Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a scientific, evidence-based method used by licensed professionals due to its successful approach to reducing problematic behaviors, teaching functional communication, and developing social skills.

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ABA is used to analyze behaviors and the environment that surrounds it. As professionals, we acknowledge that behaviors are learned and learned as early as in the womb. These behaviors can also be unlearned if they are undesirable. ABA tells us that behaviors serve a specific function and occur due to the consequences that follow that behavior. To successfully change a behavior, an alternative appropriate skill needs to be taught based on the function of that behavior (why the behavior is occurring).  Once that skill is learned, the child is less likely to engage in the inappropriate behavior again because the inappropriate behavior has been successfully replaced with an alternative skill. Thus unlearning the behavior/replacing the behavior. ABA is a continued practice that has been shown to successfully reduce undesirable behaviors, while teaching new skills. Thus improving children's ability to socially integrate into mainstream society.