Applied Behavior Analysis

Description and Theoretical Assumptions

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the systematic application of basic behavioral principles to the solving of individual and societal problems. ABA has emerged as a preeminent perspective in the treatment of childhood disorders and disabilities, particularly problems associated with severely challenging behavior and significant skill deficits. It is a scientific school of thought rather than a specific method. Children come to professional attention because of a social judgment: Their behavior does not conform to certain adult expectations. From the ABA perspective, intervention requires modification of the social and ecological influences that define as well as regulate the child's behavior.

Behavior means anything an individual can do, including thinking and feeling, as long as these can be directly observed. Because the approach is internally consistent, applying both to the explanation and remediation of behavior problems, the principles defining behavior analysis are quite few in number, and these will be outlined. And because the deductions from these principles are infinitely variable, the strategies [Page 667]that can be applied are essentially unlimited. However, the theoretical assumptions and conventions of ABA constrain which procedures currently fall within the accepted rubric of ABA.

Historically, ABA evolved from the body of laboratory research carried out by B. F. Skinner and colleagues, experimentally analyzing the environmental influences and learning histories that predictably control an organism's behavior. The explanation for why an individual is acting a certain way is sought in the current and past environmental contingencies. This stands in contrast to the hypothesized and not directly observable internal mechanisms (traits, dispositions, or psychiatric syndromes) that are often considered causal in both psychology and everyday understanding. Most of Skinner's work dealt with what he called “operant” behavior. An operant is an overt action that impacts on the environment in some way—in the artificial research setting this was the familiar pressing of a lever that mechanically activated the delivery of food. Rate of responding was the most commonly used measure, but any characteristic of behavioral dynamics can be brought under control, such as interresponse interval, force exerted, or the particular form of how the lever is pressed. If its consequences are beneficial (food for a hungry individual), the operant response will become strengthened (“reinforced”)—will more probably reoccur in that particular context. In the natural environment, consequences typically reflect physical realities: putting on a sweater is intrinsically reinforced by warmth and protection from the cold weather outside. However, the contingencies between an action and its consequences can also be extrinsic—planfully arranged within social environments, such as a parent praising a child for independently putting on a sweater before ever going outside into the cold. Such contingency relationships are inevitably reciprocal: The parent's positive reaction will in turn be reinforced by the child's increased compliance with future requests.

It is the deliberate arrangement of environmental contingencies to shape socially desired behavior that defines applied behavior analysis. Thus, terms such as behavior management or engineering (implying manipulation for the benefit of the controlling individual), although still in use, have given way to the more neutral ABA label. The emphasis on analysis shifts the focus toward explaining behavior rather than simply trying to change it.

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