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A análise do comportamento individual tem sido sistematicamente estudada e praticada em vários contextos, ao longo de muitos anos. Essa análise resultou em descrições de princípios comportamentais que têm sido aplicados a problemas de comportamento socialmente relevantes nos últimos anos. As pesquisas de análise do comportamento aplicada – direcionadas a investigar as variáveis que podem ser efetivas para melhorar o comportamento sob estudo – possuem características que as distinguem das tradicionais pesquisas da análise do comportamento não aplicadas, conduzidas em laboratório. O estudo precisa ser aplicado, evidenciando a importância do comportamento alterado, comportamental, apresentando medidas diretas e quantitativas do comportamento alterado, e analítico, identificando com clareza o que foi responsável pela mudança. Além disso, o estudo deveria ser tecnológico, descrevendo precisamente todos os procedimentos que contribuíram para a mudança, conceitualmente sistemático, relacionando os procedimentos empregados e os resultados identificados com os processos comportamentais básicos, e efetivo, produzindo mudanças suficientemente relevantes, e deveria demonstrar alguma generalidade, planejando e avaliando a extensão dos efeitos da aplicação ao longo do tempo, para outras situações e para outros comportamentos.Palavras-chave: análise do comportamento aplicada, delineamentos experimentais, metodologia, pesquisa aplicada, tecnologia comportamental. Nota: Referência do texto original, cuja permissão de tradução foi garantida pela editora Wiley: Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M. & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 91-97. Resumo e abstract foram elaborados a partir dos principais aspectos do texto; a publicação original não incluía resumo. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1968.1-91.TradutoresJoão Eduardo Cattani Vilares eMarcos Spector Azoubel.

Vinte anos atrás, uma nota antropológica descreveu as dimensões vigentes da análise do comportamento aplicada como prescrita e praticada em 1968: ela era, ou deveria se tornar, aplicada, comportamental, analítica, tecnológica, conceitual, eficaz e capaz de resultados apropriadamente generalizados. Uma nota antropológica semelhante, hoje, ainda encontra as mesmas dimensões prescritivas e, em maior medida, descritivas. Várias estratégias novas tornaram-se conhecidas; algumas no domínio da análise conceitual, algumas relacionadas ao status sociológico da disciplina e algumas sobre sua compreensão da natureza sistêmica necessária para qualquer disciplina aplicada que operará no domínio de comportamentos humanos importantes.Palavras-chave: aplicação, disseminação, tecnologia, terminologia, história. Nota: referência do texto original, cuja permissão de tradução foi garantida pela editora Wiley: Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M. & Risley, T. R. (1987). Some still-current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 20(4), 313-327. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1987.20-313. TradutoresJoão Eduardo Cattani Vilares eMarcos Spector Azoubel.

An experiment tested the efficacy of "discovery learning" in a school setting. Fifty-two bright children ages one to seven were randomly divided into two groups: a discovery learning, non-directed group and a guided learning, teacher-directed group. After both groups had spent eight months using an individualized "talking typewriter" program designed to teach spelling and reading skills, the children were tested on the WRAT (Wide Range Achievement Test) reading and spelling achievement tests. The two groups showed no significant differences. Objective and subjective measures of motivation likewise yielded no strong difference between the two groups. It thus appears that any differences between the two teaching approaches either do not exist or are so small as to be mitigated in long-term school use. (RB)

THE PRESCHOOL IS A COMMUNITY OF REINFORCEMENT CONTINGENCIES WHICH WILL SHAPE AND MAINTAIN AN INCREASING REPERTOIRE OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND WILL PUT THAT BEHAVIOR UNDER THE CONTROL OF PEERS. THIS STATEMENT WAS DEMONSTRATED IN A PROGRAM WHICH ANALYZED PROBLEM BEHAVIORS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN. IN GENERAL, THE PROGRAM CONSISTED OF TWO PROCESSES--(1) FORMAL, QUANTITATIVE RECORDING OF THE RATE OF BEHAVIOR UNDER STUDY AND ITS CURRENT CONTINGENCIES WITH TEACHER SUPPLIED SOCIAL STIMULATION, AND (2) EXPERIMENTAL MANIPULATION OF THOSE CONTINGENCIES. NOT ONLY DID BEHAVIOR CHANGE IN RESPONSE TO REINFORCEMENT, BUT IF THE TEACHER INTRODUCED A SUBJECT TO THE COMMUNITY OF MUTUAL REINFORCEMENT CONTINGENCIES AND LEFT HIM IN IT TOO LONG, THE TEACHER WAS UNABLE TO EXTRACT HIM AGAIN. THIS PROCESS WAS DEFINED AS TRAPPING A CHILD WITHIN THE PEER GROUP. THE ESSENCE OF THE TRAP WAS THAT ONLY A RELATIVELY SIMPLE RESPONSE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER THE TRAP. ONCE ENTERED, THE TRAP CANNOT BE RESISTED IN CREATING GENERAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE. A CHILD BECOMES TRAPPED BY PROMPTING SOCIAL BEHAVIOR WHICH REINFORCES HIM EACH TIME HE DISPLAYS IT, UNTIL HE ENTERS THE SOCIAL TRAP OF THE PEER GROUP. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THERE ARE OTHER COMMUNITIES OF REINFORCEMENT CAUSING BEHAVIOR CHANGES. THIS PAPER WAS PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (WASHINGTON, D.C., 1967). (CG)

An important approach to understanding child behavior and development is the experimental analysis of such behavior. The experimental analysis procedure must be distinguished from related analyses used occasionally. An analysis by anecdote is an analysis based upon the accumulation of recurring associations; for example, B followed by A. This does not assure the existence of a causative relationship. An analysis by correlation is a survey of two anecdotes, (1) if B, then A, and (2) if no B, then no A. But this analysis does not assure that when factors 1 and 2 exist, some factor 3 exists or that both A and B are controlled by C. The experimental method requires that the experimenter manipulate or control A and B in an arbitrary fashion. This reasonably precludes control by some unknown C and reasonably illustrates the causative relationship. The age of a child limits the application of the experimental analysis approach; that is, very young children are generally not available for use in a comprehensively controlled environment. The operant behavior procedure does not require control over a broad range of environmental factors, however, and evidence from such procedures indicates the possibility of investigating child behavior and development through the use of reinforcement, punishment, and extinction contingencies. (WD)

In order to investigate the effect of reinforcing subject responses to Stanford-Binet test items, regardless of whether such responses were correct or not, one-half of a sample of Head Start children were administered a standard Stanford-Binet test and the other half were administered the same test with the modification that responses were occasionally rewarded with M&M candies. Six months later the children were tested again under the two conditons. The average intelligence quotients for the two groups on the first testing were found not to be significantly different. This same resutl was found for the second testing. Thus, it appears that results from the Stanford-Binet test are insensitive to influences of possible interaction between subject responses and reinforcement or nonreinforcement of those responses. (WD)