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:
“Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“Growing up human is uniquely a matter of social relations rather than biology. What we learn from connections within the family takes the place of instincts that program the behavior of animals; which raises the question, how good are these connections?”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)