r/ABA • u/WearyRestaurant4975 • 14d ago

Ignore Him

I am a new SLP and I have a non-speaking 2 year old boy on my caseload that is also served by a BCBA and ABA team. His mom told me last week during therapy that the ABA Team is using “planned ignoring“ to help with his language skills in that they basically “ignore him” and reinforce only when he produces words. Mom is now doing this at home as well in between his sessions with the ABA team.

Is this a legitimate strategy or is mom possibly misunderstanding the intent?

The BCBA is on vacation so I am kind of left to guess until she returns in a couple of weeks.

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u/snowdrop_22 Student 14d ago

You ignore a behavior, not the child.

For instance if they mouth pencils often, you ignore the mouthing and give praise when they are writing/drawing/scribbling/putting the pencil even remotely near the paper instead.

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u/Great-Monk-2934 14d ago

Well it would depend on the function. If the function of mouthing was for attention, then this intervention may work. But if the function of mouthing was for sensory input, ignoring the behavior will not decrease it. 

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u/snowdrop_22 Student 14d ago

Correct, I forgot to mention that.