A Brief History of Behavior Analysis and Autism

Richard Malott, PhD, BCAB-D
Behavior Analysis Program
Department of Psychology
Western Michigan University

Applied behavior analysis and autism are an amazing couple. Over 30 years ago, a clinical psychologist did some time at the University of Washington, the source of most of the early research on applied behavior analysis. Inspired and informed by his Washington training, the clinician went to LA and put his own spin on behavior analysis, as he started working with children whose behavioral repertoires had so many deficits of functional behavior and so many excesses of dysfunctional behavior that they were labeled autistic. He didn’t do anything new, except possibly disregard all of his education in traditional clinical psychology. All he did was apply training procedures that had been in use for many years in the basic behavior-analysis research labs—procedures whose effectiveness had been well documented in peer-reviewed scientific publications. 

Oh, yes, he did add one small twist to what had been done before, he had the outrageous audacity to apply those training procedures 40 hours per week for 2 years with each kid, rather than use the traditional clinical-psychology talk-therapy approach of meeting with the “patient” for a 50-minute hour once a week. He then published his results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The results, as anyone reading this already know were that 50% of kids he worked with lost all traces of their autistic problems and the remaining 50% were also greatly improved. And thus Ivar Lovaas started the revolution in the “treatment of autism.”

But the revolution languished. Lovaas and the behavior analysts he trained as well as other behavior analysts continued to do and publish high-quality research, extending and refining his procedures. But only the small group of scientists known as behavior analysts were aware of this amazing work, perhaps the most impressive work in the field of behavior analysis.

Then, 30 years after Lovaas started his revolutionary but almost invisible research, a woman with a Ph.D. in literary criticism, or some equally irrelevant topic, had a little girl and then a little boy whose behavioral repertoires were so dysfunctional that they got the autism label. Well, after a few heart-breaking years, this mother finally found Lovaas’ behavior-analysis approach and with much work and dedication on her part and the part of Bridget Taylor, the behavior tech working with them, her children were normalized. 

And being a word woman, the Ph.D. in literary criticism then wrote what may be the most important book in the field of behavior analysis, an autobiographical case study of her two children, a non-technical case study for non-behaviorists. And being a word woman, this Ph.D. in literary criticism knew how to put the words together so as to tell her story with such warmth and such emotional impact that parents around the world are now demanding that Lovaas’ behavior-analysis training procedures be rescued from the obscurity of the previous 30 years and be used to help their own children achieve more normal lives. Of course, the word woman is Catherine Maurice; and her book is Let Me Hear Your Voice. 

If there had been no Ivar Lovaas, there would be no demonstration of the real power of applied behavior analysis to completely transform people’s lives. And, if there had been no Catherine Maurice, no one would know about this power of applied behavior analysis to completely transform people’s lives. An amazing collaboration between science and art.

Lovaas1 and Maurice started the revolution, but the revolution is far from over. Fortunately, some of the brightest, best-trained, most hard-working researchers and practitioners in the field of behavior analysis are dedicating their lives to continuing and spreading this revolution. 
And many of these researchers and practitioners have joined with parents of children labeled autistic to form the associations advocating behavior analysis in autism. These associations may be the next major component in the behavior-analysis/autism revolution, providing a systematic way to educate professionals and the public so they can demand behavior-analytic training programs for children labeled autistic, so that there will be enough well-trained behavior analysts to implement these programs, and so that quality-control standards will be implemented to maintain the integrity of these programs. 

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1 I know this is a controversial view because Lovaas was not the first behavior analyst to work with autistic children. And many other behavior analyst have contributed along the way. And the whole thing has become an unfortunate political quagmire. But Lovaas was the first person radical enough, crazy enough, out of the box enough, to appreciate the importance of intensive (40 hours per week), extensive (two years), early (before 6 years of age) behavior analytic intervention and the first person to be brave enough to actually do it. Were it not for Lovaas, I suspect we would still be limping along with one-hour, weekly “therapy” sessions or some mildly more intense institutional interventions that characterize not only traditional psychology but also still characterize too much of applied behavior analysis. 

Comments

[Lloyd]

Well said Dick.