Concept
Applied behavior analysis
Overview
Applied behavior analysis (ABA), also referred to as behavioral engineering, is a psychological discipline that uses respondent and operant conditioning to change human and animal behavior. ABA is the applied form of behavior analysis; the other two are: radical behaviorism (or the philosophy of the science) and experimental analysis of behavior, which focuses on basic experimental research.
The term applied behavior analysis has replaced behavior modification because the latter approach suggested changing behavior without clarifying the relevant behavior-environment interactions. In contrast, ABA changes behavior by first assessing the functional relationship between a targeted behavior and the environment, a process known as a functional behavior assessment. Further, the approach seeks to develop socially acceptable alternatives for maladaptive behaviors, often through implementing differential reinforcement contingencies.
Although ABA is most commonly associated with autism intervention, it has been used in a range of other areas, including applied animal behavior, substance abuse, organizational behavior management, behavior management in classrooms, and acceptance and commitment therapy. ABA is controversial and rejected by the autistic rights movement due to a perception that it emphasizes normalization instead of acceptance, as well as a history of – in some forms of ABA and its predecessors – the use of aversives, such as electric shocks.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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So great was the vogue of this procedure that the very word “method” was understood by many to signify this sort of analysis and combination of external impressions. To this day, it constitutes, with many people, a large part of what is understood by “pedagogy.” Pestalozzi himself called it the psychologizing of teaching, and, more accurately, its mechanizing.
John Dewey, Schools of to-morrow
States what Applied behavior analysis is.
Always, then, acts are called good or bad according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends; and whatever inconsistency there is in our uses of the words arises from inconsistency of the ends. Here, however, the study of conduct in general, and of the evolution of conduct, have prepared us to harmonize these interpretations.
Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics
States what Applied behavior analysis is.
In wild animals, the usual round of daily behavior seems a necessity implanted at birth; in animals domesticated, and especially in man, it seems, to a great extent, to be the result of education. The habits to which there is an innate tendency are called instincts; some of those due to education would by most persons be called acts of reason. It thus appears that habit covers a very large part of life, and that one…
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
States what Applied behavior analysis is.
Related ideas
- Operant conditioning
- Public policy
- Suicide
- Noam Chomsky
- University of California, Riverside
- Radical behaviorism
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Bias
- Dependent and independent variables
- B. F. Skinner
- Ivan Pavlov
- Methodology
- Routledge
- John B. Watson
- Arthur Caplan
- Behavioral neuroscience
- Experimental analysis of behavior
- Stimulus control
- Relational frame theory
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Behaviorism.
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