Understanding Applied Behavior Analysis, Second Edition

An Introduction to ABA for Parents, Teachers, and other Professionals

Albert J. Kearney

• Editore: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781784500306
• Edizione: 2
• Argomento: Psychologie
• Categoria: Troubles du spectre autistique

This introductory guide to ABA demystifies the often complex terminology, the underlying principles, and commonly-used procedures of ABA using accessible, everyday language.

This revised and updated edition reflects recent developments and introduces new key terms. Albert J. Kearney explains the kinds of learning and reinforcement processes that form the basis of ABA programs. Having covered these essential principles, he describes how the science of behavior analysis can be effectively applied to real life behavior problems. He looks at how behavior is assessed and various intervention techniques that are often employed with children who have autism and other special needs. Having laid these essential foundations, Kearney touches on more advanced topics: the applications of ABA in behavioral education, such as precision teaching and programmed instruction.

PART 1

THE ABCs OF ABA

CHAPTER 1

WHAT DOES ABA MEAN?

All of a sudden in the last few years we seem to be hearing the term ABA whenever anyone talks about children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). Especially if we are parents, teachers, or have another role in schools these days, we are often given the impression that ABA is the only thing that’s going to save these children, and we’d better do it, and do it right now, or else we are in big trouble. Sounds pretty intimidating, doesn’t it?

You may be wondering, what the heck is ABA anyway? Where did it come from? And how am I supposed to “do” ABA when I know next to nothing about this stuff ? Where can I get some answers?

Well, you’ve come to the right place, at least to get a good start. We’re going to go over the ABCs of ABA so you’ll have a better idea about what behavioral psychologists, behaviorologists, special educators and behavior analysts are doing to your children and students, and you’ll be better able to help when these kids are at home or integrated into your classroom. But first, a brief background check on ABA, because you may already know more about ABA than you think you do.

ABA, APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

ABA is the abbreviation for applied behavior analysis.

As I mentioned in the Introduction, ABA is an approach to changing socially useful behaviors that employs scientifically established principles of learning to bring about these changes. At first glance it might appear that ABA is simply the practice of using incentives to reward “good” behavior while ignoring “bad” behavior. Actually, there’s more to ABA, a lot more, and you’re going to learn a lot more about ABA as you read through this book. From the beginning, though, you should be aware of three important characteristics of ABA that will help explain just what ABA “is.” First, the behaviors we target for change are behaviors that can have real-life applications for the person we are working with. That’s the applied part. Second, we are working with real, observable measurable behaviors rather than some abstract diagnosis, and, as we will soon see, the procedures used in ABA are based on scientifically established principles of learning. That’s where behavior comes in. The third critical characteristic of ABA is that decisions in ABA are made based on objective data that are collected to help understand what effect, if any, the interventions being used are actually having on the behavior. In many ways ABA is like an ongoing experiment in that we keep close watch over what’s happening as a result of our interventions and quickly make adjustments as needed. That’s the analysis part.

In using behavioral approaches it is of course very important that we pay close attention to the behaviors that we want to change. But it is also quite important that we pay attention to other factors as well, especially what immediately precedes or happens before the behavior, sometimes called the Antecedents, and the events that follow the Behaviors, sometimes called the Consequences. These three factors—the As, the Bs, and the Cs of behavior and what they have to do with ABA—are the main topics of the first part of this book.

CONTINGENCY OF REINFORCEMENT

The As, Bs, and Cs are so closely related that Skinner used a special term when talking about them, contingency of reinforcement, which is a three-part concept: “(1) an occasion upon which behavior occurs, (2) the behavior itself, and (3) the consequences of the behavior” (Skinner 1968, p.4).

Contrary to popular belief, ABA is not new. The Association for Behavior Analysis International, which started out in the United States as the Midwest Association for Behavior Analysis, has been around since 1974. The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis was first published in 1968, so obviously the field of ABA has been around even longer. There is often some debate about who was the first to use this term or that term. While there is a lot of debate over who came up with the term behavior therapy I haven’t heard much debate about who first used the term applied behavior analysis. No one seems to know for sure anyway. Some think Ullman and Krasner were the first to use ABA in their 1965 book Case Studies in Behavior Modification. Others say it is likely that ABA was first used by Montrose Wolf, one of the founders and the first editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (usually just called JABA). Wolf may be best known for his use of ABA principles in remedial education programs for children known as The Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, located in Kansas City, Kansas.

ABA is based on the work of the great American psychologist B. F. Skinner. Many of Skinner’s scientific contributions had to do with studying behavior and the process of learning in psychology laboratories. Skinner and his students often studied the behavior of animals such as rats and pigeons and analyzed their behavior under closely monitored conditions. Skinner’s work, which is sometimes referred to as behavior analysis or the experimental analysis of behavior, has also been applied successfully to humans in numerous ways. ABA takes the findings of Skinner and his followers and applies these findings to human beings in a variety of settings such as schools, hospitals, work places, casinos, sports, and homes. The Association for Behavior Analysis International now has more than 35 special interest groups for its members, representing such varied areas of interest and application of ABA principles as autism, behavioral gerontology, behaviorists for social action, organizational behavior management, and clinical behavior analysis. While we’ll get into greater detail later, the ABA approach combines interventions usually based on a particular kind of learning commonly associated with Skinner (i.e. operant conditioning) with methods for ongoing objective monitoring of whether or not a particular intervention (or treatment) is working.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

People working in ABA use a lot of different titles to describe themselves. Here are a few of the more common titles, in case you were wondering who these guys are anyway.

