11/10/2025
Your child just started at an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program - what should you expect? Step one would have been an assessment process with goals selected. But how to select these goals? If my child is nonverbal or lacks a means of communication, that goal is probably number one for us. We want our child to be able to ask for things that they want. In order to do that, they need to learn the names of things. But we also want to teach our child how to imitate, because that's how we learn. And following receptive directions would be nice so when we say, 'come here' or 'get your shoes', our child can do that. So, where to start?
Luckily, there are several skill-based assessments available that use the typical child development chart as a basis for what skills to teach at what age. For example, the VB-MAPP assessment (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program) developed by Dr. Mark Sundberg, divides skills into three major sections based on developmental age -Level 1 (0-18 months), Level 2 (18-30 months), and Level 3 (30-48 months). It also includes an assessment for barriers for the child and skills necessary to transition to another learning environment. At CAC, we use the VBMAPP app to track progress (https://vbmappapp.com/home). The scoring grid is color coded based on when we conduct the assessment (see example).
Ever heard of BF Skinner? He's largely considered one of the fathers of the field of ABA. He used specialized terms for components of language, and these are reflected in the VBMAPP.
'Mands' are requests, demands, commands - things the speaker wants or wants to know. Asking about the weather is a mand as is asking for a sandwich. Many of our learners struggle to make a request so this is a great place to start programming. Language can be efficient (asking for something by speaking, signing, or selecting a picture) or inefficient (screaming until dad figures it out). We work hard on efficiency.
'Tacts' are labels, contacts, something you see, hear, smell, taste or feel and then say what that is. You smell a rose and say 'that smells like a rose.' Or you look up and say 'airplane!' when you see a plane. Talking about our environment is a major way we communicate and knowing the names of things important to us can help us tell others what we want. So, tacting is almost always a main second goal.
Then we have 'Listener' for listener responding - 'pick up the red crayon' or 'raise your hand.' We want to know if our learner can understand directions and follow them. This will help with self-help goals as well as learning. Listener responding is used frequently in classrooms or in groups.
'VPMTS' is visual perceptual match to sample - you see it and you match it. It can be an exact match or a general match - for example, blue block to blue block or blue block to a pile of blocks - it depends on the skill listed. When I am putting away forks, I match. When constructing a Lego project, I am selecting a block based on my visual perceptual match to sample skills.
Social skills, play skills, imitation and echoic (repeating back what you hear) are next, along with LRFFC - listener responding by feature, function or class. For example, 'show me the animal' (class) or 'which one do you use for washing?' (function) or 'which one has a handle?' (feature).
IV is interverbal - think conversations with interverbals. 'How old are you?' without a number prompt around you. 'Tell me what you did this morning' with no visual prompts. Group goals are tracked because learning in a group is key to transitions. And linguistics are skills involving articulation.
In level 3, basic and preliminary reading, math, and writing skills are also tracked as the child prepares for transitioning to school. As you can see, there are so many different ways we learn and communicate and each of these is targeted by developmental level in the VBMAPP. For this reason, we find it to be very useful to track progress for our learners within a developmental framework.
We will focus on barriers and transitions on the VBMAPP in our next post! See you then!
