Introduction to Applied Behavior Analysis Principles and Concepts

Catalog description

This course provides an overview of and introduction to the philosophical underpinnings and basic concepts and principles of applied behavior analysis. Students gain an understanding of behavior-analytic processes and terminology by defining and providing examples of concepts and principles and applying them to a range of situations. Topics include behavior, response, and stimulus classes; respondent and operant conditioning; positive and negative reinforcement; schedules of reinforcement; positive and negative punishment; automatic and socially mediated contingencies; unconditioned, conditioned and generalized reinforcers and punishers; extinction; stimulus control; discrimination, generalization, and maintenance; motivating operations; rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior; verbal operants; derived stimulus relation; philosophical underpinnings of a science of behavior analysis.