Ole Ivar Lovaas

Ole Ivar Løvaas (8 May 1927 – 2 August 2010)[1][2] was a Norwegian-American clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is most well-known for his research on behavior modification in children, particularly with the use of strong punishments such as electric shocks. Lovaas would shout at, beat, and shock autistic children, sometimes with a cattle prod, to punish them for displaying autistic behavior. He encouraged the children's families to do the same at home. Lovaas used the same techniques in attempt modify behavior in homosexuals and gender-variant children, becoming one of the first researchers in the now discredited gay conversion therapy. His experiments in the use of punishment to modify the behavior of a feminine male child may have caused the child's later suicide.

O. Ivar Løvaas
Born
Ole Ivar Løvaas

8 May 1927
Lier, Norway
Died2 August 2010 (aged 83)
Lancaster, California
NationalityNorwegian
OccupationClinical Psychology Professor
EmployerUniversity of California, Los Angeles – UCLA
Known forApplied behavior analysis
Discrete trial training
Websitehttp://www.lovaas.com/

Lovaas' claimed that his methods could make 47% of autistic children "indistinguishable from their peers". However, later research challenged this claim and found serious flaws in the study's methodology. Lovaas also claimed that his methods could make many homosexuals "indistinguishable from their peers", but this claim was later disproved. Lovaas' research has been adapted to produce a variety of applied behavioral analysis (ABA) interventions for autistic children which call themselves the "Lovaas method", or "Early Intensive Behavior Intervention" (EIBI). While promoters of EIBI programs argue that they are highly effective in helping autistic children, much of the research used to justify these practices is flawed. One study recommended that all programs labeled as EIBI be regarded with skepticism.[3]

Lovaas' techniques were not effective in modifying the behavior of gay and gender-variant children, but were effective in modifying the behavior of some autistic children. He is considered a pioneer of applied behavior analysis due to his development of discrete trial training (DTT). Despite their efficacy in reducing autistic behaviors, the ethics of his methods have been questioned. Neurodiversity advocates have argued that the goal of reducing autistic behavior is misguided, and that it amounts to forcing autistic people to mask their true personalities on behalf of a narrow conception of normality. While the use of aversives to modify behavior is highly controversial, a number of facilities continue to use them. The Judge Rotenberg Center was the last remaining facility to use electric shocks to modify behavior in people with disabilities before the practice was made illegal in 2020.[4]

Lovaas received widespread acclaim for his work during his lifetime. In 2001, he was given the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology Distinguished Career Award.[5] He received the Edgar Doll Award from the 33rd Division of the American Psychological Association, the Lifetime Research Achievement Award from the 55th Division of the American Psychological Association, the Award for Effective Presentation of Behavior Analysis in the Mass Media by the Association for Behavior Analysis International, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the California Senate Award, which is an honorary doctorate. He was named a Fellow by Division 7 of the American Psychological Association and was given the Champion of Mental Health Award by Psychology Today. Lovaas also co-founded the Autism Society of America. His work influenced how autism is treated.

Autism rights movement

Personal life

Lovaas was born in Lier, Norway on May 8, 1927 to Hildur and Ernst Albert Lovaas.[6] He had 2 siblings: an older sister named Nora and a younger brother named Hans Erik.[7] He was a farm worker during the 1940s Nazi occupation of Norway. Lovaas often said that the nazis had sparked his interest in human behavior.[8] After graduating high school, he served in the Norwegian Air force for 18 months. After the war, Lovaas moved to the United States for college and entered the field of psychology. Lovaas married Beryl Scoles in 1955, and together they had four children. He later divorced his wife and remarried.[9][10]

Education

Lovaas attended Hegg Elementary School in Lier from 1934 to 1941. He attended junior high school at Drammen Realskole until 1944, and then moved on to Drammen Latin School for high school, graduating in 1947.[7] Lovaas attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, graduating in 1951 after just one year with his BA in sociology. He received his Masters of Science in clinical psychology from the University of Washington in 1955, and his Ph.D. in learning and clinical psychology from the same school 3 years later.[7]

