Chapter 2 – Areas of Application

An Overview

This chapter describes 12 major areas of application in which behavior modification has a solid foundation. Being a parent is a challenging job. In addition to meeting basic needs, parents are totally responsible for their children’s initial behavioral development. That responsibility is shared with teachers and others as the child develops through early childhood and adolescence into adulthood. Since the early 1960s, behavior modification applications in classrooms have progressed on several fronts. Many applications in elementary school were initially designed to change student behaviors that were disruptive or incompatible with academic learning. Beginning in the 1960s, some of the most dramatic successes of behavior modification occurred in applications to individuals with atypical childhood development. Traditionally, a person who suffered from chronic headaches, a respiratory disorder, or hypertension would never have seen a psychologist for help with any of these problems.