{"id":1753,"date":"2022-03-04T09:45:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T09:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/appliedabcstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2025-06-23T11:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T15:21:14","slug":"the-history-of-autism-treatment-and-aba-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appliedabc.com\/es\/the-history-of-autism-treatment-and-aba-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"The History Of Autism Treatment And ABA Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A well-trained eye can spot autism throughout history. But the term diagn\u00f3stico oficial<\/em> didn\u2019t exist until 1908 when it was coined by a man named Eugen Bleuler. Bleuler used the term to describe the withdrawn behavior he observed in patients with schizophrenia. It wasn\u2019t until the late 1930s and early 1940s that the word autism was used to describe people with signs and symptoms that match our modern-day diagnostic criteria<\/a> for autism.<\/p>\n

In those early days, autism was poorly understood and often confused with other types of neurodivergence. Some professionals of the era attempted to treat children with autism using talk therapy and other ill-suited psychotherapeutic approaches. Nonverbal children or adults were sent to institutions or faced other grim futures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Early Days of ABA Therapy<\/h2>\n

Thankfully, our understanding of autism improved significantly in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Ole Ivar Lovaas, a behavioral psychologist at UCLA, began studying autism in earnest around this time. He conducted his first study in 1973. Twenty children with severe autism underwent 14 months of an early version of ABA therapy. Lovaas observed that many of the children\u2019s behaviors, such as speech, play, and social skills, improved. Lovaas did not continue treatment himself past the end of the study, but he followed up with study participants in the following years. He reported better long-term results in children whose parents continued therapy at home.<\/p>\n

In 1987, Lovaas conducted a second study of ABA therapy, with two groups:<\/p>\n