conditioning vulnerable groups is not appropriate

• is this for or against?

  against
• what do critics of ABA believe?

  technique has many problems
• what is a problem of ABA?

  treatment supported by research which contained many methodological flaws
• what is an example of methodological flaw?

  not randomly allocating children to be part of experimental or control group
• what does the lack of random allocation mean for the conclusions?

  conclusions about effectiveness of ABA not valid
• what is another problem for ABA?

  treatments are intense
• how long are ABA treatments?

  approx. 40 hrs per week
• what research was conducted on intensity of treatments?

  Anderson et al (1987)
• what did Anderson et al find?

  average of 20 hrs per week was enough contact to allow significant improvement
• what is another problem of ABA?

  ABA conditioning techniques only treat symptoms so undesirable behaviours may re-emerge once the reinforcement has been removed