Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group UK
By J. Carl Hughes
The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group (EABG) held its biennial meeting in University College London from April 18–20, 2011. The meeting was a great success and had the biggest attendance in the history of the EABG, with over 200 delegates over 3 days; academics, MSc and postgraduate students, and applied researchers came from across Europe, North America, and farther afield. Reassuringly for the future of behaviour analysis in Europe, there was a continued trend in the increase in the number of student presenters, and an increase in the number of delegates who are not employed in an academic setting, but work in the field as applied behaviour analysts.
The 2011 Conference Programme
We had a number of very distinguished invited addresses at the conference. It was our pleasure to welcome back to EABG Bob Remington (Southampton University) and Richard Hastings (Bangor University), who updated the delegates on the evidence for comprehensive interventions for children with autism. We were pleased to invite Professor Erik Arntzen, from Oslo, Norway, to update us on the developments of the European Association for Behavior Analysis (EABA). Professor Jack Marr joined us again from Atlanta, USA, to talk on the radical behaviourist position on privacy. We were also very pleased to invite Mecca Chiesa, from the Tizard Centre, University of Kent, to talk about the measurement of behaviour. And finally, it was our great pleasure to welcome Janet Twyman, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School/E. K. Shriver Center, to give our conference keynote address on the influence of new technologies on the future of behaviour analysis; Janet's talk was inspiring, and she gave us a glimpse of the potential that new technologies may offer us in expanding behaviour analysis.
In addition to our invited speakers, we hosted over 80 other high-quality talks and posters on both applied and basic issues. We were also pleased to hold a workshop on functional analysis and two 1-day workshops, one giving an introduction to precision teaching and the other an introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy.
We also held an open meeting at the conference to discuss the continuing movement to develop behaviour analysis as a stand-alone recognised profession in the UK. We decided at that meeting to start the important work to develop an official membership organisation in the UK to promote and represent behaviour analysis and those interested broadly in behaviour analysis (Behaviour Analysis UK).
As we have come to expect, the attendance at the conferences over the last few years has included an ever-increasing number of BCBA and BCaBA delegates looking to gain their continuing education units (CEUs) at the conference. We hosted 27 events, consisting of symposia, invited addresses, panel discussions, and workshops, offering a total of 29 CEUs. We also continued the trend we began at the 2007 meeting to include the cost of obtaining CEUs in the registration payment for the conference. We are now in the situation in the UK and Europe where we are able to provide a good proportion of the CEUs for certified behaviour analysts; we believe this to be one of the crucial developments in maintaining the long-term expansion of behaviour analysis in Europe.
Please visit the EABG web page to view the programme of events and for information on future events offering CEUs throughout the year (http://eabg.bangor.ac.uk).
Special Edition of EJOBA
We are pleased to announce that the European Journal of Behaviour Analysis (EJOBA) will be calling for another special EABG edition of the journal to be published in 2011. We piloted this relationship in 2007, and this resulted in a high-quality volume of papers from the conference. The second special edition will be open to include papers submitted by anyone who presented at EABG 2011, including keynote and invited speakers. For more information visit the EJOBA web page (www.ejoba.org) or contact the EJOBA editor and current EABA president, Erik Arntzen (erik.arntzen@equivalence.net).
Please also make a note that the sixth meeting of the European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA VI) will be held in Portugal, September 2012. If you have not previously attended or given a paper at a European meeting, now is the time to consider spending time next year in discussion with European colleagues at this wonderful location. If you would like further information about the EABA VI meeting visit the official EABA website (http://www.europeanaba.org/).
During the past year, the EABG organisation has maintained its commitment to continued education of the European public and professionals about behaviour analysis. Our aims for the following year are to continue our support for EABA and the Portugal meeting and to continue to support behaviour analysis through BCBA and BCaBA training and promotional events. In this regard EABG has recently organized, in collaboration with the Wales Centre for Behaviour Analysis (http://wcba.bangor.ac.uk) and TreeHouse school, several CEU events in the UK. We hope to organise a number of other CEU events across the UK over the next year.
The EABG team wishes to thank all the delegates and presenters who attended the 2011 conference, and our invited speakers who gave some wonderful and authoritative talks in their areas of expertise. Special thanks to students from Bangor University, Wales—Pagona Tzanakaki, Tracey Wileman, Kirsty Angel, Sarah Northope, Laura Brame, Rosie Wilson, Shiori Ono, Hannah Philpott, Karolina Watanabe, Tyronia Ferguson, and Lisa Hutchinson—for their hard work in helping to make the event run so smoothly. As always, special thanks also to John Draper and the support team at University College London Psychology for assisting and hosting the event again.
In brief, the evidence from the EABG 2011 meeting suggests that behaviour analysis in the UK and Europe is vibrant and continues to grow. The EABG continues to provide a forum for the dissemination and discussion of high-quality behaviour analytic research and training, and providing the home for important developments in behaviour analysis in the UK.