It’s been a long journey—the child in your care has had an autism evaluation—and you’ve decided to begin ABA therapy for the child you care for. Now you need to decide where the therapy should take place. Maybe you’ve been googling, “in-home ABA therapy near me,” “center-based ABA therapy,” or “ABA therapy near me.” You simply want to know what’s better—in-home ABA therapy or center-based ABA therapy?

The good news is that you can’t go wrong. ABA therapy is effective, considered the gold standard treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and is successful in any location where it’s practiced. The decision on where ABA therapy takes place is typically made based on the individual child’s strengths and preferences, as well as their ABA treatment plan.

The other piece of good news? You don’t necessarily have to pick one therapy location over the other. ABA therapy is portable and flexible. Many children will have experiences doing ABA therapy in more than one setting.

This article will take a close look at in-home ABA therapy vs center-based ABA therapy, highlighting the unique benefits of each, and helping caregivers navigate different ABA therapy settings with confidence and ease. 

Understanding In-Home ABA Therapy vs Center-Based ABA Therapy

There’s a saying among ABA therapy experts that goes, “Where the behavior lives, ABA therapy lives.” It means that ABA therapy is most effective when it happens in natural environments. In-home therapy provides a familiar setting, while center-based therapy replicates many environments children often naturally find themselves in. Both settings can offer the “lived experience” that helps translate the skills children learn in ABA therapy to their real lives.

What Happens in Both In-Home and Center-Based Therapy?

Whether ABA therapy happens in a home environment or at an ABA center, the therapy focuses on teaching children the skills they need to thrive in any environment they find themselves in. In ABA therapy, the child engages in activities they encounter during their day-to-day life—guided by their ABA behavior technician.

Examples of activities that happen in both in-home ABA therapy and center-based ABA therapy include:

• Practice of daily living tasks, like hand washing and shoe tying
• Social interaction
• Communication skill building
• Visual strategies
• Fine and motor skill work
• Play-based activities like board games, puzzles, sensory play, art, and role-play

Center-Based ABA Therapy

An ABA center is a facility that’s 100% dedicated to ABA therapy. ABA centers are fully stocked with equipment to teach core ABA skills—skills that can be transferred to environments such as school, work, and other public settings. They are usually staffed by ABA “behavior technicians,” who are trained to compassionately and thoughtfully guide children through ABA therapy. In your initial sessions, you’ll learn more about what an ABA therapist does. 

In-Home ABA Therapy

In-home ABA therapy is just what it sounds like—it’s when ABA therapy takes place in the comfort of your own home. During an in-home ABA therapy session, an ABA behavior technician visits your home and engages in targeted activities that teach children essential behavioral skills. During in-home ABA therapy, family members and caregivers may be involved, and the activities will take place in a familiar environment.

The Surprising Truth: ABA Therapy at Home is More Restrictive

While you can’t beat the comfort and convenience of in-home ABA therapy, the truth is that center-based ABA therapy has some key advantages over home-based therapy.

It seems kind of counterintuitive, right? Most of us think of home as a place where a child feels most comfortable and less restricted, and that a more formal setting—like an ABA therapy center—would be more restrictive. But what’s been observed from clinical experience is the opposite. ABA therapy at home can actually be a more restrictive environment than an ABA center.

Why is this? Well, home environments typically offer fewer opportunities for socialization, a vital component of ABA therapy. At ABA centers, there are opportunities to practice socializing and communication skills with a child’s peers and wider community. ABA centers also more closely replicate settings like school, camp, and other environments where it’s important for kids to translate their ABA skills. 

What the Research Says

There is some research suggesting that center-based ABA therapy is more beneficial than in-home ABA therapy. For example, a 2016 study published in Behavior Analysis in Practice found that, when comparing participants who received both home-based and center-based ABA therapy, participants attained 100% more learning per hour in the center-based programs.

