• A scientific approach for discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and for developing a technology of behavior change that is practical and applicable.

• ABA is an evidence-based APPLIED science.

• A Systematic approach for seeking and organizing knowledge about the natural world. Science is based on Determinism.

• To achieve a thorough understanding of the phenomena under study.

• In ABA, the phenomena are socially important behaviors.

1. Description
2. Prediction
3. Control

• Systematic observations that can be quantified and classified. Not casual explanations

• Ex: number of praise statements made by a teacher in a classroom.

Prediction

(AKA: Correlation; Covariation)

• Two events may regularly occur at the same time. This does not necessarily mean one causes the other.

• Ex: when the weather is hot, ice cream sales go up. This is a CORRELATION, but it cannot be assumed hot weather causes ice cream sales to go up.

Control

(AKA: Causation)

• Functional relation. THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING. Experimental demonstration that manipulating one event (i.e. independent variable) results in another event (i.e. dependent variable).

• Ex: Penicillin cures bacterial infections.

6 Attitudes of Science

6 Philosophical Assumptions of Behavior

1. Determinism
2. Empiricism
3. Experimentation
4. Replication
5. Parsimony
6. Philosophic Doubt

• Presumption that the universe is a lawful and orderly place, in which all phenomena occur as the result of other events

• Cause and effect
• If / Then statements
• The world is orderly and predictable

• The practice of objective observation of the phenomena of interest.

• FACTS
• Experimental, data-based scientific approach, drawing upon observation and experience
• Requires objective quantification and detailed description of events

Experimentation

(AKA: Experimental Analysis)

• Basic research in controlled settings that is not focused on improving socially significant behavior.

• Requires manipulating variables (IV) so as to see the effects on the dependent variable (DV)
• Assessment to determine if one event causes another

• Repeating experiments or conditions within an experiment to determine the reliability and usefulness of findings.

• How scientists discover their mistakes, thus making science a self-correcting enterprise

• The practice of ruling out the simplest most logical explanations before considering more complex explanations.

• Helps scientists fit findings within the field's existing knowledge base.

• The attitude that the truthfulness and validity of all scientific knowledge should be continually questioned.

• Having healthy skepticism and a critical eye about the results of studies and work with your client

7 Dimensions of ABA

(GET A CAB)

1. Generality
2. Effective
3. Technological
4. Applied
5. Conceptually Systematic
6. Analytic
7. Behavioral

Generality

(AKA: Generalization)

• Extends the behavior change across time, settings, or other behaviors

• Improves behavior in particular manner, not simply making a change that is statistically significant.

• Defines procedures clearly and in detail so they are REPLICABLE (like a recipe)

• Only SOCIALLY SIGNIFICANT BEHAVIORS with immediate importance are targeted.

• Improves daily life of client.
• Also helps significant others so they behave more positively towards client.

• All procedures used should be derived from basic principles of ABA

Analytical

(AKA: Functional Relation, Experimentation, Control, Causation)

• Describes when an experimenter has demonstrated a functional relation between IV and reliable change in a measurable dimension of DV.

• A Functional Relation is demonstrated

• The behavior chosen for change must be the behavior in need of improvement.

• An approach to explaining behavior that assumes an inner dimension exists and causes behavior.

• Ex: Freud, talk therapy

• Presumed but unobserved entities

• Ex: Free will, readiness, information processing, unobservable storage and retrieval processes for memory

• The cause and effect are both caused by the same information

• Ex: "He cried because he felt sad", the sad feeling and crying are both inferred from the same depressive behaviors

• Fictitious variables that are another name for the observed behavior. They contribute nothing to an understanding of the variables responsible for maintaining behavior. 

• Words including "knows", "wants", "figures out"

• The philosophy of the science of behavior.
• Environmental explanation of behavior.

4 Branches of Behavior Analysis

(CASE)

1. Conceptual Analysis of Behavior (AKA Behaviorism)
2. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
3. Behavior Service Delivery
4. Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)

Conceptual Analysis of Behavior

(AKA: Behaviorism)

• Examines philosophical, theoretical, historical and methodological issues.

• Refers to behavior analysts that assess, monitor, analyze, revise, and communicate the effects of their work.
• They create behavior-change tactics that can increase behavior, teach and maintain behavior, make behavior sensitive to environmental events, generalize behavior, reduce problem behavior etc. 
• TECHNOLOGY for improving behavior

• Refers to the many people in various fields of work implementing ABA.

• Research on basic processes and principles.

• Conducted mainly in laboratories

1. Respondent Behavior
2. Operant Behavior

Respondent Behavior

(AKA: Reflex)

• Elicited or brought about by stimuli that immediately precede them (i.e. antecedent stimuli)
• Involuntary
• Unlearned- behaviors someone does not have to learn

• The eliciting stimulus (US) and the behavior it produces (UR) that is part of an organism's genetic endowment 

• Ex: Gag reflex (UR) when you choke on food (US)

• When the eliciting stimulus is presented repeatedly over a short time, the strength of the respondent behavior diminishes. 

• EX: the startle response to a loud noise diminishes with repeated presentations. 

• Behavior that is inherited genetically.

• Respondent behavior is due to Phylogenic history. 

Respondent Conditioning

(AKA: Pavlovian / Classical Conditioning)

• When new stimuli acquire the ability to elicit respondents.

US → UR                   (food)  →  (salivation)

NS                            (tone)  →  (no salivation)

NS + US → UR           (tone) + (food)  →  (salivation)

US → UR                   (food)  →  (salivation)

CS → CR                   (tone)  →  (salivation)

Operant Behavior

(AKA: S-R-S)

• Emit / Evoke
• Any behavior whose probability of occurrence is determined by its history of consequences.
• Voluntary action

Adaptation

• Reductions in responding evoked by an antecedent stimulus over repeated or prolonged presentations. 

• Ex: not laughing after hearing a joke for the 10th time.

• Learning that results from an organism's interaction with his environment.

• Operant behavior is due to Ontogenic history.

Operant Contingency

(AKA: ABC)

• The occasion for a response (Sd), the response, and the outcome of the response.

• The dependency of a particular consequence on the occurrence of the behavior.

• When two stimuli occur close together IN TIME, resulting in an association of those two stimuli

• Scientifically derived rules that describe the predictable relation between a biological organism's response and objects and events that can influence behavior.

• Reinforcement
• Punishment
• Extinction