Applied behavior analysisApplied behavior analysis (ABA), also called behavioral engineering, is a psychological intervention that applies empirical approaches based upon the principles of respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior of social significance. It is the applied form of behavior analysis; the other two forms are radical behaviorism (or the philosophy of the science) and the experimental analysis of behavior (or basic experimental laboratory research).
Clinical behavior analysisClinical behavior analysis (CBA; also called clinical behaviour analysis or third-generation behavior therapy) is the clinical application of behavior analysis (ABA). CBA represents a movement in behavior therapy away from methodological behaviorism and back toward radical behaviorism and the use of functional analytic models of verbal behavior—particularly, relational frame theory (RFT).
Behavior modificationBehavior modification is an early approach that used respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior. Based on methodological behaviorism, overt behavior was modified with consequences, including positive and negative reinforcement contingencies to increase desirable behavior, or administering positive and negative punishment and/or extinction to reduce problematic behavior. It also used Flooding desensitization to combat phobias.
Autism spectrumAutism, formally called autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction, and repetitive or restricted patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities, which can include hyper- and hyporeactivity to sensory input. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that it can manifest very differently in each person. For example, some are nonspeaking, while others have proficient spoken language.
BehaviorismBehaviorism (also spelled behaviourism) is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, they focus primarily on environmental events.
HabituationHabituation is a form of non-associative learning in which an innate (non-reinforced) response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus. Responses that habituate include those that involve the intact organism (e.g., full-body startle response) or those that involve only components of the organism (e.g., habituation of neurotransmitter release from in vitro Aplysia sensory neurons). The broad ubiquity of habituation across all biologic phyla has resulted in it being called "the simplest, most universal form of learning.
Acceptance and commitment therapyAcceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, typically pronounced as the word "act") is a form of psychotherapy, as well as a branch of clinical behavior analysis. It is an empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies along with commitment and behavior-change strategies to increase psychological flexibility. This approach was originally termed comprehensive distancing. Steven C.
Contingency managementContingency management (CM) is the application of the three-term contingency (or operant conditioning), which uses stimulus control and consequences to change behavior. CM originally derived from the science of applied behavior analysis (ABA), but it is sometimes implemented from a cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) framework as well (such as in dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT). Incentive-based contingency management is well-established when used as a clinical behavior analysis (CBA) treatment for substance use disorders, which entails that patients' earn money (vouchers) or other incentives (i.
Dialectical behavior therapyDialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that began with efforts to treat personality disorders and interpersonal conflicts. Evidence suggests that DBT can be useful in treating mood disorders and suicidal ideation as well as for changing behavioral patterns such as self-harm and substance use. DBT evolved into a process in which the therapist and client work with acceptance and change-oriented strategies and ultimately balance and synthesize them—comparable to the philosophical dialectical process of thesis and antithesis, followed by synthesis.
Functional analytic psychotherapyFunctional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) is a psychotherapeutic approach based on clinical behavior analysis (CBA) that focuses on the therapeutic relationship as a means to maximize client change. Specifically, FAP suggests that in-session contingent responding to client target behaviors leads to significant therapeutic improvements. FAP was first conceptualized in the 1980s by psychologists Robert Kohlenberg and Mavis Tsai who, after noticing a clinically significant association between client outcomes and the quality of the therapeutic relationship, set out to develop a theoretical and psychodynamic model of behavioral psychotherapy based on these concepts.
