Applied Behavior Analysis

You may be wondering — what do I mean by Applied Behavior Analysis? Applied Behavior Analysis is an approach based on the principles of learning and the science of behavior. The focus is on developing or strengthening positive, healthy behaviors while discouraging unhealthy behaviors. The basic paradigm is ABC — Antecedents, Behavior, and Consequences: what happens before the behavior, the behavior itself, and the positive or negative consequences that follow the behavior.


There has been some very negative reviews of ABA recently. Most of them center around the rigid following of some rather simplistic, rigid approaches. Two recent offshoots of ABA are Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). These will be discussed in the following pages.

PBS

ACT

Let's first consider what I mean by mechanistic following of rules and procedures
Problem #1 — poorly trained behavior analysts who go into the home to provide support and come up with simplistic solutions to complex behavior problems. 90% of the time they will say — the child is doing it for attention and design an intervention around this. Now attention may be a common reason (function) for behavior problems but it should not be the automatic response given without a thorough functional assessment being done to eliminate other potential reasons why the child is doing this particular challenging behavior.
Problem #2 — Parents not consistently and correctly implementing the intervention procedures. So many times I will work with parents who say that they have tried everything and nothing works. Upon careful observation I frequently come to the conclusion that they are not implementing the proposed procedure correctly and/or they are not consistently implementing it.

So what are the solutions to these problems?