their behaviors. We conduct in depth analysis of their environment to determine what could be distracting them in times that they are off-task. We add tools to help them cope in environments that may be overstimulating to them. 

We provide our learners with tools to teach them recognize the behaviors they are engaging in and then help them correct this behavior (should it need to be corrected). One of our learners had a very challenging time completing tasks that involved more than 1 step (i.e. homework). We created a visual support to help with the completion of these steps. We then taught him self-management strategies to keep himself on track and complete these tasks from start to finish. An example of this program can be found below. We also taught this learner to track his “on-task” behavior using a vibrating timer at every 3 minute interval. When the timer went off, he had to evaluate his current actions and label if he was on or off task. Depending on the current action, he would either continue working OR redirect himself to the task he was supposed to be engaging in. This strategy was taken from Finn et al in 2014. 

In summary, ABA can be of immense help in helping your child with ADHD. Board Certified Behavior Analyst will evaluate your child’s current skill set, help create programs to help them develop the skills they need to communicate and teach any replacement or self-management behaviors to help them in the most challenging times of their day. Give us a call to learn more about how we can help! 

Resource: 

Finn, Lisa & Ramasamy, Rangasamy & Dukes, Charles & Scott, John. (2014). Using WatchMinder to Increase the On-Task Behavior of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 45. 10.1007/s10803-014-2300-x. 

Preparing for a Visit to the Dentist

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Who likes going to dentist? The dentist for me up is not my favorite place to be. When one of our parents asked for tips on how to make this process a bit easier for our learner, I immediately jumped into action. Here are some of the things we did to get ready for our big trip:

1. Created a social story on the steps that would take place for our visit. I contacted the dentist office and asked about each step and the expectations of the child. I took pictures from their page and created a social story with visuals of what the office and equipment the child would come in contact with would look like.  See the video of our social story below!

2. Practice! During our sessions we practiced by playing with similar items so that the child could become familiar with some of the steps. We used Play-Doh dentist set as well as took our own set of X-Rays using the X-Ray Scanner Teeth App to portray the steps that needed to be taken in a visit. 

3. Last but not least, during our one on one direct therapy sessions, we practiced different instructions like “Open your mouth” “Stick your tongue out” and even “Stand as still as a soldier” to prepare the child with some of the instructions they may hear as well as the expected behaviors. If the child did not know what behavior was expected, I showed him how to do it and we practiced together! 

4. During these steps, our learner was provided with lots of praise and positive experiences so that the transition to the actual office would be as flawless as possible. 

Playdoh Dentist Set

Although our learner had difficulty with some of the steps in the actual office visit, he was able to complete the cleaning and we are calling it a success! The visual schedule truly helped with the process of knowing what was coming next and he was able to see the tools we played with in real life. I would love to thank the staff at Happy Family Dental Group in Brandon, Florida for their patience, understanding and their willingness to provide materials and information before our visit!