Newsletter
Volume 30| 2007| Number 2
Mid-American ABA
By Dr. Adam Derenne
The Mid-American Association for Behavior Analysis (MABA), a regional affiliate of the Association for Behavior Analysis, is a membership organization devoted to promoting scholarly interchange in behavior analysis through its annual convention. The 7th Annual Mid-American Association for Behavior Analysis (MABA) convention was held October 20-21 in Carbondale, Illinois, the home of Southern Illinois University. More than 100 people attended the convention, with graduate and undergraduate students comprising the majority of attendees. The convention began with Dr. Joel Ringdahl (University of Iowa) describing how prompting and preference affect appropriate communication and Dr. Nathan Call (The Marcus Institute) discussing parent procedural fidelity during brief functional analyses. Experimental psychologists delivered several talks during the late morning. Dr. Linda Hayes (University of Nevada, Reno) spoke on the topic of feelings, Dr. Tim Shahan (Utah State University) described his recent research on attending, and Dr. Greg Madden (University of Kansas) talked about how impulsivity and strain differences affect gambling. During the afternoon, Dr. Kevin Klatt (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) compared the efficacy of different prompting procedures used to teach new skills to children with autism, Dr. Dorothy Lerman (University of Houston-Clear Lake) spoke about the importance of reinforcer magnitude in applied behavior analysis, and Dr. Dave Gilbert (Southern Illinois University) presented his research on genetic and phenotypic predictors of mood, attentional and brain responses to cigarette smoking. The first day ended with a paper presentation by the 2006 student award winner, a poster session and a graduate program expo.
The second day of the convention began with Dr. Cindy Pietras (Western Michigan University) describing dynamic risky choice, and Tom Critchfield (Illinois State University) discoursing on the ways in which behavior is conceptualized and described. Later in the day, Dr. Larry Williams (University of Nevada, Reno) spoke about the assessment of discrimination hierarchies and Dr. Jack Michael (Western Michigan University) related his experiences in teaching at the university level using programmed self-instruction. The final research presentation was delivered by outgoing MABA president Jeff Weatherly (University of North Dakota), who spoke about variables affecting relative reinforcer value.
The 2007 convention will be held October 5-6 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Additional information about MABA and its annual conference can be found online at http://psyc.uwec.edu/maba/maba.html