ABA Therapy

Since ABA therapy is designed to help ASD children with their cognitive functioning and everyday living, there should be a strong correlation between learning/memory and ABA therapy. ABA therapy is known to help children function within reason in everyday life. Therefore the cognitive functions of learning and memory should be increased with ABA therapy.
Even though there are tons of instances where ABA therapy has worked for children with ASD, there has been minimal research to support this. ABA therapy aims to improve the lives of children with ASD with the use of positive reinforcement, there should be research done to show that learning and memory can be increased through ABA therapy. With that in mind, one possible experiment would be
The hippocampus is involved in memory and learning and has been looked at in several different ways (Leuner, et al., 2004). Therefore the hippocampus should be active and improving for these with ASD while being treated with ABA therapy. With increased seasons of ABA therapy, there should be more blood flow within the hippocampus than before ABA therapy. This research would look specifically at the children currently involved in and just starting ABA therapy. There would be two group those who are just starting ABA therapy and those who are already in the program. An fMRI scan would be taken of child’s brain specifically looking at the hippocampus. Every child would go through their normal routine with ABA therapy. After six months another fMRI scan will be taken for all the children participating. The second set of scan will be compared to the first to see if there is in fact more blood flow to the hippocampus indicating there is more activating of learning and memory. The data would have to be charted for each individual child to see the difference between the six months. Ideally, the results would show that all of the children had more blood flow within the hippocampus during the second scan. The group of children new to ABA therapy would show how well this therapy can be right from the start. Also those who were already participating in ABA
With such a mass number of people involved in this one disorder there is a real need to find a treatment that will work best for the majority of children. ABA therapy could be that treatment since there are many children who have already seen the effects of this therapy. If ABA therapy is not the most effective way to give the children with ASD the best quality of life, then there should be more research done to find this new therapy. Since ABA therapy has a high correlation with learning and memory, it would make sense that it is one of the best forms of treatment for