ABSTRACT
This chapter starts explaining the difference in behavioral research methods and psychology research. Behavioral research consists primarily of single-case designs where each participant is used as their own “control.” This method is in contrast to psychological research, which 79involves group statistical designs. Behavioral research also puts a premium on studying everyday human behavior in applied settings. The methods used in ABA research often can translate directly into practice. Since the similarities of behavioral research and behavioral practice are comparable by design, there is great interest in applying results found in experimental labs to common, routine environments. Behavioral research can be planned in such a way that two or more alternative treatments can be directly compared. When behavior analysts say that they are looking for the cause of a behavior, they are talking about some event or variable in the environment that consistently produces the behavior, not some event in the distant past. The father of ABA is B.F. Skinner, a professor from Harvard who discovered the importance of environment variables in producing and changing behavior.
