Applied behavior analysis: conceptual foundations

Published on September 30, 2020   27 min

A selection of talks on Clinical Practice

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0:00
Hello, everyone. My name is Mark Palmieri. I'm a licensed psychologist and board certified behavior analyst. I'm the co-director of the Center for Children with Special Needs in Glastonbury, Connecticut in the United States. Today we're going to be learning about applied behavior analysis with a focus on its conceptual foundations, its applications, and importantly the various dimensions of applied behavior analysis, which help inform how we understand this science and how we evaluate its treatment applicability to many different individuals.
0:32
In the first part of this talk, we're going to review some of the historical and main conceptual foundations of applied behavior analysis. We're going to review some of the seminal writings which contribute to the current understanding of ABA and how it is investigated in the science and applied in community settings. We're going to review the important dimensions of behavior which allow us to understand the ABA learning model. The second part of the talk, we'll move into application elements of applied behavior analysis, beginning with our understanding of the functional nature of challenging behavior and how ABA approaches challenging behavior from a learning perspective, and some of the most essential treatment elements which are common in ABA-based procedures. We'll then move on to investigation of data collection models and have a sample of some of the common ways in which data are collected and analyzed in order to investigate the effectiveness of any ABA-based treatment.
1:34
Applied behavior analysis is a branch of the behavioral sciences and it incorporates a wide variety of treatment strategies. These can be applied successfully with many different individuals and it's one of the elements that makes ABA such a versatile and useful approach toward overcoming learning barriers or behavioral challenges for any individual. One of the things we're going to focus on specifically today is that ABA is always providing a tremendous emphasis on the social validity of behavior. Meaning that we only target those behaviors which will be likely to improve the quality of life of the individual or likely to demonstrate clear and effective behavior change, which then results in a meaningful growth in the person's independence or their ability to be successful on the day-to-day basis. We must also remember that whenever we're discussing applied behavior analytic methodologies, that we are ensuring that we're able to demonstrate experimental control over the changes in the person's behavior. Which means we utilize clear data which objectively measures the behavior change and limit subjective analysis or opinion-based analysis as to whether or not the intervention was successful for the person.
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Applied behavior analysis: conceptual foundations

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