LOOKING BEYOND

Re [EABA-list]: Simple Steps debate among behaviorists in Europe

With dismay I read about the struggle for acceptance of ABA - Applied Behavior Analysis - as
the best practice for parents of children said to suffer from the autism spectrum.
Not every point raised is clear to me but I do see why ABAs - Applied Behavior Analysts - feel frustrated; I also worry over the welfare of behavior analysis, basic and applied.

Rather than a 'proven' or a 'supporting' science', I believe it would be a good thing to defend
ABA as the one psychological treatment approach - worldwide - with a scientific foundation, namely, the Experimental Analysis of Behavior ... TEAB.
Why not present TEAB as a basic natural science - a part of biology - and defend ABA as the only evidence-based application of conditioning principles analysed in animal laboratories?
Behavior analysts could be proud to explain where their professional knowledge comes from.

And to give credit where credit is due.
I am troubled when cognitive behaviorists display and commend "positive reinforcement" - never mentioning any animal conditioning experiment from which stimulus control and reinforcement schedules are derived.

But it is tragic when radical behaviorists don't dare to mention the branch they are sitting on:
classical and operant conditioning data.
For circa 35 years there has been a widening gap between ABA and TEAB
Public inquiry as to sources of experts' knowledge is essential for radical behaviorists because
then they could say TEAB is geared towards showing how surrounding factors control animals and highlight how ABA demonstrates when and where the quality of human performance also depends on environmental quality.

JEAB, the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, has been the flagship journal for behavior research since 1958. In REQUIEM FOR MY LOVELY (March 2011) Kangas, and Cassidy discuss the declining number of articles in JEAB that contain a cumulative record. Yet:
"... the value of the cumulative record as a monitoring device to assess schedule control continues. The cumulative recorder remains, along with the operant conditioning chamber, an icon of Skinner's approach to psychology." Lattal, K.A. (2004).

That brings me back to my handmade cumulative records, eye-openers that made me perceive
realities as yet unnoticed by scientists. Hence my plea for extending TEAB and studying causes of an animal's ambulation/locomotion - in addition to the reponse rates with stationary subjects. Expanding animal research will multiply and resuscitate cumulative records as well as attract scientists from other disciplines, in particular, biologists, sociologists, and ecological experts.
No science in isolation - neither ABA nor TEAB alone - can maintain viable environments on
planet Earth.
Behavior analysts could correct general misconception as to brain function VS people function.
So TEAB can move on beyond single individuals, reduce intimidation, Coercion and its Fallout.

CAN THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR RESCUE PSYCHOLOGY? asked
B.F. Skinner (1987) 24 years ago. Lacking data, scientists cannot concur on reliable answers
-let alone spread them. Expanding conditioning research is not a luxury but a necessity.

Recently Per Holth asked Murray Sidman what behavior analysis will look like 50 years hence.
Murray Sidman answered: " I have made a number of suggestions that may be summrized by
'Behavior Analysis, heal thyself.' ... Today's students will determine the particular new directions behavior analysis is going to take ... It may even be that the seeds of major developments are present now but that the field simply has not yet recognized them."
Holth: You have written that "Our basic scientists need to reestablish productive collaborative ventures in other areas, and our applied scientists need to turn more to their basic science for data, principles, and procedures." What do you think it will take for that to happen?
Sidman: You are really asking two questions here . First, how can we reestablish collaboration between behavior analysis and other areas of science? Second, how can we encourage applied behavior analysts to make use of their data?
Those excerpts are from: A Research Pioneer's Wisdom: An Interview with Dr. Murray Sidman an article published in the EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (Winter, 2010)

In effect, Dr. Sidman pleads the case more clearly and more convincingly than I ever could.
In my view, he brings the most inspiring thoughts on the future of behavior analysis, today.

I began this post on March 17; now it is March 21 and reading Robert Scramm's latest response in the Simple Steps discussion, I resonated to the words: "As long as we are appropriately labeling what it is we are offering and what it will do for the people who participate ..."
Still, I am undecided: ought I to add my voice in this controversy?
My blog-readers might help out; I want to say something like this:
Simply, conditioning affects PERSONS whose feelings and thoughts can be seen and heard, daily.
So, what individuals feel and think could be labelled appropriately, normal and ordinary behavior.
Right?