The researchers hypothesize that this difference may be due to center-based ABA therapy providing more structure and occurring in a more intentional environment. ABA center-based therapy also typically has fewer distractions than in-home therapy and offers more access to socialization, according to the researchers. 

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Pros and Cons of In-Home vs. Center-Based ABA Therapy

There are pros and cons to both in-home ABA therapy and center-based ABA therapy—and what is right for a particular child depends on the child themselves, their treatment plan, their specific goals and challenges, and where they are in their ABA journey.

Let’s take a look at the advantages of both in-home and center-based ABA therapy. You can use this list to compare and contrast the two settings and decide which is best for a child.

In-Home ABA

Advantages

• Convenience—no need to travel to get to appointments
• Comfort and ease
• More opportunities for caregiver and family involvement
• Can address home-specific behaviors, like sleep and mealtime
• More opportunities for parent training 

Disadvantages

• Limited opportunities for socialization
• More distractions
• Privacy concerns
• Challenges in translating skills to additional environments, such as school or other public settings
• Less structured setting
• Less ABA therapy equipment 

Center-Based ABA

Advantages

• More opportunities for peer interactions
• Access to specialized ABA therapy equipment
• Fewer distractions
• More structure
• Opportunity for parent and caregiver respite (yes, you need breaks, too!)
• Opportunity to translate skills to similar environments, like school and other learning and social settings 

Disadvantages

• Transportation required
• Must fit sessions into family schedule
• Fewer opportunities for parent observation
• Transition anxiety may occur at first (though this typically dissipates fairly quickly)

ACES' Strategic Approach to ABA Therapy

At ACES, every child is viewed as the unique individual they are. When it comes to decisions about where ABA therapy should take place, each child’s specific strengths and preferences are considered, and locations are recommended based on what would benefit the child most.

These recommendations are based on metrics and data gathered from initial assessments and real-time tracking of a child’s progress through their ABA therapy journey. Decisions are made jointly between caregivers, ABA assessors and supervisors, teachers, and other professionals involved in a child’s care. 

ACES’ Progression Model

ACES, where ABA therapy takes place, may change over time. All cases are different, but most of the time, therapy follows a progression model, beginning with more home-based sessions, then more sessions at an ABA center, and finally sessions in a child’s wider community.

ACES’ progression model typically looks like this:

• Phase 1: Often starting at home to build rapport and address urgent behaviors
• Phase 2: Transition to an ACES ABA center, to build socialization skills and to promote school readiness
• Phase 3: Skill practice in the community
• Phase 4: Graduation from ABA therapy

Again, this is only a model, and is not the way things always progress. At ACES, recommendations aren’t rigid; they are flexible based on a child’s strengths, preferences, and goals, and can change over time. 

How to Decide What’s Right for a Child

When it comes to which ABA therapy setting is right for a child, the decision doesn’t have to rest completely on your shoulders. Typically, decisions will be guided by advice from a child’s care team, which may include ABA behavior technicians, ABA supervisors, a child’s teachers, and other professionals.

These professionals can also offer insights about a child’s strengths and preferences. They’ll collaborate on a plan that works best for your family, and which centers may offer the specific skill training the child needs to reach their goals.

It’s best not to select an ABA setting based on what seems most comfortable or convenient, but rather on what offers the most benefits to the child. Remember, too, that the best ABA setting for a child will vary over time as the child changes and grows. 

Where to Go From Here

So—if you’ve been frantically googling “in-home ABA therapy near me,” now you have a clearer understanding of in-home vs center-based ABA therapy, and it’s time to get started. You’ve learned a lot about how ABA therapy works, and ACES offers both in-home ABA therapy and center-based therapy, all with highly-trained ABA behavior technicians and supervisors who help children meet their goals with care and compassion.

Get started with ACES ABA therapy now!

References

Dixon, D. R., Burns, C. O., Granpeesheh, D., Amarasinghe, R., Powell, A., & Linstead, E. (2016). A Program Evaluation of Home and Center-Based Treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Behavior analysis in practice, 10(3), 307–312.