O. Ivar Lovaas

Ole Ivar Lovaas was born on May 8, 1927, in Lier, Norway. He became interested in behavioral therapy as a result of his childhood experiences in Norway during World War II. He hoped that the destruction and cruelty displayed during the war were a result of the environment and not genetics. This eventually led to his research into behavioral treatment of autism.

Lovaas began his secondary education at Drammen Latinskole in Drammen, Norway. He completed the Examen Artium, the final examinations of upper secondary school in Norway, in 1947. He continued his education in the United States. In 1951, he received a bachelor of arts degree in social studies from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. By 1958, he had received both his master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was influenced by pioneers in applied behavior analysis with children, Donald M. Baer and Sidney W. Bijou.

After receiving his PhD, Lovaas became an acting assistant professor at the University of Washington. In 1961, he took a position as assistant professor at the University of California in Los Angeles and rose to associate professor in 1965. During this time, he collaborated with Baer and Bijou on such articles as “The Interaction Between Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior” in 1961 and “Experimental Procedures for Analyzing the Interaction of Symbolic Stimuli and Children's Behavior” in 1965. Lovaas quickly advanced to full professor in 1967.

The major contributions of Lovaas to the field of psychology derive from his work with children with autism. He was strongly influenced by the work of Charles Ferster, who, in 1961, was the first major behavior analyst to advocate the use of behavioral principles to solve the behavior problems exhibited by people with autism. For instance, in 1962, Ferster and Marian K. DeMyer demonstrated that simple behaviors in children with autism could be established using contingent reinforcement. In 1964, Montrose Wolf, Todd Risley, and Hayden Mees expanded Ferster's work with a classic study showing how a systematic program of reinforcement contingencies could be used to significantly improve the life of a young boy with autism. Lovaas built on these and similar works to develop a comprehensive curriculum for the treatment of autism based on empirically validated principles of learning. For instance, in a 1965 article, “Experimental Studies in Childhood Schizophrenia: Analysis of Self-Destructive Behavior,” he demonstrated that self-injurious behavior could be reduced by reinforcement of an incompatible behavior, and in the 1969 article “Manipulation of Self-Destruction in Three Retarded Children,” he demonstrated that self-injurious behavior could be immediately reduced by presenting electric shock contingent on self-injurious behavior.

The curriculum Lovaas developed is aimed at the reduction of self-stimulatory and aggressive behaviors and also targets the development of language, social behavior, play behavior, preacademic skills, and independent living skills. By implementing intensive, early, long-term treatment based on a behavioral [Page 895]approach, he found that individuals with autism could make significant improvements in functioning not possible with treatments based on psychodynamic theory or organic psychiatry. Indeed, at the time he began his work, autism, which was then known as childhood schizophrenia, was considered largely untreatable, and many people with autism were relegated to spending their entire lives in the back wards of state hospitals. Lovaas also showed that treatment gains could be significantly enhanced if the child returned from therapy to an environment with people familiar with behavioral principles who would continue contingency management at home or other natural settings. He demonstrated that gains could be maintained if treatments were specifically designed to generalize from the treatment setting to natural contingencies of reinforcement.

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