What We Do

“Self-awareness & control”

Learning to control is a path that all children have to walk on. When 4-year-old Paco first came, his speaking volume was too loud that people could hear him next door. He often overreacted and lay on the ground when he was playing excitedly. Therefore, our therapist helped Paco increase his self-awareness and guided him to remind himself and control his excitement. After one month of training, Paco’s self-control has enhanced amazingly. His speaking volume has been much appropriate than when he first came. He also did not lie on the ground anymore even when he felt excited.

“Guess where is it?”

Yeung was a poor attention child. As to help Yeung sustain attention, our therapist used many different activities to improve his attention. One of the activities was shell game. The therapist hid one piece of puzzle in one of the cups, then quickly moved the cups around. Yeung had to stay focused to guess the final location of the puzzle, so as to complete the entire puzzle.

“Imitation of sound”

Imitation of sound is commonly seen in kids as the initial step of learning to speak. Yet, having repetitive patterns of sound imitation can be characterized as a self-stimulating behaviour. Chun Hei tended to spontaneously repeat after others’ speech and echo the sound produced by toys on a regular basis. Having undergone an intensive course of ABA therapy, Chun Hei has gradually learned to refrain himself from echoing sounds and has understood the notion of being quiet over time.

“Enjoy and focus”

Katrina was easily distracted during lessons at the beginning. Our therapist started to teach her through the activities she loved, such as cooking games or doing art and craft, in order to motivate her to learn. During these activities, the therapist first demonstrated one to two steps. Katrina needed to imitate what the therapist did. This practice required Katrina to pay attention thoroughly. After training, Katrina was able to imitate four to five steps in different activities. Besides paying attention, she really enjoyed learning through activities!

“Play skills”

In the beginning of Lok’s training, our therapist found that Lok was addicted to his tablet computer and was not interested in other toys. The therapist started to play different types of toys with Lok. When Lok showed excitement in playing with the basketball machine, the therapist started to teach him the play skills step by step:
1. Put a basketball on the launcher
2. Press the launcher
3. Release and shoot
After Lok had mastered all the steps, he was able to shoot on the target by himself and also enjoyed it very much.

“Sit nicely little ones!”

“Sit nicely little ones!” is a saying that our therapists always emphasise. Sitting nicely is a learning-to-learn behaviour that can affect learning in the very first step. At APF centre, Shing did not sit well. Sometimes he just walked away in the middle of the session, and that was the barrier for learning new things. To target this behaviour, Shing’s therapist set a “Nice sitting & good looking” system. When Shing could sit properly and look at the therapist, he could get a reward. After this training, Shing could sit nicely for a longer period of time and could maintain better eye contact with others as well.

Paco, Yeung, Chun Hei, Katrina, Lok and Shing were invited to present their experience in receiving ABA services with Autism Partnership Foundation (operating in Hong Kong) (APF, HK). Paco, Yeung, Chun Hei, Katrina, Lok and Shing are past beneficiaries of APF, HK.