Attunement and ABA
As a therapist, most of what I do is listen. Not just to words, but to the body and the nervous system. I listen for what is happening underneath what someone is saying, and I adjust my responses so we can stay connected and engaged. Some days I do this better than others.
What I have been thinking about lately is that counseling practice really prepares us for this relational awareness, but ABA, which is fundamentally about relationship, rarely talks about it directly.
I noticed it recently while observing an RBT working with a client. She was implementing the program perfectly. The targets were clear, the prompts were appropriate, and she was moving through the goals efficiently. From a technical standpoint, she was doing everything “right.”
Yet something wasn’t working.
She couldn’t understand why the client was “getting aggressive” (her words) when she was “doing all the right things.”
In ABA, what we would do for the childs aggressive behavior is a functional analysis. What is the topography of the behavior? What is an operational definition ? What are the ABC’s of the behavior ? And we would come up with a function. In this instance escape maintained behavior may be more likely, but a FA would be able to support our hypothesis.
Moments like that make me think about attunement in ABA practice. It’s something that almost never gets talked about, yet it is happening all the time.
In ABA we talk a lot about programs, goals, and data. We want to move from A to B to C. Our trend lines matter. Insurance matters. Stakeholders matter.
But sometimes we forget the basics of human interaction.
What I was noticing in my observation of client and RBT that she was working him very hard without breaks, and with high intensity. Tone of voice was direct and curt. Body language was controlled and somewhat distant. Was she aware of her own body language and how she was affecting him? Was she aware of the subtle pressure she might have been putting on the interaction? How was his body feeling due to this interaction? Was he overwhelmed with her tone of voice and approach?
In my experience, the worst outcomes in ABA happen not because the goals are wrong but because there is a lack of attunement.
An RBT may have clear instructions. A BCBA may have written a thoughtful plan. But if we forget to meet the client where they are, in moment to moment experience, the work becomes harder for everyone.
Ironically, meeting the client where they are is already central to ABA. We break skills down. We shape behavior gradually. We reinforce small steps toward meaningful change.
But emotional readiness is part of the starting point too.
Before learning happens, regulation has to happen. Many of the children we work with are already managing sensory overwhelm, trauma, or nervous system dysregulation. When a calm adult enters the room, the child’s nervous system can borrow that stability.
That is co-regulation.
In counseling fields, ideas like attunement, co-regulation, unconditional positive regard, and transference are considered foundational. In ABA they are rarely discussed explicitly, yet they shape almost every interaction between an RBT and a client.
I often think there is a lot the ABA world can learn from counseling in terms of relational dynamics. And there is also a lot the counseling world can learn from ABA about the science of how change happens.
Ultimately there is no conflict between the two. If we truly want to help our clients, our work cannot exist in a vacuum.
Of course, I have started to think about attunement and co-regulation in operational terms. I am in the process of creating an online course to break down and discuss what this means for RBT’s and BCBA’s and how we can apply that to our practice. Not as an addition to our goals but as the most important environmental variable to support learning.
Science matters.
Relationships matter.
But attunement is the glue that brings it all together.
