Behavior Analysis Applied to Education: learning from CABAS and Morningside schools

Abstract

This report presents the fundamentals and main characteristics of two educational models: the Comprehensive Application of Behavior Analysis to Schooling – CABAS and the Morningside Model of Genarative Instruction. Both models have been developed according to behavioral-analytic principals, based on scientific methods. Besides their effectiveness has been proved scientifically. The information presented here has been extracted from materials produced by the proponents of those models and mainly from the experience of one of the authors that spent one month visiting the schools that apply them and observed the classrooms of each model during two weeks. The characteristics that each approach present to enable an individualized instruction are highlighted, such as the division of students in homogeneous groups, the evaluation of the entering repertoire of students and the progress of teaching according to their rhythm. It’s presented here how they plan, carry out the teaching strategies and give consequences to student’s behavior, with positive reinforcement and avoidance of coercive control. Finally, analysis and comparisons between schools are presented, being also shown that they share more similarities than differences (what might be expected given the adoption of the same theoretical affiliation and the compliance with the principles of teaching programming), but also have some peculiarities with implications to learning, considering the focus on the high frequency of responses on CABAS schools and the focus on the development of more complex skills and the application of those on new contexts on Morningside. It’s pointed out the model’s proponents interest on their dissemination in Brazil and some considerations are made about the possibilities of its application in Brazil; among them, the one that, despite the different conditions of the schools, the models can offer elements to the inspiration of new practices that favor a teaching that more effectively meets the individual needs of the students.