Sometimes the terms are used interchangably, but they are not really the same thing. Discrete trials are a teaching tool that is used in ABA.
Applied behavior analysis, then, is the application of this science of behavior to meet a certain end: to increase or decrease a particular behavior, to improve the quality of a behavior, to stop an old behavior, or teach a new.
The principles of ABA have been around for quite some time, and have myriad uses outside the scope of teaching children with autism. ABA can be the basis of programs addressing a broad spectrum of human behavior, from increasing the productivity of the workplace, to precisely training military personnel, to, indeed, teaching children.
http://www.polyxo.com/discretetrial/
A discrete trial is a single cycle of a behaviorally-based instruction routine. A particular trial may be repeated several times in succession, several times a day, over several days (or even longer) until the skill is mastered. There are four parts, and an optional fifth, to a discrete trial.
It is important to understand that ABA is a framework for the practice of a science and not a specific program. This can be a difficult point to discern when one begins an examination of programs for children with autism and regularly encounters tales of folks who are "doing ABA." Typically these folks are actually running a Lovaas-type program or another program based on discrete trials (which, indeed, are an important element of many ABA-based interventions, but are not the whole of ABA itself). It may seem a semantic argument, but one should remember that ABA is a set of principles and guidelines upon which educational programs (or any number of applications) are based and shouldn't be used synonymously with a specific program.
Hello, can anyone tell me the difference between dscrete trials and ABA, or are they the same thing?