[ by Jason M. Wallin ]

Behaviorism is the examination of human and animal behavior using the principles of science: observation, reproduction, testing, objectivity, etc. Applied behavior analysis, then, is the application of this science of behavior to meet a certain end: to increase or decrease a particular behavior, to improve the quality of a behavior, to stop an old behavior, or teach a new.

The principles of ABA have been around for quite some time, and have myriad uses outside the scope of teaching children with autism. ABA can be the basis of programs addressing a broad spectrum of human behavior, from increasing the productivity of the workplace, to precisely training military personnel, to, indeed, teaching children.

It is important to understand that ABA is a framework for the practice of a science and not a specific program. This can be a difficult point to discern when one begins an examination of programs for children with autism and regularly encounters tales of folks who are "doing ABA." Typically these folks are actually running a Lovaas-type program or another program based on discrete trials (which, indeed, are an important element of many ABA-based interventions, but are not the whole of ABA itself). It may seem a semantic argument, but one should remember that ABA is a set of principles and guidelines upon which educational programs (or any number of applications) are based and shouldn't be used synonymously with a specific program.

In one of the seminal works on applied behavior analysis, Baer, Wolf, and Risely (1967) outlined seven essential elements of an ABA-based program:

• The program must be applied. The behaviors that one chooses to focus upon should have some social significance.
• The program must be behavioral. The environment and physical events should be recorded with precision.
• The program must be analytic. There should be clear and convincing evidence, through carefully collected data, that the intervention is responsible for a change in a behavior.
• The program must be technological. The techniques that one uses should be described completely enough to allow for duplication by another individual.
• The program must be conceptually systematic. There should be relevance to established and accepted principles (for example, the principle of operant conditioning).
• The program must be effective. The program should seek to change the targeted behavior to a meaningful degree.
• The program should display some generality. A change in behavior should be seen in a wide variety of environments, or should spread to a wide variety of related or similar behaviors.

You will find a hodgepodge of terms for ABA-based interventions for children with autism floating around: the UCLA model, Intensive Behavior Intervention (IBI), Applied Verbal Behavior (though, similar to ABA, this is really a framework for the application of the science of Verbal Behavior), Discrete-Trial Training, Pivotal Response Training, and Natural Environment Training (NET). Each may use a unique system of instruction, each may identify different behaviors of focus, but each is based on the science of ABA.