Can Special Interests Be Part of ABA Goals?

Ask what the interest means

An interest may provide enjoyment, expertise, predictability, connection, identity, comfort, or a route into new experiences. Ask the person when and how they want it included. Avoid assuming that all intense interests need expansion, reduction, or clinical treatment.

The CASP public guideline summary supports individualized, person-relevant planning.

Choose a goal beyond adult approval

A useful goal might involve finding a club, communicating expertise, planning a visit, creating a project, applying a skill at work, or requesting privacy. Define the outcome the person wants and the ordinary supports involved.

Keep harmless repetition, solitary enjoyment, and deep knowledge as valid leisure choices.

Protect access and consent

Do not remove the interest to manufacture motivation or require unrelated performance for all access. Ask before sharing collections, writing, recordings, online identity, or personal information. The ASHA AAC portal supports continual communication access, including interest-related vocabulary.

Use ethical clinical boundaries

The BACB Ethics Code addresses client preferences, involvement, consent and assent when applicable, assessment, prioritizing positive reinforcement, risk, intervention, and evaluation for covered behavior analysts.

Ask how the person can change or end the arrangement.

Decide how the interest will be used

A special interest may be the activity itself, a topic for communication, a context for learning, a source of expertise, a social connection, a career path, or one optional outcome among several. Name the role before writing the procedure.

Using an interest as the content of a reading passage differs from withholding access until work is done. Building a goal around sharing expertise differs from teaching the person to talk less about the topic. Each arrangement needs its own purpose, consent, access, and measure.

Preserve free access and identity

Ask how much ordinary access the person currently has and what the interest provides. It may support joy, regulation, competence, community, or identity. A clinical plan should not convert all access into payment or frame enthusiasm as a symptom to eliminate.

Set boundaries only around a specific, meaningful concern such as unsafe materials, missed essential responsibilities, or a communication partner's need for turn-taking. Keep the concern narrow and teach reciprocal options without requiring the person to hide expertise.

Work through a transit-interest example

Consider a fictional teenager named Hana who loves transit maps and wants to travel more independently. She chooses a goal of planning a trip to a community art class. The team uses her map knowledge as the activity context, while the practical outcomes are checking service changes, asking for help, and choosing a backup route.

Across six planned trips, current schedule information is available in five. Hana selects a route in all five and uses her help message during two disruptions. Partners respond correctly both times. One trip is held because the accessible route is unavailable.

These measures describe trip-system readiness and Hana's chosen skills. They do not show that the interest caused learning or that every future goal should involve transit.

Watch for adult appropriation

Staff may enjoy the interest or use it to make sessions easier. Ask whether the person still controls the topic, materials, possessions, and how much is shared. Do not post their creations, borrow valued items, or use the interest in marketing without the appropriate permission.

Avoid overusing a topic until it becomes tiring. Offer genuine alternatives and time without teaching. The person should be able to change interests without losing access to relationships or support.

Generalize the outcome, not forced sameness

If the goal is asking for help, practice can eventually occur in other chosen contexts while the interest remains one useful setting. If the goal is conversation, success may include finding people who share the interest rather than performing generic small talk with everyone.

Ask whether generalization is needed for the person's life and how they want it to look. A skill can remain context-specific when that is meaningful and safe.

Measure the chosen outcome

In a fictional example, Niko chooses five museum-club activities connected to an interest. Access and communication are ready for four; Niko chooses three and declines one. Report 4/5 readiness and the three choices categorically.

Do not call declining the fourth activity a failure or use participation to rate the value of Niko's interest.

Ask who benefits from the goal

Some goals use a special interest to make adult-selected work easier. Others help the person pursue the interest, join a community, build expertise, or create something they value. Ask which outcome the person chose and how it improves their life.

If the interest appears only as a reward for unrelated tasks, review whether free access remains and whether the task itself needs change. If the interest becomes the teaching context, ask whether the person can opt out without losing ordinary enjoyment.

Protect ownership, privacy, and property

Clarify who owns collections, artwork, recordings, account credentials, and created materials. Staff should not take, photograph, share, sell, or use them in presentations without the appropriate permission. A therapy goal does not transfer ownership.

Online communities and public events can create privacy and safety questions. Teach chosen digital or community skills without monitoring more information than the goal requires. Preserve confidential browsing, communication, and identity within applicable safety limits.

Prepare for boundaries in shared settings

An interest can support connection, yet peers and coworkers may have their own choices. Goals can address checking whether someone wants to continue, taking turns, finding shared-interest groups, and handling a polite no. The person should also expect partners to show equal respect for their no.

Avoid targets based only on how long the person talks. Measure whether both partners have access, messages are understood, and the interaction serves the person's goal. A long conversation with an interested peer may be more successful than brief small talk forced with a stranger.

Review health and practical risks

Some interests involve tools, vehicles, collecting, food, animals, fire, water, travel, spending, or intense physical activity. Identify the actual risk and qualified owner. Use safety supports that preserve as much meaningful access as possible.

If sleep, nutrition, pain, finances, school, work, or relationships are affected, assess those outcomes directly. Do not assume the interest is the cause simply because it occurs nearby.

Give families a written interest plan

The plan can name the person's goal, how the interest is used, free access, chosen boundaries, property rules, safety supports, communication, data, and review triggers. Include what staff may never remove or share.

At review, ask the person whether the arrangement kept the interest enjoyable. End or change it when therapy makes a valued activity feel controlled, repetitive, or no longer theirs.