Ole Ivar Lovaas

Like, uh, what are we doing here? Like I, I always say I-

I think Lovaas would do the same.

He's-- They're, they're both-

Mm-hmm

You you're right.

It traces back to Ivar Lovaas, UCLA young autism project, 1987.

Uh, what was it? 19 young autistic children receiving.

EIBI treatment historically described as approximately 40 hours per week, often over multiple years.

And the kicker to this, Mike, is like Lovaas reported that 47% of the intensive treatment group achieved what the paper described at the time as, I think the words they used was like normal educational and intellectual functioning compared with 2% of the control group.

So those findings were pretty extraordinary for the time, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, I think for those who may not be super familiar with it, quick disclaimer, right, because everything can be taken out of context, and context is really, really important.

Right.

Yeah, I had a good time teaching.

Also, at that time, I discovered Ivar Lovaas' work because our media center had a film on Ivar Lovaas' early work teaching autistic children that he took out of Camarillo State Hospital.

They were just there vegetating.

And he took them out of Camarillo State Hospital in California.

But I was pretty much self-taught in behavior modification.

And I went to conferences like BABIT in Massachusetts, which was the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy.

And I went to conferences where I heard Richard Fox talk, Ivar Lovaas talk, Judy Favel talk.

And at that time, the May Institute for Autism was a residential program in Chatham, Massachusetts, on the Cape.

And I, one of the courses that was available at that time was a course called behavior modification.

It was taught by Ivar Lovaas.

And I took the course and I really enjoyed it because he was a very interesting character.

And the course had a second attached course, which was kind of 170B and it was a practicum course that was just starting.

question.

Like very clever of you to have that question.

So obviously, Ivar Lovaas.

No question.

Can you start by explaining the basics of this type of therapy, uh, at the center of this called applied behavioral analysis or ABA? Uh, what is it?

it?It's a behavioral conditioning, uh, treatment or intervention that was originally pioneered by the same University of California Los Angeles researcher, Ivar Lovaas, who, um, developed LGBTQ conversion therapy.

Hmm.

Um, a child, uh, ideally according to the industry, as, as young as possible, sometimes at the age of two, starting right after their diagnosis, should spend, um, 30 to 40 hours a week in one-on-one therapy, uh, in which an, a behavior technician issues repeated commands for a child to stop or start a particular behavior.

certain section of individuals, everybody, you know what I mean? It's like, you know what I mean? Not all men or whatever, whatever.

And that's not to try to defend everybody, but we need to be specific in the fact that, hey, there are mofos, such as like Lovaas, who were, literally he was a Nazi.

Okay.

Literally, sorry, I have to say it.

Fantastic.

And so I'd been working with the kid for about six months, and I took a third-year module in educational psychology, and we learnt about Lovaas and we learnt about-

Mm

... like the roots of ABA, and I was absolutely horrified because I, I'd had no idea that there was any controversy.

And so-

Yeah

... you know, I think some, many of these countries never saw Lovaas, Lovaas-ian type approaches or even, you know, some of the approaches that were built on that.

They've only s- they've only seen, you know, sort of what they've learned in the last few years.

About 30 years ago, I was, um, an undergraduate, um, in the UK, in London, and I answered a Post-it note on the student board for a job as a behavioral sort of tutor or therapist.

But it was for a Lovaas therapist, and I had no idea what it meant.

Uh, but I, I was, you know, 20 years old and I started working with a young child with autism.

And, um, the family happened to be one of the first maybe 10 families in the UK to, um, kind of do behavioral intervention with their child, and they used to bring consultants from the US to train the people who were working with the children every three months or so.

And that's how I started.

And so I worked with kids with autism doing one-to-one behavioral intervention, I think at the time was still kind of called behavioral modification of the Lovaas program, for, you know, throughout my undergraduate studies.

And then I landed a great job at one of Lovaas' replication sites where I kind of really learned, um, to program, to break skills down, and that led to, uh, being the lead clinician for the first UK outcome study under the leadership of Professor Bob Remington, who then became also my PhD supervisor.

So I did that for a few years and then decided I never wanted to be employed again in my life.