BEHAVIOR ANALYST

A behavior analyst is someone who does applied behavior analysis and who, it is hoped, is properly trained to do it well. Although way back in the twentieth century behavior analysts were mostly psychologists or educators who had specialized training and experience in ABA, in recent years there are increasing numbers of undergraduate and graduate programs specifically in ABA. So these days someone called a behavior analyst may or may not have significant training in other areas of psychology or another related field as well.

BCBA

A BCBA is a board-certified behavior analyst. That is, a behavior analyst who has met considerable educational requirements and passed a test to demonstrate their knowledge of ABA. Again, while the training of BCBAs may be limited to ABA, they may also be trained as psychologists or special educators, or be professionals in other disciplines.

In addition to BCBA, there are three other credentials currently offered by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), the organization that certifies behavior analysts. BCBA-D indicates that the BCBA has achieved doctoral level credentials as a board-certified behavior analyst. BCaBA stands for Board Certified assistant Behavior Analyst while an RBT is a Registered Behavior Technician. BCaBAs and RBTs provide various types of assistance to the BCBAs who supervise them. BCaBAs can help gather useful information and develop some behavior plans. RBTs are trained to be the paraprofessionals on the front lines working directly with the people receiving ABA services, usually at home or in a classroom.

BEHAVIOR THERAPY, BEHAVIOR THERAPIST

A behavior therapist is someone who does behavior therapy, and, like a behavior analyst, should be trained to do it well. Behavior therapy is generally thought of as an approach to psychotherapy that relies on the use of therapeutic techniques based on principles of learning, primarily operant and classical conditioning. Behavior therapy typically involves therapy sessions with a behavior therapist, often a specially trained psychologist, but sometimes psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, counselors, or others. Much of the treatment in behavior therapy involves guided talking with cooperative clients, who may be children or adults, about their problems and the directed use of behavior therapy techniques, many of which are ABA based.

Perhaps the best-known behavior therapy technique is systematic desensitization, originally developed by Joseph Wolpe (1958) and demonstrated to be particularly effective in treating phobias.

RADICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY, RADICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPIST

There are a number of treatment procedures used in traditional behavior therapy that are consistent with radical behaviorism and sometimes referred to as radical behavior therapy. Examples of these procedures, which often involve guided imagery, include systematic desensitization and covert conditioning.

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY (CBT), COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPIST

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) refers to any of a number of types of psychotherapy that emphasize trying to help clients deal better with their problems by helping them to change the ways they think or talk to themselves about things. There are many different approaches to cognitive behavior therapy that vary in how much they rely on principles of learning. One problem area that cognitive behavior therapy seems to be particularly helpful for is in treating depression. While cognitive behavior therapy isn’t generally considered to be part of ABA, many cognitive behavior therapists use ABA principles in their work.

CLINICAL BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (CBA), CLINICAL BEHAVIOR ANALYST

Clinical behavior analysis (CBA ) is another term that refers to let’s-sit-down-and-talk-about-it approaches to dealing with problem behaviors. There are several different therapies that are considered to fall under the CBA heading. Two of the better-known CBA treatments that you may have already heard of are Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT ) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT ).

An important point that these approaches have in common is that they are evidence-based approaches whose proponents understand that diagnostic labels are largely inferred from problem behaviors that can be thought of as target behaviors. It is the problem behaviors, not the diagnostic labels, that are treated.

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE (EBP)

Evidence-based practice (EBP) refers to making decisions based on real evidence rather than wild guesses, wishful thinking, or undocumented claims and promises. Just what we may be willing to accept as evidence can cover quite a wide range. Toward the lower end of this range is what is called anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is essentially support based on interesting stories. “My uncle Joe’s poison ivy healed up after he went swimming in the ocean. Therefore I know that salt water is the cure for poison ivy.” Well that’s pretty weak evidence. We should ask a few questions, including “How many other people with poison ivy have gone swimming in the ocean without their poison ivy improving?” We could also ask how many people’s poison ivy got better without going in salt water, but that answer could mislead us because there might be more than one cure. At the other end of the range we can have much more complicated controlled scientific studies that compare the results of various treatments (or no treatment at all) to each other. Would a salt water bath work any better (or worse) than a fresh water bath? Or how about a beer bath? (Warning: don’t try this at home, I don’t want to be responsible for you wasting perfectly good beer!) So if someone tries to sell you on something ask them what their evidence is.

Why do I bring this up? Psychology and education historically have been notorious for accepting treatment approaches based on theory or convincing marketing alone, with very little supporting evidence. The bright side is things do seem to be moving in the right direction. As far as being evidence based goes, ABA is a...