ABA: The Basics

By Eric Kastan, M.A.,LMFT, BCBA

One person’s punishment, is another person’s reward.

The basic concept of ABA works on the 3-term contingency of behaviors (the ABC model): Antecedent, the events prior to behavior; Behavior, the observable and measureable action; Consequence; outcome of events from the behavior.  This 3-term contingency model is the base of all ABA. As a behavior analyst in ABA, as a field we tend to do the most work within the Consequence area. This is done with the use of reinforcement and punishment.

In the field of ABA there is positive (+) and negative reinforcement (-). This is the most misunderstood but used part of ABA. Positive and negative should be viewed as math terms, adding or subtracting. So positive reinforcement means to add something to the person that HE/SHE likes (in the eye of the beholder, not giver) when a targeted behavior is seen, to increase the chance of the behavior happening again or more frequently.  Negative reinforcement means to take away something that the person does NOT like when he/she exhibits a behavior to increase the chance of the behavior happening again or more frequently.

This flies in the face of how most people use this term or phrase, you do not want to negatively reinforce that person for that behavior. This is usual stated when a person engages in unwanted behaviors and someone gives them attention for it. In the ABA world, this is actually positive reinforcement, as you are giving the person (adding, +) attention to the behavior seen.  Then to really twist this concept, most people feel yelling, time outs, and other “negative” interactions are punishment, when in fact, the attention, escape from task/environment, etc., may be what the person really wants anyways, so your punishment now reinforced the unwanted behavior. To illustrate this, I will give a fictional clinical example. A client is in a group home, and she goes around hitting the walls, television, and other residents. The staffs yell at her and tell her to go to her room. Through data analysis, one can see that after the staff yells, the hitting behavior increases not decreases. So in reality the yelling was positive reinforcement, as it increased the behavior. Although most people do not like being yelled at and describe this as an unwanted interaction, to this person, any interaction with others was wanted and seen as desirable thing. An intervention can placed in which staff interact with her at different times and after non-hitting behaviors. The hitting should drop off almost immediately, as the reinforcer of attention was placed contingently to other behaviors, so the other behaviors increased while hitting decreased.

At FACT, we not only incorporate ABA in our home programs, but also bring in other techniques.  This is not the classic, emotionless ABA. We are open to many thoughts and interventions. The point of an in-home behavior program is to bring in trained staff, who then train the parents and other guardians to carry these principles and interventions on. We customize a program to you and your family’s needs. And as always, if you feel you and your family need any help at all, please contact FACT, and let us see how we can help.