The APM Educational Program offers a 5-day professional behavior intervention training, provided by AP at no cost, for children with autism.
This year, we have invited three 5-6 years old children with ASD to join the APM Educational Project. While the three children each present unique challenging behaviors, a common thread among them is difficulty in social interaction and a lack of learning motivation. These shared struggles raise concerns among their parents about how they will integrate into society in the future.
What are the capabilities of typically developing 6-year-old children?
Here’s a brief overview of the fundamental language, social, and emotional management skills commonly seen at this stage of general development:
Language Skills
By age 6, children typically experience a notable expansion in vocabulary. They can construct more complex sentences to convey their needs and thoughts, actively engage in everyday conversations, and effectively understand and answer questions. They also enjoy imitating the speech patterns and tones of adults.
Social Skills
At this stage, children show a growing interest in participating in activities around them and can interact with others independently of their parents. They often prefer playing with peers, where they can assign roles, create game scenarios, and engage in role-playing to complete their games.
Behavior and Emotional Management
Typically developing 6-year-olds start to master the management of their behavior and emotions. Although they may still experience emotional ups and downs, they are gradually learning to understand and regulate their emotional responses. They also demonstrate better adherence to rules in group activities, with noticeable improvements in self-control and patience.
It also brought to light some common challenges faced by the three children:
In the initial phase of training, we implemented a “Group Behavior Management System Chart” to enhance the children’s learning motivation. Each student started at the middle level of the chart, and upon successfully sitting down and keeping their hands in place for a few seconds, as instructed by the therapist, they could advance to the highest level and earn playtime with their favorite toys.
As the training progressed, the therapist gradually extended the duration for which the students needed to remain seated with their hands in place, as well as the time required to reach the highest level on the chart.
Throughout the first day of training, we observed notable improvements in the three students’ participation, focus, listening skills, and ability to follow instructions.
The Autism Partnership (AP) Method emphasizes building students’ “learning how to learn” abilities, with a strong focus on critical skills such as motivation, attention, and following directions. These foundational skills are essential for ensuring the students’ success in school.
Ed.D., M.S.ABA, BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Dr. Yvonne Cheung is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). She has a Master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis (St Cloud State University), and a Doctoral degree in Education (The University of Bristol).
Yvonne joined Autism Partnership in 2003. She has extensive experience educating children, teenagers, and adults with autism. She had worked as a Behavioral Consultant at AP School since 2017. She is experienced in supervising cases and classrooms, designing individualized education programs, and providing teacher and parent training. She has also helped many students to adapt to local mainstream and international schools.
Yvonne had experience providing school consultations, parent and teacher training, and presenting about effective teaching strategies in Singapore, China, United Arab Emirates, and Russia.
Currently, Yvonne is a Behavioral Consultant for Autism Partnership and the Director of Research for Autism Partnership Foundation.
M.ADS(ABA), BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Mr. Justin Cho is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with a Masters of Applied Disability Studies in ABA from Brock University, Canada. He joined Autism Partnership in 2009 and has accumulated many years of experience in working directly with children of ASD in one-on-one, social groups, school shadow and Little Learners.
M.Sc., BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Ms. Christy Lai is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with a Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis from St. Cloud State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ms. Lai joined Autism Partnership (AP) in 2011 and she has extensive experience in working with children with ASD. Ms. Christy Lai currently take lead of the case supervision in the new established AP Beijing center. At the same time, she oversees the Little Learners program in Hong Kong and Shanghai and consults families in Asia. She directs overseas training to staff in the Train the Trainer program and provides parent education to families with children with ASD. She also conducts Jumpstart and PIIP programs locally and internationally. In additions, she is keen to take part in overseas ASD conferences and take lead of the design and production of AP teaching materials. Moreover, she helps with producing ABA training videos and articles in the APSPARKS website for public education.
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