Applied behavior analysis (ABA), formerly known as behavior modification, is a type of behavior analysis that uses the theory of behaviorism to modify human behaviors as part of a learning or treatment process. Behavior analysts focus on the observable relationship of behavior to the environment to the exclusion of what they call "hypothetical constructs". By functionally assessing the relationship between a targeted behavior and the environment, the methods of ABA can be used to change that behavior.
Research in applied behavior analysis ranges from validated behavioral intervention methods—most notably utilized for children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—to basic research which investigates the rules by which humans adapt and maintain behavior. However, applied behavior analysis contributes to a full range of areas including: AIDS prevention, conservation of natural resources, education, gerontology, health and exercise, industrial safety, language acquisition, littering, medical procedures, parenting, seatbelt use, severe mental disorders, sports, and zoo management and care of animals.
Read more about Applied Behavior Analysis: Definition, Measuring Behavior, Efficacy in Autism
Famous quotes containing the words applied, behavior and/or analysis:
“Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“... the big courageous acts of life are those one never hears of and only suspects from having been through like experience. It takes real courage to do battle in the unspectacular task. We always listen for the applause of our co-workers. He is courageous who plods on, unlettered and unknown.... In the last analysis it is this courage, developing between man and his limitations, that brings success.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)