O. Ivar Lovaas, 83; developed method to treat autism
NEW YORK — Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas, a psychologist who developed one of the most widely used therapies for children with autism and, in doing so, helped change the treatment and the public perception of the condition, died Aug. 2 in Lancaster, Calif. He was 83.
Dr. Lovaas died of complications of recent surgery, said his son, Erik. At his death, Dr. Lovaas was professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he had taught since 1961.
Dr. Lovaas was the first researcher to suggest that for at least some children, autism was treatable. His work came to wide attention in 1987, when he published a scholarly article titled “Behavioral Treatment and Normal Educational and Intellectual Functioning in Young Autistic Children.’’ In it, Dr. Lovaas reported that after rigorous training, some children with autism had been able to catch up to their peers and function in conventional classrooms.
“His work first of all showed that the kids were teachable,’’ Dr. Tristram Smith, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, said Friday. “It was also very important in deinstitutionalization, showing that you could teach the kinds of skills that the kids needed to succeed at home and in the community.’’
In the 1960s, when Dr. Lovaas began studying autism, the prevailing Freudian view rooted the condition in neurosis. Children with autism, if they were treated at all, were given psychotherapy, to little discernible effect.
Dr. Lovaas, by contrast, took a behaviorist approach, proposing that autism might be ameliorated through a rigorous one-on-one program of behavior modification. The program he devised, known familiarly as the Lovaas model, took as its starting point a discipline known as applied behavior analysis.
Drawing on the work of behavioral psychologists like Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner, applied behavior analysis uses behavior-modification techniques to treat social and psychological problems like drug abuse and mental illness.
The Lovaas model emphasized intensive repetition: The child worked 35 to 40 hours a week with a teacher or parent trained in the method.
At the heart of the model was a system of rewards and punishments intended to reinforce appropriate behaviors and discourage inappropriate ones.
Social skills were broken down into discrete, learnable units. Thus, with training, the child might progress from learning a simple task like sitting quietly in a chair to more difficult ones like making eye contact and, ultimately, speaking freely and intelligibly.
Early on, Dr. Lovaas’s method was criticized as being overly punitive. In 1965, Life magazine reported on the work he and his associates were doing with autistic children at UCLA. To deter unwanted behaviors like shrieking, head banging, and self-mutilation, the article reported, researchers might slap the children or, in rare cases, administer electric shocks. Over time these practices were eliminated. Today, the model uses only positive reinforcements, like food, affection, and tickling, to reward appropriate behaviors.
Though Lovaas therapy can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, parents clamored for it. In 1995, Dr. Lovaas founded the Lovaas Institute, based in Los Angeles, which trains teachers in his method. Today, thousands of children are receiving Lovaas therapy.
