NOTES ON BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION

This third article of a series suggests that many behavior modifiers would prefer the label of ap-plied behavior analysis for their field. This group has grown considerably in the past decade and now includes several subsets, two of which are preci-sion teaching and direct instruction. This column discusses some contributions of the former group (founded by O. R. Lindsley at the University of Kansas). To illustrate the work of this group, 4 articles from the Journal of Precision Teaching are summarized. The topics addressed in the articles are developing performance criteria in the basic skills, creative writing, improving one’s self-image, and the increasing number of references to precision teaching in special education texts. After a 2-year lapse in this semiannual column, I’m back. Don’t think for a mo-ment that my interest has waned in behavior modification in education. If any-thing, I’ve become more of an advocate. Don’t believe either that there haven’t been advances or developments in the field, for there have been many. And don’t suppose that the movement has withered or that its few followers have faded away; we are still around. The field, that is the generic group of behavior modification, has grown consid-erably in the past decade. Many would now prefer the label applied behavior analysis to describe generally all those teachers and scientists who arrange contingencies, define and measure behaviors directly, chart these various frequencies often, ma-nipulate one variable at a time, and scrutinize the efforts of each client. This pre-ferred label is now widely used, as indicated by the titles of various subgroups of behaviorists, such as precision teachers and direct instructors, who attend the an-nual Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Conference. This column is devoted to the contributions of one of those ABA subsets, preci-sion teaching (PT). Since O. R. Lindsley gave birth to this group in eastern Kan-sas 17 years ago, its adherents have emerged in many and diverse spots throughou