Applied Behavior Analysis

Applied behavior analysis, or ABA, also called behavioral engineering, is a psychological discipline that uses respondent and operant conditioning to change human and animal behavior, changing behavior by first assessing the functional relationship between a targeted behavior and the environment through a process called functional behavior assessment, then developing socially acceptable alternatives to maladaptive behaviors, often through differential reinforcement. It is most commonly associated with autism intervention but has also been used in applied animal behavior, substance abuse treatment, organizational behavior management and classroom behavior management. The approach is controversial and rejected by the autistic rights movement, which objects to its emphasis on normalization over acceptance and to the historical use, in some forms of ABA and its predecessors, of aversives such as electric shocks.