What is Heart-Centered ABA?

Conventional Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) uses both the environment and reinforcement to shape people’s behavior. It comes out of the work of psychologist B.F. Skinner. Many others, along with Skinner, have shaped the field into what it has become today, including Baer, Wolf, Rilsey, Iawata, Lovas, and Sunburg. 

We too are evolving this field, and we call it Heart-Centered ABA. Heart-Centered ABA recognizes and honors the tremendous contributions made by all the greats in this discipline. Heart-Centered ABA also acknowledges the atrocities and cruelties that have been committed in the name of behavioral science. 

Heart-Centered ABA brings forth empathy, acceptance, and unconditional love, and synthesizes them with the principles of conventional ABA to help all people realize their full potential. Heart-Centered ABA is dedicated to end isolation and foster community—one family at a time, one client at a time, one connection at a time.

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To read this article in its entirety, you will visit, Heart-Centered Revolutions, a sister organization to Bridging Worlds Behavioral Services. Heart Centered Revolutions is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, the home of researching and codifying the science of Heart-Centered ABA. 

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For example: 

If the client is nonverbal we might work on expanding their communication skills to include gestures or pictures.

If the client is overstimulated in the grocery store, goals might include short trips to the store with ways to self-regulate.