Ole Ivar Lovaas

Ole Ivar Lovaas

Ole Ivar Løvaas Ph.D. (8 May 1927 – 2 August 2010) was a Norwegian-American clinical psychologist at UCLA. He is considered to be one of the fathers of applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy for autism through his development of the Lovaas technique and the first to provide evidence that the behavior of autistic children can be modified through teaching. In 1999, the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General described Lovaas's techniques as having been shown to be efficacious at "reducing inappropriate behavior and in increasing communication, learning, and appropriate social behavior", based on 30 years of studies. In recent times, people refer to his method as ABA.