What We Do

“Increase children’s attention span”

One day, Chi was escaping from the exercise and our therapist immediately brought him back to his seat to finish the task. Chi’s attention span was low, so our therapist focused on improving Chi’s attention skills through different exercises such as matching games. We also found that Chi seldom spoke spontaneously. The therapist encouraged Chi to speak some target words before getting the toys he liked. After some intensive training, Chi did not escape from exercises anymore and could make requests for toys by saying “block” and “clay”!

“Reduce self-stimulatory behaviours”

At the beginning of Him’s training, Him always ran around and sang songs, so he could not focus on his training. Our therapists first taught him to sit nicely and to stop his self-stimulatory behaviours. Him would step on the therapists’ toes, but later he has learnt to sit nicely and to keep quiet. Further, the therapists taught Him to imitate actions, to understand different instructions and descriptive sentence structures. After a month of training, Him was able to voice out his needs by using complete sentences fluently and to keep quiet at the right moment as well.

“Expand children’s interests”

Him Him had restricted interests and only loved playing clay. His level of compliance was also low, so he could not stay focus on tasks and kept crying in his training. Our therapist used Him Him’s favourite clay as a reinforcer to motivate him to stay calm and to comply with instructions. During the process of training, Him Him gradually learnt to complete different tasks calmly. The therapist later added other toys to the training and taught Him Him matching, imitation and labels. After a series of training, Him Him was able to complete exercises intently and to show more interest in playing other toys.

“Maintain eye contact”

One day, Kit was describing the action of the character in the card holding by our therapist while he was looking at the therapist’s eyes. The therapist revealed that Kit would avoid making eye contact with others in the past, so she worked with Kit’s mother together. As long as Kit made eye contact, he could get reinforced or help from others. During the training, Kit has gradually improved in making eye contact. He could also spontaneously seek assistance or ask for help by saying “help me” to the therapist. After training, Kit could still maintain good eye contact during other exercises.

“The power of language”

Fung is a 3-year-old boy with developmental language delay. His mother told us that Fung loved MTR very much. As they often went to Hang Hau and Lok Fu stations, Fung could say “hang” and “fu”. But he could not imitate any other sounds. Our therapist encouraged Fung to speak simple words spontaneously by giving him a puzzle of MTR system map. When Fung was able to speak some words, the therapist then gradually increased the difficulty. Fung’s mother also trained him at home. At the end of the training, Fung was not only more motivated to speak, but was also able to speak more words accurately. He would wave his hand and say “bye-bye” to us while leaving the centre. Fung’s mother was very surprised by Fung’s significant improvement.

Chi, Him, Him Him, Kit and Fung were invited to present their experience in receiving ABA services with Autism Partnership Foundation (operating in Hong Kong) (APF, HK). Chi, Him, Him Him, Kit and Fung are past beneficiaries of APF, HK.