Interventions based on applied behaviour analysis are considered evidence based practice for autism spectrum disorders. Due to the shortage of highly qualified professionals required for their delivery, innovative models should be explored, such as telehealth. Telehealth utilises technology for remote training and supervision. The purpose of our…

Although applied behavior analysis researchers have created efficacious treatment and intervention practices for children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is a gap between research and practice. Implementation Science (IS) and Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), based with Applied Behavior Analysis, are two parallel…

Ole Ivar Lovaas (1927-2010) is known worldwide for his research within the field of Applied Behavior Analysis, and is probably the most influential researcher within the field of treatment of children with autism. In the first part of this biographically oriented paper, we inform the readers about his family background, childhood, elementary and…

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and behavior analysts are key members of school-based teams that serve children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Behavior analysts approach assessment and intervention through the lens of applied behavior analysis (ABA). ABA-based interventions have been found effective for targeting skills across…

Accumulating studies are documenting specific motivational variables that, when combined into a naturalistic teaching paradigm, can positively influence the effectiveness of interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this study was to compare two applied behavior analysis (ABA) intervention procedures, a…

Treatment integrity has cogent implications for intervention effectiveness. Understanding these implications is an important, but often neglected, undertaking in behavior analysis. This paper reviews current research on treatment integrity in applied behavior analysis. Specifically, we review research evaluating the relation between integrity…

Studies have evaluated a range of interventions to treat food selectivity in children with autism and related developmental disabilities. The high-probability instructional sequence is one intervention with variable results in this area. We evaluated the effectiveness of a high-probability sequence using 3 presentations of a preferred food on…

The delivery of food contingent on 10 s of consecutive toy engagement resulted in a decrease in engagement and a corresponding increase in other responses that had been previously reinforced with food. Similar effects were not observed when tokens exchangeable for the same food were delivered, suggesting that engagement was disrupted by the…

The effects of noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) schedules on responding were assessed across two parameters: presence of signal and schedule density. Results indicated that signaled NCR schedules were correlated with greater overall reductions in responding and quicker reductions relative to NCR schedules without a signal. The clinical…

Both risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic drug, and function-based behavior-analytic interventions are popular and empirically validated treatments for reducing challenging behavior in children with autism. The kind of research that supports their effectiveness differs, however, and no published study has directly compared their effects or…

Recent mandates related to the implementation of evidence-based practices for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) require that autism professionals both understand and are able to implement practices based on the science of applied behavior analysis (ABA). The use of the term "applied behavior analysis" and its related concepts…

Extinction-induced resurgence is the recurrence of previously reinforced behavior when another behavior is placed on extinction (Lieving, Hagopian, Long, & O'Connor, 2004). This phenomenon may account for some instances of treatment relapse when problem behavior recovers during extinction-based treatments. The current study sought to determine…

Applied behavior analysis is a hybrid tradition with roots in many mental health disciplines. Even with these diverse origins, the professional practice of behavior analysis remains distinct and identifiable. Given these factors the professional practice special interest group (SIG) for the Association for Behavior Analysis International has…

In this article, the author shares his journey with autism which began when his son, David Braxton Hughes Lowe, was diagnosed in September of 2005. It was the confirmation of suspicions that he had had since he was about a year old. As a father and a physician, this was a particularly disheartening sequence of events. Over the next few months, he…

"Self-awareness" is a specific type of autoclitic discriminative behavior and inferential generalization to similar performances exhibited by other people. Brain imaging findings take on special importance within behavior analysis when they indicate that dysfunctions in these areas are related to differential effects of our interventions, with…