In this episode #2 we had the opportunity to interview Rossy Morhaim, who is a Behavior Analyst with BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst) certification, a type of certification that is granted by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), an international American agency that since 1998 is responsible for ensuring quality standards in this behavioral science.

🙌🏻 Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a behavioral science that has several characteristics (Cooper et al. 2020):

✅ It is applied, because it aims to achieve behavioral improvements that make people progress and improve their quality of life.

✅ It is behavioral, because it requires the measurement of socially relevant behaviors in natural contexts.

✅ It is analytical, because the analyst must demonstrate a functional relationship between the manipulated events and a measurable change in the target behavior.

✅ It is technological, since all its operating procedures are identified and described with sufficient detail and clarity, so that it is possible to replicate these results in other contexts.

✅ It is systematic, effective and should aim to promote behavioral changes over time and in a variety of environments and contexts.

In Panama and other countries, therapies based on principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) are usually applied in the following situations:

👉🏼 Child and adolescent patients who present behavioral problems (tantrums, aggressive behaviors, avoidance behaviors, behaviors that cause, from a social point of view, a deterioration in the relationship of the child with his/her environment (family, school or community...).

👉🏼 It is often used as a treatment for some neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Likewise, in oppositional-defiant disorders and in modifying socially relevant behaviors for the subject and their family members.

📚References

👉🏼 Cooper, JO, Heron, TE, & Heward, WL (2020). Applied behavior analysis, third edition in Spanish (J. Virues Ortega, ed.). ABA Spain Publications. https://doi.org/10.26741/abaespana/2020.cooper3e