Applied Behavior Analysis: Autism and Beyond

Saul Axelrod and Kelly Mc Elrath

The talk will describe the contributions that ABA has made to autism and the controversies that have emanated from ABA approaches to teaching verbal behavior. The talk will also describe the contributions that autism has made to ABA, in particular, but also the contributions that autism has made to our understanding of human behavior, in general. The paper will also discuss the fact that Applied Behavior Analysts have been responding according to the matching law and, as a result, are not sufficiently represented in some areas outside autism, particularly regular education. The paper will finish with some markers that will have to be achieved to indicate that Applied Behavior Analysis has arrived as a mainstreamed psychology.