{"title":"I am a Behavior Analyst and an Advocate for ABA: Are you?","authors":"William H Ahearn","doi":"10.1007/s40614-025-00470-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Behavior analysis and applied behavior analysis (ABA) have had many opponents since their inception. These opponents present challenges to the understanding and acceptance of our perspective and our professional practice. Asserting that behavior is a product of environmental circumstances is in opposition to our everyday language understanding of the cause of a person's behavior in that their behavior is determined not autonomous. From a clinical perspective this leads to finding environmental causes and then engineering procedures to produce socially meaningful change in behavior. This piece discusses some challenges from internal critics who place their brand of service above ABA.</p>","PeriodicalId":44993,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Behavior Science","volume":"48 3","pages":"655-660"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12411383/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives on Behavior Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-025-00470-4","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/9/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Behavior analysis and applied behavior analysis (ABA) have had many opponents since their inception. These opponents present challenges to the understanding and acceptance of our perspective and our professional practice. Asserting that behavior is a product of environmental circumstances is in opposition to our everyday language understanding of the cause of a person's behavior in that their behavior is determined not autonomous. From a clinical perspective this leads to finding environmental causes and then engineering procedures to produce socially meaningful change in behavior. This piece discusses some challenges from internal critics who place their brand of service above ABA.
期刊介绍:
Perspectives on Behavior Science is an official publication of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. It is published quarterly, and in addition to its articles on theoretical, experimental, and applied topics in behavior analysis, this journal also includes literature reviews, re-interpretations of published data, and articles on behaviorism as a philosophy.