ABSTRACT
The current state of the field of ABA developed from its history. What emerged was a field that has been immensely successful in one context but nonetheless has not achieved the vision of an all-encompassing science of behavior as it was originally conceived. Core principles have emerged from the experimental analysis of behavior and tested within ABA that provide the scientific underpinnings of ACT. Relational frame theory (RFT) creates the occasion for this science by describing complex forms of language and cognitive behavior that are specifically developed in humans as highly intelligent, social animals. Key elements of RFT form foundational response units that can guide intervention. Relational framing includes mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and transformation of stimulus function, under relational and functional contextual control. Relational framing is a generalized operant. People relationally respond to their world in the ways they do because doing so has allowed them to access reinforcement and avoid punishment in their lives. ACT provides an intervention approach for altering the function of complex relational behavior when relating itself leads to suffering and the narrowing of behavior in context. This chapter provides an overview of the basic science and what it means for implementing ACT as behavior analysts.
