Ivar Lovaas

O. Ivar Løvaas, PhD
Born	Ole Ivar Løvaas 8 May 1927 Lier, Norway
Died	2 August 2010 (aged 83) Lancaster, California
Nationality	Norwegian
Occupation	Clinical Psychology Professor
Employer	University of California, Los Angeles – UCLA
Known for	Applied behavior analysis Discrete trial training
Website	http://www.lovaas.com/

Ole Ivar Løvaas PhD (8 May 1927 – 2 August 2010) was a Norwegian-American clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is considered to be a pioneer within the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) through his development of Discrete trial training (DTT), and was the first to provide evidence that the behavior of children with autism can be modified through teaching. In 1999, the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General described Lovaas's techniques as having been shown to be efficacious at "reducing inappropriate behavior and in increasing communication, learning, and appropriate social behavior" which is based on "thirty years of research."

Dr. Ole Ivar Lovaas received his undergraduate degree in psychology in 1951 from Luther College and doctoral degree in clinical psychology in 1958 from the University of Washington where his work was influenced by early applied behavior analysts such as Sidney W. Bijou, Donald Baer, Montrose Wolf, Todd Risley and James Sherman. While overshadowed in the 1960s and 1970s by work in applied behavior analysis on schizophrenia, teaching models, and general developmental disabilities, Lovaas's intensive application of basic learning principles to autism has become the model for most current behavioral approaches to the condition. Findings of independent peer reviewed and replicated research studies associated with the Lovaas method, have shown that 47% of children can achieve normal functioning and subsequently succeed in regular education without assistance, 43% will make significant progress but continue to demonstrate language delays, 10% will make little progress, though some have disputed these findings. In his original studies in the late 1950s aversives such as electric shock successfully treated many individuals engaging in extreme self-injury (eye gouging, head banging) whose life expectancy was reduced by secondary infection. Subsequent studies were on extinction methods, in which attention is given only when persons are not engaging in self-injury. Lovaas's use of highly aversive methods, uncommon even in his time, are now very rarely used and controversial in the field.

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