Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House. With regard to applied behaviour analysis, Richard Saffran of ABA Resources defines "applied" to mean practice rather than research or philosophy and "behaviour analysis" as "learning theory", that is, understanding what leads to or does not lead to new skills. ABA is just as much about maintaining and using skills as about learning. It may seem odd to use the word "behaviour" when speaking about learning to walk, talk, play, and live as a complex social animal. However, to a behaviourist all of these can be taught so long as intact brain functions exist to learn and practice the skills. This is the essence of the recovery hypothesis, which is that for many children the excesses and deficits of autism result largely from a learning blockage, which can be overcome by intensive teaching.

Typically developing children learn without our intervention. The environment they are born into provides the right conditions to learn language, play, and social skills. After a few years, however, this breaks down, and we no longer learn everything naturally. For example, it takes a very structured environment for most of us to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic. Children with autism learn far less from the environment. Often, they are capable of learning but it takes an extremely structured environment where conditions are optimized for acquiring the same skills that typical children learn naturally. ABA is all about the rules for establishing the environment to enable children to learn.

Behaviour analysis dates back at least to Skinner, who performed animal experiments demonstrating the Pavlovian theory whereby Pavlov's dog responded in a certain way. Conversely, any new behaviour an animal, you or I may try but which is never rewarded is likely to die out after a while. As common sense would have it, a behaviour that results in something unpleasant is even less likely to be repeated. These are the basics of behavioural learning theory.

ABA uses these principles to establish an environment in which our children learn as much as they can as quickly as possible. It is a science, not a philosophy. Even the "as quickly as possible" part is based on science, as evidence exists — I admit it is not conclusive — that the developmentally disordered brain learns how to learn best if the basic skills are taught in early childhood.

Behavioural learning is not the only type of learning. Most learning in schools is from an explanation or from a model, what people call natural learning. Typically, developing children learn from their environment, which includes other people, at an astounding rate completely unassisted. The point of ABA is to teach the prerequisites to make it possible for a child to learn naturally. If our children could learn without assistance in the first place they would not have autism.

The most common and distinguishing type of intervention based on applied behaviour analysis is discrete trial teaching. It is what people most often think of when one says "ABA" or "the Lovaas method". The Lovaas model of applied behaviour analysis is a specific behavioural treatment method employed by the Lovaas Institute and other replication sites throughout the world. This model utilizes procedures from applied behaviour analysis, as do all behavioural treatment programs. These programs go by different names including ABA therapy, intensive early intervention behaviour therapy services and verbal behaviour. The specific emphasis given to various procedures in applied behaviour analysis and the way in which skills are combined to create a comprehensive intervention may vary from one behavioural treatment program to another.