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In Response to Lindsay and Emerson
Author(s) -
Sturmey Peter
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1468-3148
pISSN - 1360-2322
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3148.2006.00302.x
Subject(s) - psychology , outcome (game theory) , psychological intervention , relevance (law) , cognition , anger , behaviour therapy , psychotherapist , social psychology , economics , psychiatry , political science , law , mathematical economics
Background Lindsay's comments related mostly behaviour, analytic conceptions of human behaviour and therapy. Materials and Method I argue that radical behaviourism addresses many of his concerns relating to private behaviour and his cognitive analysis of the private behaviour of offenders with intellectual disabilities. Cognitive explanations of behaviour can readily be reformulated in behaviour analytic terms. Emerson's comments mostly concern the external validity of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) research, the cost–benefit analysis of ABA interventions, the relevance of outcome research to public policy and the apparent narrowness of outcome variables used in ABA outcome research. I argue that treatment efficacy is a necessary condition for cost efficacy and the only other approach that currently has evidence of efficacy is anger management, although that is based on a very small literature. Studies have addressed the cost efficacy of ABA interventions for some common problems, but no studies are available for cost efficacy of non‐behavioural research. The limitations in the outcome literature for ABA should be judged against the general absence of evidence from controlled studies for non‐behavioural treatment. Conclusion The balance of evidence continues to favour selection of behavioural treatments.