What We Do

“Enhance self-care abilities of children”

Lok Yi is a four-year-old girl and her self-care ability is poor. For example, she was unable to put on shoes independently. Our therapists and Lok Yi’s mother therefore set a training target for Lok Yi, that is to strengthen her self-help skills , wearing shoes. The therapists broke down the task of wearing shoes into very small steps, and then taught Lok Yi one by one. Every day, we arranged a session to practice wearing shoes with Lok Yi, and we gradually reduced the prompts and assistance. After a month of training, Lok Yi has been able to put on shoes by herself, and the ability to follow instructions has improved a lot as well.

“Good learning motivation”

One day, our therapist was doing communication temptations with Wing during her snack time. Wing was sitting nicely and produced an “a” sound. She was totally different from the first day of her training as she cried heavily on that day. Wing lacked learning motivation and could not express herself, so she would lie on the floor and cry for things she wanted. The therapist first taught Wing to put all the bricks into a basket to get a reinforcement, then did matching and imitation exercises with her. The training gradually transited from putting bricks to a token board system. Wing has become more motivated to learn and communicate. Wing’s father also stated that she became more willing to pack things and making sounds at home.

“Chocolate”

“Chocolate!” When Jayden said the word loudly, we could see the smiley faces of his parents and our therapist. At the very beginning of Jayden’s training, he did not comply with our therapist and could not express his needs, so our therapist started the training with easy instructions first. Jayden would be praised and rewarded immediately when he complied with the therapist. When Jayden’s level of compliance was greatly increased, the therapist then taught him new vocabularies to increase his motivation and ability to speak. After a month of training, Jayden could use words to express his needs. His parents were pleased to see his improvement.

“Good looking!”

Sum lacked eye contact with others and was easily distracted by other things, so she always stared into space at the beginning of her training. Therefore, our therapist prepared some toys that Sum liked. When Sum initiated eye contact, the therapist would verbally praise her “good looking” and would provide a toy as a reinforcement. Sum gradually understood that looking would lead to positive consequences. In order to improve Sum’s self-care ability, the therapist also taught her to brush her teeth. After a few weeks of training, she would look at the therapist’s eyes while she was brushing teeth or asking for help.

“A Princess Behavioural Chart”

Ena is a girl who loves playing in the park. Her mother told us that Ena was quite stubborn and was unlikely to follow instructions. If Ena’s mother did not take her to the park after school, she would have thrown a tantrum. The therapists also knew that Ena wanted to be a princess. In order to increase her level of compliance, our therapists prepared a princess behavioural chart. Starting at the stage of poor Cinderella, Ena would be ungraded when she had complied to the therapists. She was allowed to play when she had reached the top of the chart. The therapists gradually added some unfavourable instructions while Ena was playing toys, such as asking her to return to training immediately. After a series of training, Ena could always comply with the therapists and return to training at any time.

“Make complete sentences”

Luo was lack of vocabulary and was also weak at sentence structure. He would easily throw a tantrum when he could not express himself clearly. Our therapist taught Luo different vocabularies and subject-verb-object sentence pattern by ABA therapy. During the training, Luo has gradually started to communicate with correct and complete sentences. Besides this, Luo improved a lot in making eye contacts with others. His mother also noticed his significant improvement in spontaneous language. We all were pleased to see Luo’s progress.

Lok Yi, Wing, Jayden, Sum, Ena and Luo were invited to present their experience in receiving ABA services with Autism Partnership Foundation (operating in Hong Kong) (APF, HK). Lok Yi, Wing, Jayden, Sum, Ena and Luo are past beneficiaries of APF, HK.