Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 1 | 2009 | Number 2 | On-line ISSN: 2151-4704
Behavior Analysis in Finland
By Martti T. Tuomisto
In November 2005, I was awarded an International Development Grant by the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis to develop a university training program in applied and clinical behavior analysis at the University of Tampere. This was joyful news that encouraged me to realize the training program that had long been planned. In addition, the University of Tampere awarded me a grant for the detailed planning of the program. The awards also helped in planning the curriculum to give accurate instruction in the terminology, principles, and methods of behavior analysis, and to develop the terminology further in the Finnish language. The 2-year training program was the first behavior analytic program in Finland. There have been behavior oriented psychologists in the country for a long time as well as behavior analytic elements in other training programs (especially behavior therapy programs for prospective therapists), but never before had there been an entire program officially dedicated to behavior analysis. We felt that this was a deficit compared to many other areas of our society that have truly advanced research and teaching (e.g., the fields of medicine and electronic engineering) with companies like Nokia.
Dr. Raimo Lappalainen (University of Jyväskylä) and I covered many areas of application: behavioral medicine, special and general education, organizational behavior management, clinical behavior analysis, autism, and developmental disabilities. We also spent time in each of the following areas: parenting and child development, social work and community interventions, behavioral safety, behavioral neurology, behavioral gerontology, behavioral pharmacology, sports and exercise, and environmental protection.
We wanted to give our students an introduction to many areas of application. In a small country with a population of just over 5 million, specializing in only one topic in a program is not feasible, especially in the early days of a scientific field. Our task was to introduce education of behavior analysis in different areas. We ourselves worked quite extensively with, and have mastered, one or two areas in depth. This approach is possible with behavior analysis, because B. F. Skinner already developed the principles and processes of behavior analysis with a coherent terminology to be applied to all human behavior. This is just one of the great strengths of behavior analysis. Another is that we have a comprehensive science in the sense that we do not need to discard earlier basic principles (such as respondent conditioning) when new principles or processes are found and studied (such as stimulus equivalence and relational operants in complex human behavior). This is an analogue to a computer program that supports earlier versions: compatibility is preserved. These things facilitated the integrity of the program. The principles and processes of behavior analysis could be rehearsed and applied continuously to new topics and areas within the program which reinforced learning new applications.
We had two foreign teachers on the program: special educator G. Adda Ragnarsdóttir, MA, from Reykjavik, Iceland; and Associate Professor JoAnne Dahl, from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. Adda taught direct instruction and precision teaching, and JoAnne taught the treatment of pain and epilepsy using acceptance and commitment therapy. My own main interest was behavioral medicine, especially cardiovascular behavioral medicine, but my latest application of behavior analysis was in the context of bariatric surgery.
The main textbook of the training was Cooper, J. O.; Heron, T. E.; & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied Behavior Analysis (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/ Merrill Education/ Prentice Hall. In addition, several other acclaimed textbooks were adopted. We have published two books in Finnish that were used:
- The second edition of Tuomisto, M. T.; Lappalainen, R.; & Timonen, T. (2005). Funktionaalisen käyttäytymisanalyysin perusteet [Functional behavior analysis]. Tampere: SKT.
- Tuomisto, M. T. & Parkkinen, L. (2008). Käyttäytymisanalyysin sanakirja [Dictionary of behavior analysis]. Tampere: SKT.
Several participants received The European Journal of Behavior Analysis (EJOBA) that benefited their studies. The first ABAI Autism Conference was included in the curriculum, and we followed it via the Internet.
This year the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) approved the course sequence I submitted from the University of Tampere as meeting the 225-hour coursework requirement for taking the Board Certified Behavior Analyst examination. (See the map of Scandinavia or Nordic Countries on the BACB Web site at: www.bacb.com/cues/frame_about.html.)
This attracted attention from within the University, and the news was reported on the University's Web site. In addition, the University's newspaper interviewed me and published a favorable article about behavior analysis. It was the first time behavior analysis received so much attention from the community at the University of Tampere.
The first training program finished in October 2008. Fifteen students participated, and many of them are now in a position to be able to take the BCBA examination. Many students went to the ABAI 5th International Conference in Oslo, Norway together with their professors. The University of Tampere has already decided to start another behavior analysis training program next year and the future of our program looks bright. We are now able to teach behavior analysis to more professionals and educate teachers of the science of behavior analysis.
The number of trained behavior analysts is still small in our country, but it is growing and gaining strength. My hope is that, in the future, large numbers of Finnish behavior analysts will attend behavior analytic conferences in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere in the world. The International Development Grant was a vital spark to kindle this positive expansion of activities. I encourage professionals in other countries aspiring for stronger behavior analysis development to apply for the grant.