Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
Autism
By Lori Bechner, Robert Ross, and Ruth Donlin
The Autism SIG is grateful for the support from the officers and volunteers who have provided valuable input. Previous Autism SIG president's Ruth Donlin, Mary Jane Weiss, and David Celiberti continue to be involved in developing the group. Lori Bechner is the current president and Bob Ross is the president-elect; the additional core committee includes Sara Gershfeld (website master), Amy Hansford (secretary/treasurer), Pam Gorski, David Fisher, Suzannah Ferriaoli, Kristin Foley, Chigusa Haldeman, and Suzanne Buchannan.
Membership Committee
This year we reached over 1,000 members! The Autism SIG remains the largest special interest group within ABAI. The Autism SIG welcomes all members to join our committee. There are no fees required, and membership information is kept confidential. For more information, send an e-mail to a.hansford@gmail.com.
Student Research Award
We sponsor an annual student research award. This year's student research winner is Nitasha Dickes of the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. As the winner of this year's award, her study will be printed in the next issue of the Autism SIG newsletter, and she will be awarded a certificate honoring her achievement at the 2011 ABAI Autism SIG meeting in Denver, Colorado. We extend our appreciation to our volunteer judges Jane Carlson, Peishi Wang, and Emily Johnson. We welcome all student poster research submissions.
Consumer Resource Committee
This committee is currently focusing on revising The Consumer Guidelines. The guidelines provide valuable information for consumers of applied behavior analysis (ABA) services. This resource was developed to help enable parents, school districts, and other professionals to identify qualified practitioners of ABA services for individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The current guidelines were last revised in the fall of 2007 and do not fully reflect the many changes that have taken place since that time. An internal committee of Autism SIG members has been established to conduct the initial review (Mary Jane Weiss, chair; Robert Ross; Suzanne Buchannan; Andy Bondy; and Michael Fabrizio) and a number of external review panels will also participate in this revision. This is an enormous undertaking that will include layers of planning and collaboration. The SIG would like to thank some of those who will be involved as our external review members: Gina Green, Ph.D. BCBA-D; Dick Malott, Ph.D. BCBA-D; and Jerry Shook, Ph.D. BCBA-D.
Newsletter Committee
The newsletter underwent several changes this year. Our long serving editor, David Fisher, is no longer able to serve in this role and we are not able to replace him in this formal position as of yet. We also changed the format of our newsletter to make distribution and access to content easier. Now, in addition to e-mailing the electronic version to all members, newsletter content is incorporated in the related links on our website.
Website Committee
Sara Gershfeld, our webmaster, gave our website a complete revision with features that expanded our exposure and streamlined our information. We also ensure that all newsletter content is directly accessible via the site. We are planning some big changes this year; we hope to be able to provide updated information on research related to peer-reviewed studies of autism treatments. We hope that this will become a go-to site for information both on effective treatments and on research of treatments that have been found to be ineffective. We share our site with our close collaborator, the Parent-Professional Partnership SIG. Please check out our website for valuable information and sign up to join one or both of our groups at www.autismppp.sig.
In preparing for this upcoming year, we plan to have a formal membership drive that will begin in the summer. We are excited about the revisions to The Consumer Guidelines and look forward to the work of the committees (internal and external). We are hopeful that we will be able to find a new newsletter editor. As mentioned above, we intend to continue to expand our website to make it a true resource for our members and the public by including a featured section devoted to research regarding therapies that have little or no scientific support. This area would also be used to highlight breakthroughs or new research that supports various interventions. Please consider joining if you are not a member and if you are, we hope you will consider becoming active by helping in any way you can.