Principios ABA para Técnicos de Conducta (Manuales ABA España)

This book is aimed at frontline therapists or behavioral technicians who wish to prepare for the RBT^®, ABAT^®, IBT^TM, or BCAT^® credential. The behavioral technician is an educator who works directly with clients and students with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or other special educational needs, and receives supervision from an applied behavior analysis specialist. But what is applied behavior analysis (ABA)?

Essentially, ABA studies what people say or do and modifies the environment through specific procedures to achieve measurable and lasting behavioral change. In doing so, imprecise notions about behavior (descriptions such as "being capricious" or "being bad") are discarded, and instead, observable actions are emphasized. For example, if I am trying to lose weight by modifying my diet, an ABA approach would involve evaluating my environment (e.g., is there junk food in my pantry?), applying a specific procedure (e.g., removing excessively caloric foods from the house), and objectively measuring my progress (e.g., calories consumed, exercise time) to monitor the success of the intervention. Additionally, circular explanations such as: "You need willpower to exercise" will be avoided.

The characteristics of ABA as a scientific and professional field can be summarized in the following seven facets or dimensions:

· Applied: emphasis on socially significant behaviors.

· Behavioral: emphasis on objective aspects of behavior.

· Analytical: demonstration of functional cause-effect relationships.

· Technological: complete and detailed description of procedures.

· Conceptually systematic: based on behavior principles.

· Effective: verification of behavior change with objective measures.

· General: maintenance of behavior change at other times of the day, with other people, and in different contexts.

This book will help you gain a deep understanding of what these dimensions mean. You will learn to choose, define, and measure behavior following the applied and behavioral dimensions of ABA. You will also learn about procedures based on ABA principles that incorporate the technological, conceptually systematic, effective, and general dimensions. Finally, you will present results in accordance with the analytical and effective dimensions. In summary, this book provides the fundamental foundations for becoming an effective behavioral technician.