Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
Mid-American ABA
By Jonathan Baker
The Mid-American Association for Behavior Analysis (MA-ABA), a regional affiliate of ABAI, is a membership organization devoted to promoting scholarly interchange in behavior analysis through its annual convention. The 11th annual MA-ABA convention was held October 22–23 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. More than 180 people attended the convention, with graduate and undergraduate students comprising the majority of attendees. The convention began when Dr. Mark Dixon (Southern Illinois University) gave his presidential address called "Behaviorism at 150." Dr. Ronnie Dietrich (Wing Institute for Evidence-Based Education) presented his talk titled, "From the Boutique to the Mainstream: The Role of Behavior Analysis in Education Reform," and Dr. Corina Jimenez-Gomez (University of Michigan) provided a talk called, "A Behavioral Perspective on the Study of Drug Cues." Later, Dr. Derek D. Reed (University of Kansas) led a discussion called, "The 'Paradox' of Choice: Can There Be Too Much of a Good Thing?" and Dr. Adam Derenne (University of North Dakota) gave a presentation titled, "Peak Shift Reconsidered: Does a Little-Known Laboratory Phenomenon Broadly Affect Choice?" During the afternoon of the first day, Dr. Patrick Friman (Boys Town) gave a presentation called, "Boys Town: Walden III for Out of Home Teenagers" and Dr. Jennifer McComas (University of Minnesota) presented a talk titled, "Using a Stimulus Equivalence Paradigm to Teach Numeracy in English, Ojibwe, and Dakota to Preschool Age Children." The first day ended with a panel discussion and poster presentations by students and faculty.
The second day of the convention began when Dr. F. Charles Mace, (Nova Southeastern University) discussed his paper titled, "Translational Research in Behavioral Momentum: Models of Treatment Relapse" and Dr. Susan Schneider (University of the Pacific) presented her paper entitled, "Nature and Nurture: Interactions, Behavioral and Neural Plasticity, and More Good News." During the final session, Dr. Jack J. McDowell (Emory University), gave a talk called, "A Selectionist Theory of Behavior Dynamics and Its Application to Human Social Behavior of Clinical Interest."
The 2011 convention will be held October 20–22 in Bloomingdale, Illinois at the Chicago/Indian Lakes Resort. The conference will again include addresses on both basic and applied behavior analytic research.
MA-ABA holds a business meeting at the annual convention. Persons interested in this organization are welcome to attend either meeting. The current president of MA-ABA is Dr. Cynthia Pietras (Western Michigan University). MA-ABA's president-elect is Dr. Diana Walker (The Chicago School for Professional Psychology). More information about MA-ABA and the annual convention can be found at the organization website (www.uwec.edu/maba/) or by contacting Jonathan Baker at jonathan.c.baker@siu.edu.