Autism Funding Unit = AFU

Persons with autism can access $22,000 per year up to the age of 6, and $6000 per year up to the age of 18. The funding cycle ends the last day of the person’s birthday month, and automatically renews the next month. Receive funding by following these steps:

1. Get a diagnostic assessment

2. Submit the assessment to your local child and youth social worker office

3. About two weeks later you receive the funding agreement in the mail. Sign both copies and return them by mail.

4. Two-three weeks later you will receive a letter in the mail stating how much funding is available to you

RASP = registered Autism Service Provider

The Ministry for Children and Families has created the role of ‘Autism Support Specialists’ to help families who are seeking supports for a person diagnosed with autism. This group of people maintain The Registry of Autism Service Providers (RASP) list, and are responsible for deciding who has earned the experience and education to be on this list. If your child is under six and you want to use autism funding to pay for professional services, you need to choose service providers from the RASP. Autism Support Specialists will try to help you find available services, and they also handle complaints from parents about a RASP professional.

BCBA =Board Certified Behaviour ANALYST

Formal Education: Masters Degree approved by the Certification Board with content in ABA, Ethics, Autism and Experimental Design

Training: 1500 hour practicum under direct supervision of a BCBA and passing a certification exam

Role: Typically creates the plan of intervention for skill acquisition and behaviour-change programs. This means the goals are measurable and the skills that will be targeted during teaching are broken down into steps. The teaching strategies programmed must be evidence based and be tracked and analyzed to ensure it is working for the student over time. The BI is trained by the BCBA to run the programs and collect data for the BCBA to assess for progress

BI = Behaviour Interventionist

The term “BI” is unique to British Columbia. A more common term for this role is RBT=Registered Behaviour Technician or Behaviour Tech. This role is similar to a specialized tutor. The BI will typically work 1:1 with a child to give extra practice in identified goal areas. It is well established that children will learn faster when teaching hours are intensive, and having a team of BI’s working on the same goals in similar ways will create the intensity many children need to acquire new skills

Formal Education: none required in BC to be a BI. To be an “RBT”, formal coursework and practicum training is required.

Training: Should work with supervision from a BCBA/BCaBA/SLP/OT. Skill set will vary greatly depending on educational background and experience

ABA=Applied Behaviour Analysis

Applied Behaviour Analysis is a large field of study that focuses on how to make socially significant behaviour changes for people. ABA is not intended just for persons with autism, nor is it just one technique. Thanks to the past few decades of academic research in the field, there are many established teaching tools that have been show to be effective in reducing challenging behaviours, and increasing skills such as: communicating, playing and socializing. There are many more research studies being published every year to try to add to the tool box of proven strategies. When research is “peer-reviewed”, it means other academics have examined the methods used, and agree the results are reliable and valid. When those results are also replicated by others, the technique becomes “evidence-based”. This means it has been scientifically shown to cause meaningful change— it is not an opinion.

BCBA’s use ABA techniques to plan teaching and behaviour change programs. BCBA’s are ethically confined to using only evidence-based practices in their programs, and must take data to ensure it is causing the change in the student as intended. A good BCBA will be well versed in many ABA techniques, and create a program individualized to the child’s learning style and parent priorities.

EIBI= Early Intensive Behavioural Interventions

EIBI is a package of ABA interventions implemented by a team, to teach new skills to a young child with autism. The skills will commonly focus on communication, imitation, play, socialization and self help skills.

It is important to understand what “package” of interventions your team is implementing, because there are many different kinds. Some packages may be quite structured, like a child with a teacher completing a set of prescribed activities. Other packages may be more child-led, like a child with a clever playmate who teaches when opportunities naturally come up. Most packages have a combination of the two approaches, and tend to become more structured as the child ages to ready him/her to learn in school classrooms. Either way, if it is ABA, there will be data collected and activities will be adjusted according to the child’s ability to learn from them. Frequent observations and adjustments by your BCBA is important to keep your child’s progress moving forward.