Why is my child making slow progress in their training?
What should I do if my child is making slow progress in their training?
1. Analyze the factors influencing progress
- The Intensity of Intervention: Ensure that children receive intensive intervention and professional supervision
- Treatment Approach: Select a highly flexible, individualized approach that can be readily adapted based on the child’s ongoing progress.
- Consistency: Maintain continuity and stability in intervention, avoiding frequent changes in treatment approach.
- Parental Involvement: Parents should actively participate in the autism intervention process and closely collaborate with professionals.
- Targeted Curriculum: The curriculum should focus on expanding students’ learning motivation and methods, not just teaching specific skills.
- Other Factors: Consider whether the child has any other physiological conditions that may impact their development and seek professional clinical advice when necessary.

2. Observe the Behaviors of Children with Autism
- Learning Motivation: Assess whether the child has sufficient external, social, and internal motivation to learn. Observe if the child can learn through feedback and observation.
- Behavioral Problems: Observe if the child frequently exhibits disruptive behaviors that interfere with learning, such as tantrums, not following intrusctions, and excessive repetitive behaviors.
- Learning Strategies: Examine whether the child demonstrates consistent learning strategies, such as calmness, initiative, and motivation of learning, across different environments.

3. Identify the differences between regression and stagnation
When a child exhibits regressive behavior, parents need to carefully analyze the underlying causes. If the child is struggling with more complex and challenging program compared to before, this is typically a normal progression. However, if it’s related to learning motivation and strategies, then in-the-moment adjustments to the intervention strategy are necessary.
In such cases, it is important to help the child cultivate stronger learning motivation, reinforce productive learning behaviors, break down tasks into small steps, and provide appropriate support to ensure the curriculum is both engaging and meets the child’s needs.
When a child with ASD is exhibiting slow progress, parents should maintain patience and confidence. They should thoroughly analyze the situation and work closely with the clinical team to collaboratively develop suitable intervention strategies for the child.
Maintain Patience, Proceed in Gradual
An essential part of this journey is carefully selecting the skill areas to target. We understand that most parents are especially concerned with their child’s language development. Our goal aligns with that of the parents: to help children communicate fully and become more verbal. However, it’s important to recognize that intervention is a gradual process that requires step by step.
Before focusing on language development, children need to master several foundational skills. First, we must address behaviors that may interfere with learning or hinder meaningful progress, such as repetitive behaviors, emotional meltdowns, and resistance to cooperation. Once these issues are effectively managed, we can shift our focus to building “learning how to learn” skills. For example, children need to learn how to remain calm, maintain focus, take initiative, engage in learning with effort, and respond appropriately to feedback. Without these essential “learning how to learn” skills, it is extremely difficult for children to become independent learners.
Children with ASD who lack motivation and these foundational learning skills, even with intensive intervention, will struggle to acquire other necessary skills. By focusing on developing these “learning how to learn” skills, we not only help children become more effective learners but also enable them to learn more efficiently, often picking up new skills on their own without explicit teaching. This highlights the importance of parents maintaining patience throughout this journey.
At Autism Partnership (AP), we adopt our very own treatment method called, Autism Partnership Method (APM™). AP Method™ is a progressive model of ABA and is a high quality treatment approach for ASD.