Career

Early in his career, Lovaas worked at the Pinel foundation, which focused on Freudian psychoanalysis.[7] After earning his PhD, Lovaas worked at the University of Washington’s Child Development Institute, where he first learned of behavior analysis. He began teaching at UCLA in 1961 in the Department of Psychology, where he performed research on children with autism spectrum disorder at the school’s Neuropsychiatric Institute.[6] He started an early intervention clinic at UCLA called the UCLA Young Autism Project, which performed experimental interventions inside the children's homes. He was named Professor Emeritus in 1994. Lovaas also established the Lovaas Institute for Early Intervention (LIFE), which performs interventions based on his research.[7] Lovaas is considered a pioneer in the field of applied behavioral analysis for autism.[11]

Lovaas taught now prominent behaviorists, such as Robert Koegel, Laura Schreibman, Tristram Smith, John McEachin, Ron Leaf, Doreen Granpeesheh, Jacquie Wynn, and thousands of UCLA students who took his "Behavior Modification" course during his 50 years of teaching. He also co-founded what is today the Autism Society of America (ASA). Lovaas published hundreds of research articles and several books, and received many accolades for his research. He forced a number of school districts to adopt his programs. His work influenced how autism is treated.[12][13][14]

Research

In the late 1950s, Lovaas began his research on the use of aversives to deter behaviors that he considered undesirable.[15] Lovass argued that autistic people should be exempt from the usual ethical considerations in regard to brutal forms of punishment.[16] He would shout at, hit, and apply electric shocks to autistic children as punishment for autistic behaviors (such as stimming), and encouraged their families to do the same. The electric shocks were often applied with cattle prods. Lovaas used a similar system of punishment and reward in attempt to cure homosexuality, as one of the early researchers of the now discredited gay conversion therapy.[17][18][16] The use of aversives is now controversial, but remains in practice.[19]

Lovaas stated on multiple occasions that he did not see autistic people as fully human.[17]

"You see, you start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense—they have hair, a nose and a mouth—but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person."

Lovaas' claimed that his methods could make 47% of autistic children "indistinguishable from their peers", and that it could even accelerate their delayed development and raise their IQs. However, later research found fatal flaws in his methodology that invalidated the results. His studies were flawed on multiple levels, but in particular, Lovaas did not randomize his trials. This produced a quasi-experiment in which he was able to control the assignment of children to treatment groups. His manipulation to the study in this way may have been responsible for the observed effects. The true efficacy of his method cannot be determined since his studies cannot be repeated for ethical reasons.[20][21][3] Regardless, these claims are often cited unskeptically by supporters of his methods. Lovaas also claimed that his methods could make many homosexuals "indistinguishable from their peers", but this claim was later disproved.

Lovaas' use of aversives was always controversial in his field. When called out by his colleagues fort the unethical treatment of children, he responded that these colleagues were "much too sensitive and immature as to what pain and spanking does."[22] Lovaas and others who used his methods were often opposed by state authorities who tried to shut them down. "The smart [schools] don't admit they use [aversives] at all," one teacher said. "Others like our school admit we use them, but don't permit anyone to observe... We're all constantly harassed by the state. We know they'd like to close us if they could."[23]

At the time when Lovaas first started his research, it was common for doctors to recommend that autistic children be locked in abusive state-run institutions, where they would sometimes be restrained to a bed for years at a time. "We saw children who were ten years old who had been restrained for six or seven years". Lovaas argued that his methods were justified because they provided an alternative to these institutions.[24][25] Steve Silberman said of Lovaas: "He thought he had to torture [autistic children] to prevent them from being tortured". It is now recognized that the institutionalization of autistic people was largely harmful and unnecessary.[26]

Lovaas would also withhold food as a reward to make the children more compliant. Additionally, he used pain to motivate children to show affection. In one procedure, the child was made to stand on an electrified floor so that the only way to escape the shock was to run into the arms of an adult.[27][28] Lovaas also required the children to show him physical affection under threat of punishment.[29][30]

I work hard for my kids and I expect them to return the same affection and concern to me. When I leave at the end of the evening, I expect them to give me a hug or a kiss. And they had better give it to me.

