Van Houten et al Article: ABA Principles

• Article research assignment due February 2nd
• Van Houten et al. Article
• What is behaviour?
• Behaviour & the environment
• A history of ABA
• Operant Conditioning
• Respondent Conditioning

Van Houten Et. Al. (1988)

• For several decades, clinical procedures from experimental and applied behavior analysis have been developed, evaluated, and refined.
• These procedures have demonstrated the ability to teach new behavior and alleviate a variety of behavioral disorders.
• Many who would benefit from behavioral treatment are not receiving it so there is a professional obligation to make available the most effective treatment that the discipline can provide.
• A statement of clients' rights is offered to direct both the ethical and appropriate application of behavioral treatment.

An Individual Has a Right to A Therapeutic Environment

• A safe, humane, and responsive physical and social environment that addresses individual needs is necessary for effective treatment.
• Access to therapeutic services, leisure activities, and materials that are both enjoyable and instructive, client preferences, age-appropriateness, educative value is a right.
• Access to competent, responsive, and caring staff and positive interaction are also components of a therapeutic environment.
• Finally, the right to enjoyment, learning, independence, the fewest restrictions, individual safety and development, and freedom of movement are important.

An Individual Has a Right to Services whose Overriding Goal Is Personal Welfare

• The primary purpose of behavioral treatment is to assist individuals in acquiring functional skills that promote independence.
• Both the immediate and long-term welfare of an individual are considered through the active participation by the client or someone representing the client's best interests.

An Individual Has a Right to Treatment by a Competent Behaviour Analyst

• Professionals delivering, directing, or evaluating behavioral treatment effects should have appropriate education and experience
• The behavior analyst's academic training should reflect thorough knowledge of behavioral principles, assessment and treatment methods, research methodology, and professional ethics
• Adequate practicum training and supervision should be included, applicable to the relevant client population.

An Individual Has the Right to Programs That Teach Functional Skills

• The ultimate goal of all services is to increase the ability of individuals to function effectively in both their immediate environment and the larger society.
• The desired outcome is improvement of functioning, it includes acquisition, maintenance or generalization of behaviors that allow the individual to gain wider access to preferred materials, activities, or social interactions.
• It also includes the acquisition of behaviors that allow the individual to terminate or reduce unpleasant sources of stimulation.
• It requires the reduction or elimination of dangerous behaviors or those that hinder independence or social acceptability.
• Individuals have the right to services that aid in the development of behavior beneficial to society.

An Individual Has a Right to Behavioural Assessment and Ongoing Evaluation

• Individuals are entitled to a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation to identify factors contributing to skills deficits or behavioral disorders.
• Functional analysis emphasizes the importance of events that are antecedent as well as consequent to the behavior of interest.
• Preexisting physiological or environmental factors can lead to creating a treatment program that doesn't have extensive use of behavioral contingencies
• An initial behavioral analysis is performed in three stages
• Interview questions to assess circumstances where behavior always or never occurs, typical timing, association with discomfort or deprivation, and if events following behavior serve as positive or negative reinforcement.
• Direct observations under varied, relevant circumstances and ongoing evaluation are essential.

An Individual Has a Right to the Most Effective Treatment Procedures Available

• Individuals are entitled to effective and scientifically validated treatment, and techniques that research has demonstrated to be effective.
• Treatment should be the least restrictive yet effective.

Environment

• Environment: the complex of physical circumstances in the which the organism or referenced part of the organism exists. This includes any physical event or set of events that is not part of a behaviour and may include other parts of the organism (Johnston & Pennypacker, 2009).
• A stimulus is a specific aspect of the environment that can be differentiated from another
• Stimuli are specific environmental events that are being manipulated to determine the effect on the behavior
• Temporal Loci of Stimuli is when during time a stimulus takes place
• Antecedent: Conditions that exist or occur prior to bx
• Consequence: Conditions that exist or occur after bx

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)

• ABA: the science in which tactics from the principles of behavior are systematically applied to improve socially significant behavior.
• Experimentation is used to identify the variables responsible for behavior change (Cooper et al., 2007, p. 20).

