Why Use ABA?
The following is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the Maurice, Green, and Luce book Behavioral Interventions for Young Children with Autism, 1996. Historically most people with autism have required extensive treatment and supports throughout their lives (Rapin, 1991; Remlin, 1994; Rutter, 1970; Rutter and Schopler, 1987; Szatmari et al., 1989). Today the mainstream position is that autism is a “severely incapacitating lifelong developmental disability.” It is considered treatable; indeed, a wide variety of treatments, therapies, and techniques are claimed to help (or even cure) people with autism and new ones are invented regularly (Autism Society of America, 1995). Until recently, however, none of those treatments has offered any solid, realistic basis for changing the view that autism is a permanent disability. Several studies have now shown that one treatment approach-early, intensive instruction using the methods of Applied Behavior Analysis-can result in dramatic improvements for chil
