What are the differences between ABA and PRT?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ABA as an intervention method is useful for children who are vocal.The focus is primarily on the improvement of language, including vocabulary and sentence structure.ABA approaches can be effective in producing behavioral changes, but the interventions are not without difficulties. ABA approaches are highly structured.They define intervention targets, and they address these behaviors through many trials of antecedent-behavior-consequence chains presented repeatedly to promote success (Mohammadzaheri et al., 2014).Drill-based repetition of learning trials is prescribed, requiring as many as 40 hours per week over several months.There are at least three difficulties with ABA approaches, including extremely slow gains (many trials are often required to teach a single word); gains that are not generalized; and sometimes children are not motivated to be involved in the teaching sessions (Mohammadzaheri et al., 2014).Because ABA is so time consuming, and the gains can be so limited, other interventions have been developed that are more child-directed.Pivotal response treatment (PRT) is one such approach, based on operant teaching principles to target a wide range of deficits in social skills and communication, but it is carried out in a more natural environment.
PRT has been used in the research literature to teach children with autism to increase their social communication skills. PRT is an effective way to increase functional communication skills, and in most cases, parents are the implementation agents. PRT shares many of the same underpinnings of ABA, but PRT it is most often utilized in the context of everyday routines and natural environments rather than in clinical settings.It is based upon applied behavior analysis, and it focuses on parent involvement in the child’s natural contexts.