The Critical Need for Staff Training in ABA Within the School Setting

 

Students with autism, neurodiversity, or developmental disabilities spend a significant portion of their day in school. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the gold standard of treatment, rooted in principles that align with how all individuals learn. Given this, it is essential that school staff receive proper training in progressive ABA to implement strategies effectively. Without adequate knowledge and skill, interventions often fail to address the root cause of behaviors, leading to ineffective or even harmful outcomes for students, staff, and the entire learning environment.

The Consequences of Inadequate ABA Training

Case Study 1: Misaligned Behavior Management

Consider a Student who frequently screams, disrupting both her own learning and that of her peers. In many schools, staff responses are often misaligned with the function of the behavior. Common approaches might include:

• Reprimands and consequences that inadvertently reinforce the screaming
• Escalations by staff that mirror the student's distress
• Lofty behavioral expectations that exceed the student’s current skill level

The result? Increased episodes of screaming, frustration for both staff, classmates, and Student resulting in a classroom environment that feels chaotic rather than structured.

How ABA Should Be Applied

To effectively intervene, we must ask two fundamental questions:

1. What function does the screaming serve? (Why is she screaming?)
2. What reinforcement can be used to teach a replacement behavior?

Through careful observation, it was determined that this student’s screaming serves two distinct functions:

1. A reaction to stress – She screams when classmates cry, lacking coping strategies for distressing sounds.
2. A form of protest – She screams when asked to do something she does not want to do.

Function-Based Intervention

For the stress-related screaming:

• Current response: She screams, moves away (other side of the classroom), plugs her ears, but does not find relief, escalating into more intense behaviors such as louder screams, crying, and throwing objects.
• ABA-based intervention: Teach her a functional replacement skill—requesting to leave the room. In sum, this skill must be introduced, practiced, and reinforced consistently. By honoring her request every time, staff reinforce the new, appropriate behavior, ensuring she feels supported. Over time, she can also be taught self-calming strategies and tolerance-building techniques. 

For the protest-related screaming:

• Current response: Screaming leads to either reinforcement (avoiding the task) or further escalation from staff, loss of other rewards/fun activities-punitive consequences that do not align with the behavior function.
• ABA-based intervention: Teaching alternative ways to protest appropriately (e.g., verbal request) while ensuring noncompliance does not result in avoidance of necessary tasks. Intervention that provides competing levels of reinforcement for the absent of protest and/or complying with directives associated with less desired tasks.

Effective behavior change requires analytical thinking, patience, strategic planning, and consistency—skills that school staff need but often lack due to insufficient training.  On some level it may seem like common sense and easy but when in fact the process is intricate, nuanced, and relies heavily on in the moment analysis and decision making. 

Case Study 2: Teaching Functional Communication and Structure

Another student does not understand school expectations and lacks a functional way to communicate. He primarily relies on self-initiated actions, such as physically guiding people to what he wants. His primary interest? The playground swings.

The Challenge

Without training in ABA, staff spend their day:

• Blocking his attempts to leave the classroom
• Redirecting him constantly
• Managing escalating crises when he becomes aggressive

This approach results in exhaustion for staff and frustration for the student, who has no structured or informed way of how and when he can access what he desires 

The ABA-Based Solution

A reinforcement-based system was developed:

1. A "work" area with 3 chairs (chair for interventionist, child, materials), a token board, and 3"x5" picture card of the swings was introduced, initially placed approximately 15 feet from the swings.
2. The student was given one token and physically guided to the chair, where he placed the final token on the board and exchanged a picture of the swing for immediate access.
3. Over an hour session, the chairs were systematically moved closer to the classroom, and the number of tokens required increased.
4. Within an hour of structured practice, the student independently transitioned, calmly placed his token on the board, sat calmly and engaged in work trials while earning 6 more tokens with no aggression or escape attempts.

This structured, reinforcement-based approach transformed a daily struggle into a functional learning opportunity. Overtime the number of tokens and trials will increase as well as the time lapse and number of trials between tokens will increase. 

Why Staff Training in ABA is Critical

The above cases illustrate how poorly implemented strategies create stress and chaos, while ABA-based interventions foster success and independence. Yet, despite its importance, ABA training is widely undervalued and often absent in teacher preparation programs, school training initiatives, and educational professional development.

Staff—including administrators, teachers, and paraprofessionals—must be equipped with the skills to:

• Identify the function of behaviors
• Apply reinforcement-based strategies
• Teach replacement skills effectively
• Implement interventions consistently

Without this training, students with autism and developmental disabilities are left without the tools they need to thrive, and school staff struggle with behaviors they feel ill-equipped to manage. A commitment to proper ABA training ensures a more effective, supportive, and successful learning environment for everyone. When staff are adequately trained and skilled most interventions can be developed within minutes and fine tuned within days versus the need for long, drawn out formal assessments. In some cases Functional Behavior Assessments are necessary but this can be the exception not the norm

Let’s prioritize training in ABA—not just for the sake of our students, but for the overall success of our schools.