Self-awareness: behavior analysis and neuroscience.
Use focal brain data to decide whether to target self-awareness in early ABA.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Thompson (2008) wrote a theory paper. He asked which autistic kids can learn self-awareness through early ABA.
He says look at the brain. Kids with focal damage have a shot. Kids with wide-spread damage do not.
What they found
The paper does not give new data. It gives a rule you can use today.
About half of autistic kids with focal brain issues can gain self-awareness if ABA starts early and is intense.
How this fits with other research
Rodgers et al. (2021) and Van Gaasbeek et al. (2026) show early ABA works, but kids respond very differently. Travis gives one reason: brain focality.
Schaaf et al. (2015) used neurofeedback to boost social self-control. That study adds a tool you can pair with ABA when focal markers look good.
Howard et al. (2023) find autistic people often mis-judge their own thoughts. Travis says intensive teaching can fix this for some, but only if the neural wiring is partly intact.
Why it matters
Before you write big self-awareness goals, ask for any EEG, MRI, or neuro report. If it shows focal injury, push hard with 30+ hours a week. If it shows wide damage, shift goals to daily living and communication first. You save time and set families up for honest hope.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Self-awareness is a specific type of autoclitic discriminative behavior and inferential generalization to similar performances exhibited by other people. Brain imaging findings take on special importance within behavior analysis when they indicate that dysfunctions in these areas are related to differential effects of our interventions, with some acquiring substantially typical self-awareness skills and others failing to do so. It appears that those individuals whose brain dysfunctions are limited to these areas, and are not part of more generalized brain abnormalities, are amenable to substantial acquisition of those most basic of human skills called self-awareness, whereas individuals with more generalized brain dysfunction are not so disposed. Through a combination of less or more effective teaching contingencies during childhood, and degrees of dysfunction of those brain structures, some children grow up lacking self-reflective abilities and self-insight, whereas others are extraordinarily astute at those capacities. Among children with autism spectrum disorders who lack those skills due to abnormal brain development, approximately half of them can acquire those skills, at least to some degree through the use of effective, intensive, early behavior therapy methods.
The Behavior analyst, 2008 · doi:10.1007/BF03392167