Treatment integrity in applied behavior analysis with children.
Most child ABA studies before 1990 skipped integrity checks — start measuring and defining your procedures today.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors read every child-focused article in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis from 1980 to 1990.
They counted how many studies actually checked if staff followed the treatment plan exactly.
They also looked for clear, written definitions of each treatment step.
What they found
Only 16 out of 100 studies measured treatment integrity.
Two-thirds of the articles never defined the treatment steps in detail.
In short, most studies could not prove the treatment was done correctly.
How this fits with other research
Falakfarsa et al. (2022) repeated the same count 29 years later in Behavior Analysis in Practice. They found only 47 % of studies now report integrity — better than 16 %, but still poor.
Arkoosh et al. (2007) showed why this matters. When staff drift from the plan, kids’ problem behavior often returns. High integrity keeps gains strong.
Thillainathan et al. (2024) ran a real-world home for adults with severe behavior. They hit 84 % integrity and saw big drops in aggression. This proves high integrity is doable outside the lab.
Why it matters
If you do not measure integrity, you cannot tell why a program fails. Pick one skill this week. Write the exact steps on a checklist. Have a second observer score at least 20 % of sessions. You will know right away if staff are drifting and can fix it before the learner loses progress.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Functional analysis of behavior depends upon accurate measurement of both independent and dependent variables. Quantifiable and controllable operations that demonstrate these functional relationships are necessary for a science of human behavior. Failure to implement independent variables with integrity threatens the internal and external validity of experiments. A review of all applied behavior analysis studies with children as subjects that have been published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis between 1980 and 1990 found that approximately 16% of these studies measured the accuracy of independent variable implementation. Two thirds of these studies did not operationally define the components of the independent variable. Specific recommendations for improving the accuracy of independent variable implementation and for defining independent variables are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1993 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1993.26-257