Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 1 | 2009 | Number 1
Association for the Advancement of Radical Behavior - Italy (AARBA)
By Maria Gatti
AARBA spent an extraordinary 2008. Everything started on the 22nd of January, with the presentation of the new edition of the first book published by our association: Scienza e Sicurezza sul Lavoro: Costruire Comportamenti per Ottenere Risultati (Science and Job Safety: Building Behaviors to Get Results). It is a translation of The Value-Based Safety Process, written by Terry McSween and published by John Wiley & Sons. The Italian version was translated by AARBA’s staff. Currently, more than 400 copies have been sold.
As most of behavior analysts know, human error is the main cause of accidents and injuries at workplaces (>80%). For this reason, behavior analysis researchers invented and tested the behavior-based safety technology to control at-risk actions and to create a safety culture with the power of positive reinforcement. AARBA started spreading this technology during 2006 in Italy with the aid of the first B-BS European Congress. On the 25th of November, 2008, AARBA organized the third edition of this congress. Terry McSween, Dwight Harshbarger, Howard Lees, Bruce Faulkner, and John Austin participated as speakers. The Congress, organized in collaboration with the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, had more than 200 attendants and partnerships of many Italian institutions, including the President of the Republic.
Among them was ISPESL: the very important Government Institute for Prevention and Safety on Job, with which AARBA signed a collaboration program during March, 2008. In this program, ISPESL and AARBA promoted B-BS and behavioral safety in workplaces; conducted experimental research on B-BS applications; participated in research programs financed by Italian Ministries to the European Union; defined guidelines for safety training and consultancy on B-BS. Moreover, AARBA is now teaching ISPESL staff how B-BS works and how to evaluate a behavioral safety process implemented in the Italian plants. It is the first time that a Italian government institution accepts to adopt behavior analysis principles to guide its work and to establish law standard. Essentially, AARBA has ensured that the behavior analysis approach is now the standard in industrial safety for Italian technicians and institutions.
AARBA has continued to spread behavior analysis thanks to its scientific magazine, the Journal of Applied Radical Behavior Analysis (JARBA.), which is a free web publication with about 2,000 articles downloaded in 2008. JARBA contains articles on the scientific research conducted by prominent Italian Behavior Analysts, like Ettore Caracciolo, Silvia Perini, Roberto Truzoli, and Rosalba Larcan, who are especially interested in developmental disabilities, autism, precision teaching, behavioral economics, et al. In the last 2008 issue, JARBA also edited the translation of a past experiment published by Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) thanks to a deal with The Haworth Press.
One of AARBA's main goals is to study and to experiment on learning principles and technology. In order to do this, in 2008 AARBA staff taught AgustaWestland helicopter pilots their cabin layouts with the use of precision teaching technology. They learned commands with accuracy and fluency before entering the cabin and data about this experiment was published in JARBA (1/2009). This was another step toward the development of the Learning Machine and Programmed Instruction, ideated by B. F. Skinner during the 1970's.
2009 Challenges
AARBA has joined ManuVAR, one of the biggest research projects of the 7th Framework program financed by the European Commission. The aim of this project, which starts on the 23rd of May, is to enable the bi-directional flow of information, models, and reused models throughout the project’s lifecycle; covering all aspects of the manual work such as ergonomics, comfort, and work assistance. AARBA is the leader of the Italian cluster, due to its expertise in governing human factors and learning technologies. AARBA cluster includes ALENIA Spazio, the main Italian Aerospace company. Among project partners, there is also Trinity College of Dublin, Technical Research Centre of Finland, and Tampere University of Technology.
With the objective of developing a behavioral approach to industrial safety, AARBA sponsored a post graduate course in behavior-based safety in 2008 and taught B-BS fundamentals to more than 100 people. In 2009, AARBA holds four of these Master’s Courses, in collaboration with the Italian Association of Safety Technicians (AIAS), ISPESL, Regione Veneto, and Polytechnic of Bari. AARBA also plans to organize events with each one of these institutions during following months.
On the 24th of April, AARBA presented its results in training AgustaWestland pilots to Didamatica 2009 (University of Trento), the main Italian congress for communication technology applied to learning.
On the 8th of May in Riva del Garda, president Fabio Tosolin presented the evidence-based safety and ways to define standard safety laws starting from scientific discovery in behavior to the AIAS Congress.
On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of October the fourth edition of the European B-BS Congress takes place in Bari, hosted by Polytechnic. B-BS international stars are expected. After this, AARBA and its members fly to Dusseldorf to present B-BS solutions in the A+A fair, the most important event in Europe for safety, security, and health at work.