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:
“The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, “the whole is greater than its part;” “reaction is equal to action;” “the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;” and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The fact that behavior is “normal,” or consistent with childhood development, does not necessarily make it desirable or acceptable...Undesirable impulses do not have to be embraces as something good in order to be accepted as normal. Neither does children’s behavior that is unacceptable have to be condemned as “bad,” in order to bring it under control.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)