Factors of Assimilation and acculturation in ABA

Both the meanings of assimilation and acculturation assume the idea of what might happen when two cultures begin to coexist side by side for a long period of time. Sure, it is inevitable that traditions, habits, the way of life of one culture are to penetrate the beliefs, patterns, and a lifestyle of another one. The only thing I would make an exception is religion. In its turn, acculturation can be characterized as the process of adapting new cultural morals and principles of one group “by adjusting to or borrowing traits from another culture.”

The way acculturation affect communities may be both negative and positive.  Acculturation is an exceedingly difficult one, both psychologically and socio-culturally. The psychological changes during acculturation vary from the simplest such as the taste of food or even weather changes to the very serious ones such as inability to speak a foreign language and consequently find a decent job or feeling isolated and homesick . Acculturation is a real shock for the families; the parents/ kids’ relationship changes enormously, based on the adopting of a new culture, so does wife/ husband’s rapport; no wonder that a number of families get divorced after coming to a new country.

             No doubt that assimilation and acculturation seriously affect behavior analysts’ way of practice and treating because in the new environment their clients experience additional psychological and cultural complications, thus behavior analysts must take seriously these very much significant factors.