Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is a common treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In a recent volume of this journal, Sanvodal-Norton and Shkedy (2019) published a criticism of behavior analysis including the professionals and entire field as a discipline-of demonstrating unethical behavior, creating prompt dependency in the learners, destroying internal motivation, and refusing to collaborate with new and other treatment philosophies. The current paper is a response to the these claims by providing several examples of peerreviewed studies that contradicts the authors' arguments, and summarizing the information of the included study's findings by and other objective. The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, contrary to the perspectives of Sanvodal-Norton and Shkedy (2019), ABA is scientific approach that identifies environmental variables that influence socially significant behaviors and develop strategies to cause behavior change that is practical and applicable, improve educational outcomes, and provide real-life support for parents and families who are seeking treatment for their loved one with ASD. In doing so, this paper will demonstrate that ABA is an efficacious approach that is supported by numerous scientific studies in the peer-reviewed literature
The effects of training by whole task, forward chaining, and backward chaining methods were examined in teaching vocational rehabilitation clients the construction of three assembly tasks. Clients learned to assemble a bicycle brake, a meat grinder, and a carburetor on three successive days by the three training methods in a counterbalanced design. The percentage of responses that were errors was, on the average, more than twice as great for subjects in the whole task method as for subjects in either chaining method (which did not differ). Total time to criterion did not differ among chaining and whole methods. Slower learning subjects benefited substantially from the systematic chaining procedures.
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