Efficacy of Applied Behavior Analysis Training on the Children’s Anxiety and Aggression

The children’s psychological and behavioral problems such as anxiety and aggression cause other psychological, emotional and communicational damages in the children. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of applied behavior analysis training on the children’s anxiety and aggression.

It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest and control group design. The statistical population included thirty seven-to-ten-year-old children at Taha, Mehr-e-Iranian, and Narges wellbeing centers in Tehran in 2019. Thirty children were selected through convenient sampling method and randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (each group of 15 children). The experimental group received ten seventy-five-minute sessions of applied behavior analysis training during two-and-half months. The applied questionnaires in this study included Children and Adolescents Behavioral Inventory (CABI). The data were analyzed through COVARIANCE method via SPSS23 statistical software.

The results showed that applied behavior analysis training had significant effect on the anxiety (F=31.68; Eta=0.55; P<0001) and aggression (F=55.86; Eta= 0.68; P<0001) of the children and succeeded in decreasing their anxiety and aggression.

according to the findings of the present study it can be concluded that applied behavior analysis training can be used as an efficient method to decrease the children’s anxiety and aggression through applying techniques such as behavioral and perceptual problems analysis, planning, training skills, social skills, and adaptive skills.