— Ivar Lovaas

Lovaas' research has been adapted to produce a variety of applied behavioral analysis interventions for autistic children which call themselves the "Lovaas method", or "Early Intensive Behavior Intervention" (EIBI). The use of aversives varies considerably between such programs. While promoters of EIBI argue that it is highly effective in helping autistic children, one study noted severe methodological flaws in the research used to justify these practices. The study also noted that defenders of EIBI typically refuse to acknowledge the existence of any flaws in the research, and recommended that EIBI programs be regarded with skepticism.[3]

Bruno Bettleheim, argued against the use of aversives by Lovaas and other researchers.[31]

A spanking achieves a short-range goal, but it has a price tag — degradation and anger — that I am not willing to pay. My task is to build up self-respect. I believe people do the right thing not because they are scared to death but because their self-respect requires it.

— Dr. Bruno Bettleheim

The value of eliminating autistic behaviors is disputed by proponents of neurodiversity[32] (such as Michelle Dawson and Ari Ne'eman) who claim that it forces autistics to mask their true personalities on behalf of a narrow conception of normality. Some advocates have compared the practice of trying to normalize autistic behavior to gay conversion therapy.[33][34] Edward K. Morris of the University of Kansas has argued that this position grossly misrepresents the actual goals of applied behavior analysis interventions and the standard practices of behavior analysts.[35]

Recent research has suggested a link between ABA and PTSD in autistic people.[36][37]. However, the main study that supported this link was criticized for its several methodological and conceptual flaws [38].

Lovaas conducted a study on the effects of LSD on social behavior in autistic children.[39]

While Lovaas is credited with popularizing the use of aversives in applied behavioral analysis, he later renounced the practice. In a 1993 interview with CNN he argued that punishment was not effective in producing long term behavioral changes, as it provided "only a temporary suppression". Lovaas also found that the punishments became less effective over time.[40]

These people are so used to pain that they can adapt to almost any kind of aversive you give them.

— Ivar Lovaas

Experiments on gender-variant children

In addition to his extensive work with autistic children, Lovaas co-authored four papers with George Rekers, a psychology professor at the same university, on children with atypical gender behaviors.[41][42][43][44] The subject of the first of these studies, a 'feminine' young boy who was homosexual of 4 and half years old at the inception of treatment, committed suicide as an adult; his family attribute the suicide to this treatment. Following his suicide in 2010, the man's sister told the news that she read his journal, which described how he feared disclosing his sexual orientation due to the abuse he received from his father at Lovaas' instruction. His father would spank him as punishment for feminine-like behavior such as playing with dolls.[41][45][46][47] The experiment was protested by gay rights activists.[48]

Support for his work

Lovaas received widespread acclaim for his work during his lifetime. In 2001, he was given the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology Distinguished Career Award.[5] He received the Edgar Doll Award from the 33rd Division of the American Psychological Association, the Lifetime Research Achievement Award from the 55th Division of the American Psychological Association, and the Award for Effective Presentation of Behavior Analysis in the Mass Media by the Association for Behavior Analysis International. He was also awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and the California Senate Award, which is an honorary doctorate. He was named a Fellow by Division 7 of the American Psychological Association and was given the Champion of Mental Health Award by Psychology Today.[49]

Matthew Israel, the founder of the Judge Rotenberg Center, referenced Lovaas' use of a cattle prod on autistic children as justification for his own use of the Graduated Electronic Decelerator to apply electric shock to children with disabilities.[50] The graduated electronic decelerator, and the center's use of electric shocks as behavior modification, have since been banned.[51]

See also

Bibliography
  • Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The Me Book, 1981
  • Teaching Individuals With Developmental Delays: Basic Intervention Techniques, 2003

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