Sharing your child's ABA plan with school: what to send, and to whom

Skills learned at home, at a centre or online do not always travel to a classroom on their own. Behaviour analysts call this generalisation, and school is where it is most often tested. When the class teacher knows how your child asks for help, what helps them through a transition and how to respond to the behaviours the plan is working on, the school day stops undoing the work of therapy and starts adding to it.

Without information, kind teachers guess. A teacher who sends a distressed child out of a noisy music class every time may, without meaning to, be teaching the child that distress ends music, the very thing the plan may be trying to change with a break card. A few clear lines can prevent months of crossed wires.

It is still your decision. Some families share at admission, others wait until they know the school better. If you are unsure about timing, start with the inclusion coordinator, who can tell you how the school uses this kind of information and who would see it.

Ask the behaviour analyst to write it with you. One page, in plain words, with no jargon a teacher would have to look up. A useful summary covers:

• A line about your child: strengths, interests and what they enjoy at school.
• How they communicate, ask for help or ask for a break, including any picture cards or device.
• Three or four goals that matter in school, written as things a teacher can see, such as 'asks for help by holding up the help card'.
• What helps: a visual schedule, a warning before transitions, first-then language, a seat near the door.
• Rewards that work and are allowed in school, such as specific praise, a tick chart or a minute with a favourite book.
• The two or three behaviours the plan addresses, and exactly how an adult should respond to each.
• What not to do: for example, no forcing eye contact, no stopping harmless stimming, no taking away break time as a punishment.
• Sensory points, and anything about safety the school must know.
• Who to contact, and how.

The guide to a one-page profile for teachers has an example layout you can adapt for the ABA summary.

More is not better. Teachers have a great deal to read, and a thick file is more likely to sit in a cupboard than to change how a lesson runs. It also puts your child's private information in more hands than necessary.

• The full ABA assessment report and programme book.
• Raw data sheets and graphs, unless the inclusion coordinator asks for a summary.
• Session videos.
• Diagnostic and medical reports, beyond what the school needs for safety or has asked for in admission paperwork.
• Goals that belong at home, such as sleep, unless they affect the school day.
• Family details that are nobody's business but yours.

If the school asks for more, ask what it needs the information for and who will see it. A clear purpose usually leads to a shorter, better document.

Your child's ABA information belongs to your family. The behaviour analyst should share it with the school only with your consent, and only what you have agreed. Put that consent in writing, naming what can be shared and with whom, and say whether the analyst may speak to the teacher directly. BCBAs are bound by the BACB's Ethics Code, so a good analyst will expect these questions and welcome clear instructions.

Ask the school where the summary will be kept, who will see it, and what happens to it when your child moves class or leaves. Agree that your child's needs will not be discussed in class WhatsApp groups or in front of other parents. You can update or withdraw consent at any time; tell both the analyst and the school when you do.

If the school would like to share its own observations with the analyst, such as a teacher's note about a hard morning, agree that in writing too, so information flows both ways with your knowledge.

Give the summary first to the inclusion coordinator, or whoever the school names as your point of contact, and agree with them how the information is passed on. Different people need different amounts.

Where the school writes an individualised education plan, it should line up with the ABA goals that matter in class. The guide to what an IEP is in Indian schools explains how to raise it.

Remember the adults who change: substitute teachers, a new class teacher after the summer, the teacher who takes the class only for the Hindi or third-language period. Ask the coordinator to keep a copy where a substitute will see it, and to pass the summary on at the start of each academic year, so your child does not start from zero every June.

The most valuable thing you can share is often a short list of words. Children learn faster when every adult uses the same phrase for the same thing, and they become confused when home says 'finish, then play', therapy says 'first work, then break' and school says 'if you are good you can go out'.

• The phrase for what comes next, such as 'first maths, then blocks'.
• The word for waiting, and how the wait is shown.
• The words or card for asking for help and for asking for a break.
• How praise is given: specific, straight away, naming what the child did.
• How a transition is announced: a two-minute warning, a timer or a picture.

In a bilingual home, agree the core words in both languages, for example English at school and Hindi or Marathi at home, and write both on the summary. Photographs of the actual cards your child uses help more than descriptions.

A short, well-prepared meeting does more than a long file.

1. Ask the inclusion coordinator for a meeting before term starts, or early in the term.
2. Bring the one-page summary, printed and by email, with photographs of any cards your child uses.
3. Invite the behaviour analyst to join, in person or online, if the school agrees.
4. Agree one point of contact at school and one route for messages, such as the school diary or a weekly email.
5. Ask what the school will share back, for example a two-line weekly note on the agreed goals.
6. Set a review date, such as each parent-teacher meeting or the start of each term.

If the school is hesitant, ask what would help the teachers rather than pressing for everything at once. Start with the two or three things that matter most, show they work, and build from there. Update the summary whenever the goals change; an out-of-date plan in a file can do more harm than none. And thank the teachers for what works: a teacher who feels supported is far more likely to keep using the plan on a difficult day.

When Special Minds provides your child's ABA, the supervising BCBA can prepare the school summary with you and, with the school's agreement, meet the inclusion coordinator or support the plan in class. Special Minds also introduces shadow teachers who carry the analyst's plan through the school day. See ABA therapy at school and ABA therapy in India.