A curious child, Caleb Wilken uses his forefinger to nudge a glob of yellow, glitter-speckled glue resting atop a pretend license plate he is making for his class at Riverside Elementary School.

The 10-year-old's autism prevents him from verbalizing what it is about the glue that fascinates him. However, a new special-needs program Caleb began in August, called Applied Behavior Analysis, is giving him the language skills he needs to one day talk about the glue's appeal.

Autism is a neurological disorder primarily affecting a person's social and communications development. About 1.5 million Americans suffer from some form of autism, according to the Autism Society of America.

In the past, autistic children in Columbia County schools were placed in special-needs classes that didn't specifically address their primary dysfunctions.

"They weren't really focused on their huge deficit, which is in socialization and language disorder," said Tiffany Brashear, the school system's lead consultant for the ABA program. "That's why the change had to come."

Mrs. Brashear helped found the school system's ABA program, which began in 2004 with 11 pupils and a staff of eight therapists. In its second academic year, the program now assists 35 children, ages 3 to 10, with 16 therapists, four teachers and four paraprofessionals. It is one of only a handful of similar programs in Georgia, Mrs. Brashear said.

Autistic children are separated into their own classes at Martinez, Lewiston and Riverside elementary schools.

Through a combination of classroom instruction and one-on-one therapy sessions, the pupils learn to replace unwanted behavior by developing their language skills.

"Say you give a kid some applesauce, but not a spoon," Mrs. Brashear explained. "Autistic kids know they don't have a spoon, but they don't know how to get one. They typically push the applesauce off the table and throw a fit.

"We teach them to replace an inappropriate behavior with a language-based behavior. We teach how to say 'spoon.'"

Therapists use individualized reinforcers, or rewards, to guide autistic pupils.

"A reinforcer could be pickles, or picking (the child) up and throwing them into the air," Mrs. Brashear said. "They work for that. They work for high-fives. Some kids will work for a Skittle.

"It creates a cause and effect for them. They learn that if they do something for me, then I'll do this for them."

As pupils progress, they'll attend regular classes with a therapist to learn social interaction skills with other classmates.

Debbie Wilken, Caleb's mother, once worried her son's autism would make him the target of ridicule and bullying by his classmates. But his social interactions with regular education pupils through the ABA program helped make Caleb popular with his fourth-grade peers.

"With his autism, he didn't want to play with the other children. He didn't know how," Mrs. Wilken said. "Now the kids won't let him stand off by himself. He gets out there and plays soccer with them. I've never seen him like that."

Caleb's academic progress in the few months he's been in the program "has been nothing short of amazing," said Riverside Elementary special-needs teacher Christie Johnson.

Caleb's success story is one of many resulting from the program, Mrs. Johnson said.

"One of my students last year was a selective mute," she said. "Now she's speaking in sentences. It's because of this program. It's truly been a godsend for these students."

When Caleb first started the program in August, his written sentences read: "I'll swimming too," and "Sunny go bats has no jaw knee."

In December, his sentence-writing abilities progressed to: "The cow is eating grass," and "The fish is in the water."

His progression has manifested into performing simple tasks at home he was unable to perform before entering the program, Mrs. Wilken said.

"He puts his clothes away," she said. "He takes out the trash now. He can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and pour his own tea."

Mrs. Wilken said she is most grateful to the program for helping Caleb express himself.

"He can tell me things that he wants," she said. "Before, he couldn't even tell me if he was hurt. Now, he can say, 'Momma, I have a headache.'

"In the past, if something was wrong he would just cry. He couldn't even tell me why he was crying."

Diagnosed with autism at age 4, Caleb's former inability of self-expression nearly cost him his life, Mrs. Wilken said.

"When he was 6 years old, he had to have emergency kidney surgery," she said. "He couldn't tell me that his kidneys were bothering him. I had to rush him to the emergency room, because the child could not sit down. Come to find out, one of his ureters was blocked."

The ureter is a tube connecting the kidney to the bladder. Had it not been found, the blockage might have ruptured the tube, said Mrs. Wilken, a medical manager of an area doctor's office.

"I feel like those worries are behind me now," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "He just amazes us every day."

Reach Donnie Fetter at 868-1222, ext. 113, or donnie.fetter@augustachronicle.com.