Respondent Conditioning

• Respondent Conditioning: A Brief History (1902)
• Respondent conditioning was discovered by Dr. Ivar Pavlov.
• He was a Russian physiologist who studied the digestive systems of dogs and measured their saliva production.
• Respondent conditioning is also called classical or Pavlovian conditioning
• Refers to the process where a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure
• A neutral stimulus (NS) is presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) many times.
• The NS then becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that elicits the conditioned response (CR).

Respondent Conditioning in Everyday Life

• Salivating when seeing McDonald's sign
• Feeling hungry when noticing it's lunch time
• Shivers when walking into dentist's office and smelling the "dentist office" smell

Edward Thorndike (1905) “Law and Effect”

• Edward Thorndike advanced the "Law of effect" stating that behavior followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be. repeated.
• Behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.
• He conducted his research with cats.

Behaviorism

• John B. Watson authored Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913).
• Focuses on observable behavior
• Direct observation of the relationships between environmental stimuli and the responses they evoke.
• Behavior is influenced by the environment, stimulus-response (S-R) psychology.
• Studies behavior as a natural science

Psychology in the Early 1900s

• Studied mental processes
• Introspection is observing one's own conscious thoughts and methods
• Mentalism is studying human behavior by the studying of one's own conscious thoughs and methods.

Mentalism Terminology

• Hypothetical Construct
• Explanatory Fiction
• Circular Reasoning

Little Albert Experiment (Watson & Rayner, 1920)

• BF Skinner’s The Behaviour of Organisms was published in 1938
• Summarized lab research of Respondent and Operant Behaviour

Respondent Behaviour

• Respondent behavior is reflexive behavior that is elicited, or brought out, by antecedent stimuli
• It is induced, brought out, by a stimulus that precedes the behavior.
• Antecedent stimuli: stimuli that occurs (blank) the behavior

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

• Studied operant behaviour
• Differentiated between operant and respondent conditioning
• Operant conditioning – behaviour modified by its consequences
• Respondent conditioning
• Authored Behavior of Organisms (1938)

Operant Behaviour

• Operant behaviour is any behaviour whose future frequency is determined primarily by its history of consequences
• It is selected, shaped, and maintained by the consequences that occurs after te behaviour

Operant Conditioning

• Operant conditioning: the process and selective effects of consequences on behavior
• Consequence is a stimulus change that follows a given behaviour in a relatively immediate temporal sequence that alters the future frequency of that type of behaviour.

Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)

• Experimental Analysis of Behavior ,EAB = The analysis of operant behaviour
• Recorded the rate at which a single subject (rats and pigeons) emitted a given behavior in a controlled and standardized experimental chamber

Skinner Box

• Dr. Ivar Lovaas stated "If they can't learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn.”
• Dr. Lovaas was the first person to apply ABA to children, specifically children with Autism.

The Three-Term Contingency

• Three-term contingency is antecedent -> behaviour -> consequence
• The three-term contingency are also the ABC's of behaviour
• Operant behaviours are selected by the their consequences.
• The selection of operant behaviours are brought about by stimulus changes that have followed the behaviour in the past
• Antecedents are triggers and they always before the behaviour to set provide context for the behaviour

Antecedent

• Antecedent's occur immediately BEFORE the behaviour to provide context for the behaviour
• Examples of are:
• Presentation of tasks/demands
• Removal of preferred activities
• Diverted/removed attention
• Lack of stimulation
• Visual/physical stimuli
• Changes to the environment

Consequence

• Consequence: factors that occur IMMEDIATELY AFTER the behavior and are related to the behavior
• Examples are;
• Removal of task/demands
• Presentation of preferred activities
• Provided attention
• Provided stimulation
• Responses from people
• Internal responses

Respondent Behaviour

• Respondent behaviour elicited by antecedent stimuli
• Is induced
• Is Automatic
• Is Non-voluntary

Unconditioned stimuli and responses

ABC Examples

A Brief History of ABA

• (1902) Pavlov's Dogs: Conditioned Reflex
• (1905) Thorndike: Cat: Law and Effect
• (1913, 1924) Watson: Behaviourism (Psychology)
• (1938) Skinner: Operant Conditioning
• (1967) Lovaas: ABA with Children with Autism