10 to 25 hours on specific goals, or 26 to 40 across everything at once. How the choice really gets made.
Focused ABA targets one or two specific goals at roughly 10 to 25 hours a week. Comprehensive ABA works many developmental areas at once, usually 26 to 40 hours. Neither one is better. They answer different situations, the assessment decides, and any provider who always lands on the same answer isn't really deciding. Here's how the choice gets made at Budding Futures ABA, in-home across Colorado.
| Focused ABA | Comprehensive ABA | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical hours | 10 to 25 per week | 26 to 40 per week |
| Scope | One or two priority goals | Many areas at once: communication, social, adaptive, play |
| Common fit | School-age kids with specific gaps or behaviors | Recently diagnosed young children with delays across areas |
| Feel of the week | Therapy fits around school and life | Therapy is a large share of the week, woven through routines |
| Examples | Replace aggression, build toileting, unlock requesting | EIBI for a 3-year-old working on communication, play, and daily skills together |
The hour ranges come from the practice guidelines insurers use to authorize ABA. They are ranges, not prescriptions. Your child's number comes from a VB-MAPP or ABLLS-R assessment and medical necessity.
Take a nine-year-old who's doing fine in school but hitting at home. He doesn't need 35 hours a week. He needs a functional assessment, a plan aimed at the aggression, and enough weekly hours to run it, often 10 to 15. Focused therapy also fits kids stepping down after bigger gains, families adding ABA around a full school day, and single-front goals like potty training. The win condition is clear: the goal resolves, and hours shrink or end.
Now picture the other family. Their two-year-old was diagnosed last month, has a handful of words, little pretend play, and no reliable way to ask for anything. That child isn't working on a goal, she's working on everything, because at that age everything feeds everything. Splitting her needs into one goal at a time would waste the years that matter most. Comprehensive plans, including early intensive behavioral intervention, exist for exactly her: broad teaching, higher hours, woven through play and home routines rather than run at a table.
The assessment picks the starting model, and the data moves it. Comprehensive plans step down to focused as skills hold. Focused plans occasionally widen when the assessment finds more ground to cover. Every insurance authorization forces a fresh look, and Rachel Blackburn, BCBA reviews each plan at roughly 20 percent supervision, so the recommendation follows your child instead of a template. Be cautious with any provider whose every recommendation is the same number.
Cost tracks hours, which makes the model choice a money question too. Health First Colorado usually covers either model at $0 under Provider Types 83 and 84. Commercial plans typically run $0 to $500 out of pocket, sometimes up to $1,000, and private pay runs roughly $2,000 to $8,000 depending on hours. We verify benefits before recommending anything, statewide, in home, with no waitlist right now.
The two models sit on one intensity ladder, alongside EIBI and maintenance care.
For Medicaid families the answer is usually yes, at $0, because Health First Colorado covers medically necessary hours under EPSDT. For commercial plans, we verify exactly what your deductible and out-of-pocket max mean before you commit. Nobody should discover the cost after the schedule starts.
It is a red flag. Hours follow assessment and medical necessity. A recommendation that arrives before the assessment is a business model, not a clinical judgment.
Yes, and families do. Starting focused on the most painful goal, then widening if the assessment supports it, is a legitimate path, especially when a family needs to build trust in ABA first.
She writes and reviews every treatment plan, and supervises the therapists who work in your home.
Read Rachel's profileHe founded Budding Futures and runs the day to day, from a family's first phone call onward.
Read Mark's profileTell us your child's age and what you are hoping therapy changes first. We will tell you which model the assessment is likely to point toward.