Why is Motivation Important?

One of the common concerns we get from parents and therapists is that their child/student isn’t motivated for anything.  Why is this important, you ask?  Well, because in an ABA program, we rely on motivation to get things done.  It’s the “then” in the “first/then”.  It’s the reward at the end of the token board.  If there is no motivation, then we can’t use reinforcement to increase behaviours we want to see more of.  Without child motivation, we’re just asking kids to do things they don’t want to do with nothing in it for them.

So what do we recommend when a child seems unmotivated?  In the coming videos, we will discuss this in detail.