For any therapy, consistency is always the key to success. After beginning ABA therapy, it is recommended that the RBA/BCBA connect with any professionals on the child’s team, including SLPs, OTs, EAs, teachers, and psychologists. Interprofessional collaboration allows the child’s team to align their goals and teaching approaches.
Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs) assess, diagnose, and provide therapy to work on difficulty with speaking, feeding and swallowing, vocal communication, or communication using assisted communication devices. SLPs address various concerns such as speech, social communication, tone of voice, and fluency.
Specifically for children with autism, SLPs may focus on building communication and social skills which includes teaching the child how to functionally communicate their wants and needs.
SLPs can identify appropriate augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems or devices for those who are non-speaking or require additional aids to functionally communicate. Some common forms of AAC include picture exchange communication systems (PECS), and speech-generating devices (SGDs) such as Proloquo2GO. SLPs teach the child and key individuals in the child’s life how to communicate using AAC.
Learn more about PECS and Proloquo2Go here:
Similarly, in applied behaviour analysis (ABA), we teach functional communication vocally or through AAC. We create individualized goals and plans to teach children to communicate effectively and in meaningful ways. We work on functional communication training (FCT) for children to teach children to communicate their wants and needs safely and appropriately as a replacement for disruptive and/or harmful behaviours.
Occupational Therapy and ABA therapy also overlap in their approaches and skills taught. This includes working on school readiness, fine and gross motor skills, life skills, social skills, reading and writing skills, and many more. Both also prioritize the generalization of skills across different environments.
As the child’s goals in OT, SLP and ABA often overlap, it is important for the practitioners to collaborate and align their goals and teaching approaches. Interprofessional collaboration between OTs, SLPs, and Behaviour Analysts has been proven to result in effective therapy outcomes (White et al., 2024). For instance, a child may be learning to communicate using Proloquo2Go. As SLPs are the most knowledgeable in AAC, they can teach the Behaviour Analyst and OT how to communicate with the child using Proloquo2Go.
See the links below for more information about AACs and interprofessional collaboration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=U_fwbZYw_8o
References
Autism (autism spectrum disorder). Asha, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2024). https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/autism/
White, H., Stokes, T. F., Simons, E., Longerbeam, M., Richardson, E., & Zinn, T. (2018). Interprofessional practice for simultaneous implementation of merged techniques from three disciplines: OT SLP ABA. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 12, 1-7.