ABA Bible

Applied Behavior Analysis

A science devoted to understanding and improving human behavior.

Determinism

The idea that the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which all phenomena occur as a result of other events.

Functional relation

Exist when a well-controlled experiment demonstrates that a specific change in one event. The dependent variable is reliably produced by specific manipulations of other events, the independent variable, and that the change in the dependent variable was unlikely to be the result of other extraneous factors.

Empiricism

The practice of objective, observation and measurement of the phenomena of interest.

Experiment

A controlled comparison of some measure of the phenomena of interest under two or more different conditions in which only one factor at a time differs from one condition to another.

Functional analysis

An experimental methodology for determining environmental variables and contingencies maintaining problem Behavior.

Replication

Repeating of experiments. It is a primary method with which scientists determine the reliability and usefulness of their findings and discover their mistakes.

Parsimony

Requires that all simple, logical explanations for the phenomenon under investigation be ruled out experimentally or conceptually before more complex or abstract explanations are considered.

Philosophic doubt

Requires the scientist to continually question the truthfulness of what is regarded as fact.

Behaviorism

Philosophy of the science of behavior.

Experimental analysis of behavior

The analysis of operant Behavior developed by Skinner 1938.

Mentalism

An approach to the study of behavior, which assumes that a mental or inner dimension exists that differs from a behavioral dimension.

Pragmatism

A philosophical position that the truth value of the statement is a function of how well the statement promotes effective action.

Methodological behaviorism

Behaviors that acknowledge the exist of mental events but do not consider them in the analysis of behavior.

Radical behaviorism

The incorporation of private events into an overall conceptual system of behavior that seeks to include and seeks to understand all human behavior.

generality

A behavior change that lasts over time.

Response

An action of an organism's effector

Environment

Full set of physical circumstances in which the organism exists.

Stimulus

An energy change that affects an organism through its receptor cells.

Response class

A group of responses with the same function.

Response topography

The physical shape or form of a behavior. Example, the hand and finger movements used to open a bag of peanuts.

Behavior

Portion of an organism's interaction with its environment that involves movement of some part of the organism.

Stimulus class

Any group of stimuli sharing a predetermined set of common elements in one or more of these dimensions

Antecedent

The environmental conditions or stimulus changes that exist or occur prior to the behavior of interest.

Consequence

A stimulus change that follows a behavior of interest.

Socially mediated contingency

When another person presents an antecedent stimulus and or the consequence for the behavior.

Reflex

Stimulus response relations. Part of the organism's genetic endowment a product of natural evolution because of its survival value to species.

Respondent Behavior

Behavior that is elicited by antecedent stimuli.

Habituation

The process of gradually diminishing response strength.

Stimulus stimulus pairing

A procedure in which two stimuli are presented at the same time usually repeated for a number of trials which often result in one stimulus acquiring the function of the other stimulus.

Respondent conditioning

A stimulus stimulus pairing procedure in which a neutral stimulus is presented with an unconditioned stimulus until the neutral stimulus becomes a condition stimulus that elicits the conditioned response.

Neutral stimulus

A stimulus change that does not elicit respondent Behavior.

Conditioned stimulus

The stimulus component of a conditioned reflex a neutral stimulus change that Alyssa's respondent Behavior only after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus or other conditioned stimulus.

Conditioned reflux

A learned stimulus response functional relation consisting of an antecedent stimulus. Each person's repertoire of conditioned reflexes is the product of his or her history of interactions with the environment.

Unconditioned stimulus

The stimulus component of an unconditioned reflex a stimulus change that elicits respondent Behavior without any prior learning.

Respondent Extinction

The repeated presentation of a condition stimulus in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus. The condition stimulus gradually loses its ability to elicit the conditioned response until the conditioned reflex no longer appears in the individual's repertoire.

Higher order conditioning

Development of a conditioned reflex by pairing a neutral stimulus with a condition stimulus.

Operant Behavior

Behavior that is selected, maintained and brought under stimulus control as a function of its consequence and each person's repertoire of operant behavior is a product of his history of interactions with the environment.

Ontogeny

The history of the development of an individual organism during its lifetime.

Phylogeny

The history of the natural evolution of a species.

Selectionism

A theory that all forms of life naturally and continually evolve as a result of the interaction between function and the survival value of that function. Operant selection by consequences is the conceptual and empirical foundation of behavior analysis

Operant conditioning

The basic process by which operant learning occurs consequences result in an increased or decreased frequency of the same type of behavior under similar motivational and environmental conditions in the future.