Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 2 | 2010 | Number 2
ABA España
By Javier Virués Ortega, Tomas J. Carrasco Giménez, Arquímedes Fernández Valdés, María Xesús FrojÁn Parga, Brisa Reina Marín, and Victor Rodríguez Garciía
ABA España continues to expand and develop numerous activities for promoting and developing behavior analysis in Spain and elsewhere. Just recently the first of our students obtained the BCBA credential: Aikaterini Dounavi. We expect that over 30 students will take the exam as soon as it is made available in Spanish, a process that will start soon with the joint efforts of the Behavior Analysis Certification Board and ABA España.
We have recently completed an election process that has renewed the Executive Board of ABA España, now composed by Fernández Valdés (Universidad de la Laguna & Ilusiones para el Autismo Foundation, Canary Islands); María Xesús Froján (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid); Tomás Carrasco (Universidad de Granada); Victor Rodríguez García (Planeta Imaginario Foundation, Barcelona); Brisa Reina-Marín (Asociación Aragonesa del Trastorno por Déficit de Atención), and Javier Virués Ortega (Nodo Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CIBERNED, Madrid) as President. The new board is excited to work intensively in favor of behavior analysis and our members.
We continue with activities that are now well established in our organization including our BACB-approved course and several annual workshops. We are now in the process of expanding the distance-learning opportunities offered through our website. We have recently launched a new website with features that will be useful to both professionals and potential users of behavior-analytic services (www.aba-elearning.com). Our website has a search engine for job opportunities in behavior analysis that aims to be a reference for behavior analysts looking for jobs in Spain. We are also introducing a professional registry, where users and potential clients can look for information about behavior analysts in their area. Our e-learning system has been recently launched as well (www.aba-elearning.com/moodle). This system has already provided training opportunities in behavior analysis to over 100 students in Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Mexico, France, Ireland, and of course, Spain.
We continue to establish professional relationships with institutions and individuals throughout the world to expand our educational offerings, provide support to our members, and disseminate behavior analysis at large. Renowned professionals have worked with us over the years, including Brian Iwata (University of Florida), Dick Malott (Western Michigan University), Martha Pelaez (Florida International University), Emma Hawkins (Jigsaw CABAS School), Carl Hughes (Bangor University), and others. We have established partnerships with almost every applied program in the field in Spain in order to offer practicum opportunities to our students, and we have a few international alliances. Specifically, we have worked together with the New England Center for Children over the past 3 years and we are working to establish agreements with leading institutions within Europe.
ABA España is also supportive of research initiatives. The board is willing to enhance activity in this area in the future. We have recently established an agreement with Antam, Ltd. (London, UK), to help ABA España members get their research published in English. Antam will provide editing services by personnel specialized in behavior analysis. We have also supported research papers conducted in the interest of the field. As part of that aim, we have recently published a paper on the field of behavior analysis with the support of the Behavior Analysis Certification Board and the European Association for Behaviour Analysis in Papeles del Psicólogo, the most widely distributed psychology journal in Spain (the article is accessible free of charge both in English and Spanish at www.papelesdelpsicologo.es). We have also supported a landmark study on the effectiveness of ABA intervention in developmental disabilities recently published by the Clinical Psychology Review, the world highest impact factor journal in clinical psychology.
As a national organization in behavior analysis we are supportive of several initiatives related to the field in Europe and Spain. We are especially supportive of the conference of the European Association for Behaviour Analysis that will take place in Crete during September, 2010, and of the ABAI International Conference to be held in Spain in 2011. While our preferences for the location of the international conference are set on Barcelona, Madrid, and particularly, Granada, we will be supportive of whatever decision ABAI makes on the matter.
There are several developments that have taken place recently in our country that are indicative of the good health of the field. Three new applied programs in ABA intervention for developmental disabilities have been created recently and a few more will be launched in the near future. One of them is particularly remarkable: the program managed by the Ilusiones para el Autismo Foundation and chaired by our delegate in applied behavior analysis for developmental disabilities, Fernández-Valdés. This program is the first to be co-funded by the government in our country and could therefore become a precedent for others to follow in the future.