Short answer: many kids benefit from both, and they work better together when someone coordinates the plan. Here’s the plain-English version — what each one does, when one is enough, and what to expect if your child runs both at the same time.
Speech therapy and ABA both help kids communicate and connect, but they aim at different parts of the puzzle. Knowing the split makes it much easier to pick what your child needs first — or whether the answer is “both, please.”
An SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) works on how your child produces sounds, builds vocabulary, forms sentences, follows directions, and understands what others say. They also help with feeding, swallowing, voice quality, and stuttering when those come up.
A BCBA-led ABA team works on how your child learns new skills and replaces patterns that are getting in the way. That covers daily routines, attention, play, social skills, emotional regulation, and the “why” behind challenging behavior — including hitting, eloping, or tantrums that don’t fit the moment.
A rough mental model: speech therapy is mostly about what your child says. ABA is mostly about how your child learns — and how they behave while learning. Many kids have needs on both sides, and that’s where the two services start to overlap.
Most of the families we serve end up with a child in both ABA and speech therapy at some point. They’re not competing — they’re solving different problems on the same kid. Here are the patterns we see most.
Speech therapy builds the sounds and the AAC system. ABA reinforces every attempt to communicate across the rest of the day — mealtimes, transitions, play — so the new words don’t stay locked in the therapy room.
Speech can work on pragmatics — conversation turn-taking, tone, reading social cues. ABA practices those skills in real situations with peers and gives feedback in the moment so the lessons stick.
If your child can’t stay seated, can’t tolerate the SLP’s prompts, or melts down at the table, speech progress stalls. ABA addresses the behavior side so the speech sessions can actually run.
Dressing, mealtimes, sleep, sibling conflict, riding in the car. These show up everywhere, not just in language. ABA leads here; speech supports any communication piece (asking for help, saying “all done”).
Pre-K and K demand listening, following group directions, and waiting your turn — all at once. Running both in the year before kindergarten gives the broadest readiness lift.
Speech (with feeding training) leads on chewing, swallowing, and oral-motor patterns. ABA leads on the behavioral side — tolerating new textures, sitting through a meal, reducing food refusal.
Parents sometimes worry that two therapies will overload their child or that insurance won’t cover both. Neither is usually true. With a real coordination plan, the two services reinforce each other.
Schedules adjust by age, stamina, and what your insurance authorizes. This is a starting point, not a template.
Coordinated care only works if the BCBA and the SLP actually talk. Here’s the playbook we use with every family who runs both at On Target ABA.
At intake, we ask you to sign a release for any outside SLP. Their assessment and current goals come into our file.
The BCBA writes the ABA plan with SLP targets mirrored where they overlap — same word lists, same prompt fading order.
A short call or co-treatment session with the SLP — what’s working, what to drop, what to add next month.
You get a single weekly summary covering both services so you’re not stitching two reports together at the kitchen table.
Not every child needs both services. If your evaluation points to one clear lane, that’s the lane we’ll recommend. Some of the most common “just one” cases we see:
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If speech is making steady progress and there are no major behavior or daily-living concerns, you may not need ABA at all. If progress in speech has plateaued, behavior is blocking sessions, or you’re seeing gaps outside of language (sleep, transitions, social, big emotions), adding ABA usually unlocks the rest. A free intake call with our BCBA can sort this out in 15 minutes.
For most major insurers, yes. Speech therapy and ABA are billed under different CPT code families, so they don’t collide. We verify your specific plan during intake and tell you exactly what’s covered before we start. Most of our families pay $0 out of pocket once authorization is in.
It’s a fair worry. The fix is scheduling, not skipping. We pull the speech session inside the ABA day so your child isn’t bouncing between buildings or stacking sessions back-to-back at home. Younger kids get shorter blocks with built-in play breaks. If we ever see fatigue creep in, we dial the hours back — family stamina is part of the plan.
On Target ABA delivers ABA. We partner with trusted local SLPs in each of our regions and coordinate with the speech therapist you already have. If you don’t have one yet, we’ll refer you to providers we’ve worked with successfully — not a random list, just people we know do good work.
Start with whichever is blocking the other. If behavior is making speech sessions impossible — start ABA first, add speech once your child can sit through it. If your child is willing and engaged but truly has no words, start speech and add ABA to generalize what the SLP is teaching. When we don’t know which is the bigger barrier, we run a short ABA assessment, watch your child for a couple of sessions, and recommend honestly.
Tell us a little about your child and we’ll give you a straight answer — ABA, speech, both, or neither. We’ll point you in the right direction either way. No waitlist, no pressure, no $0-now-charged-later games.
Mon–Fri, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM · Serving the Salt Lake Valley, Cleveland, and Columbus.