Ivar Lovaas

Ole Ivar Lovaas (May 8, 1927 to August 2, 2010) was a Norwegian American clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is known for pioneering the use of applied behavior analysis, a teaching approach built on prompts, modeling and positive reinforcement, as an intensive intervention for autistic children. A 1987 study by Lovaas reported that autistic children who received his intensive behavioral intervention could achieve typical spoken language and measurable IQ gains, and this work shaped later autism education and treatment programs built on behavioral methods. Lovaas's record is also documented as including serious harms: his early behavioral programs used aversive techniques including electric shock, and he collaborated on a study, later flagged by its own journal, that subjected a gender-nonconforming child to conditioning intended to change the child's behavior. Historical review has also found his own wartime account of forced labor in Nazi-occupied Norway to be contradicted by school records showing membership in the fascist Nasjonal Samling youth organization.