Executive function strategies
3 strategiesTherapist Introduction Photo Card
Ask your therapist for a photo to keep at home. Show it casually during the week between sessions - "That's [name], we see them on Tuesday." Pair the photo with one thing your child enjoys in sessions. The face becomes familiar and positively associated before your child is expected to engage with them in a therapeutic context.
Therapy Visual Schedule
Create a therapy session strip: (1) arrive and hang up coat, (2) work time with [therapist name], (3) choose a reward, (4) Mom/Dad comes back. Post the "Mom/Dad comes back" image prominently - separation anxiety is one of the most common barriers to therapy compliance. Making the return concrete and visible dramatically reduces distress at drop-off.
Warm-Up Object from Home
Allow your child to bring one preferred item from home into the therapy session. Ask the therapist to incorporate it into the first 2-3 minutes of the session ("Oh, you brought your car! Let's see what the car does."). This lowers the demand threshold for engagement and bridges the home-to-clinic context shift.
Activity game
The Goodbye-See-You-Soon Ritual
Build a fixed 3-step goodbye between parent and child at therapy drop-off: a specific hug, a verbal phrase ("I'll be right here when you're done"), and one wave. Never vary it. Ask the therapist to have a preferred item or activity visible and ready the moment your child walks in - the first sensory-positive experience in the room becomes your child's reason to enter willingly next time.
ABA strategies
2 tipsThe therapist needs to be the best part of the day
Before any therapy goals are worked on, a good ABA therapist spends sessions just pairing themselves with preferred things - following your child's lead, providing preferred toys, doing nothing your child dislikes. This is called the pairing phase and it is not optional. A child who has not been paired with their therapist will not engage in therapy. If your child fights going to sessions, ask the therapist about their pairing approach.
Use the same goodbye every single session
A fixed, always-identical goodbye creates what ABA calls a conditioned safety signal - a predictable event that the brain learns to associate with safety and the parent's return. "I'll be right outside, I'll see you when the timer goes off, love you" - said the same way every time - becomes the signal that everything is okay. Without this, each goodbye is a new uncertainty. With it, your child's brain learns: this phrase means I am safe.
Press the button when it is time to transition!