Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
Developmental Behavior Analysis
By Gary Novak
As noted on our home web page:
The Behavioral Developmental Analysis SIG has focused on behavior-analytic functional relations in a developmental frame, that is, where those relationships are examined across two or more points in a developmental sequence. The SIG's emphases are upon environmental-unit/behavior-unit interactions in basic and applied contexts, in mammalian species, and across any sequences or combinations of developmental points (and, in initial phases, at single developmental points). Species-specific considerations are taken into account in relation to the functional relationships. Use of demographic independent variables is not encouraged, except when they could facilitate clearly uncovering the underlying behavioral processes. Occasionally, the environment-behavior interactions in a developmental frame are grouped under a superordinate concept (e.g., "attachment," "learned helplessness"), to allow the behavior-analytic description/explanation to be evaluated against an alternative description/explanation. More generally, the SIG examines also how different theoretical positions, within and outside of behavior analysis, approach identical questions (http://adultdevelopment.org/bdev/index.php).
The Developmental Behavior SIG (DEV SIG) had a very successful convention in Denver. In addition to our annual SIG dinner and our business meeting, we presented our customarily broad and diverse convention program. The program included two B. F. Skinner lectures. The first was given by Dr. Robert Siegler, a cognitive-developmental researcher of renown. Siegler earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Stony Brook University where, among other things, he took a symposium from Howard Rachlin that also included Len Green and Gary Novak among the students reading Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior articles. While Siegler has written many books and articles from an information-processing perspective, he is known for his interest in the functions of cognition. The second Skinner lecture was delivered by William Pelham, who also received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Stony Brook. Now at Florida International University, he described his decades-long research program on the effectiveness of behavioral interventions for the treatment of attention deficit disorder and issues to consider in implementing behavioral treatments alongside pharmacological ones.
DEV SIG also sponsored an invited address by William Baum that brought into question the utility of the concept of private events in behavioral accounts. We were also responsible for bringing to ABAI the efforts of international behavior analysts working to prevent obesity development through the development of healthy eating behaviors. The effectiveness of the program, Food Dudes, was presented in an invited address by one of its founders, Fergus Lowe, and its implementation in various nations was reported on in a DEV SIG-sponsored symposium.
All told, DEV SIG sponsored six symposia, one invited address, one workshop, one paper session, and a panel discussion following Siegler's lecture.
DEV SIG sponsors an online journal, The Behavioral Development Bulletin, hosted by Behavior Analyst Online (http://www.baojournal.com/BDB%20WEBSITE/index.html). The Behavioral Development Bulletin publishes empirical, theoretical, and review articles relevant to the goals outlined above. Martha Pelaez is the founding editor, and Michael Lamport Commons is the co-editor. Submissions to The Behavioral Development Bulletin are encouraged.