Brian Anthony Iwata (August 20, 1948 – October 7, 2023) was an American psychologist. He was a Distinguished Professor at University of Florida.
Research
Iwata was best known for his article, "Toward a Functional Analysis of Self-Injury" which was originally published in 1982 and was republished in 1994 in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. The significance of this article on the field of Applied Behavior Analysis was monumental. Iwata and his coauthors developed an approach to determining why self-injury was happening on an individual basis, which involved empirically measuring the role of environmental events on self-injurious behavior, to determine what function it played in helping the individual access reinforcement. This individualized approach allowed for the development of function-based interventions which emphasized reinforcement, instead of punishment. The utility of this approach has been demonstrated in hundreds of published articles and has positively impacted the lives of people with disabilities who engage in self-injurious behavior as well as the lives of those who love them and care for them.
Iwata was also known to be a generous and devoted mentor to doctoral students who have taken leadership roles in both academic and clinical arenas in behavior analysis.
Iwata was briefly involved in the evaluation of SIBIS, an approach to self-injurious behavior suppression that involved application of electric skin shock contingent on self-injury, but after being involved in a single research article, abandoned work in this area. He was not involved in the development of the graduated electronic decelerator or GED which is an aversive conditioning device that delivers a powerful electric skin shock to punish behaviors considered undesirable. Dr. Iwata spoke out against the use of GEDs by the Judge Rotenberg Center and even testified in court against their use. He stated that he found success treating even the most difficult of self injurious behaviors using less punitive methods. His writing on this topic can be found in Iwata (1988) GEDs have since been banned in the United States by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2020. Also, the Association for Behavior Analysis International published a position statement against the use of Contingent Electric Skin Shock in 2022.
Death
Iwata died on October 7, 2023, at the age of 75.