Newsletter
Volume 31| 2008 | Number 2
ABA Colombia
“Behavior Analysis and Knowledge Societies: Challenges and Opportunities”
By Wilson López-López, María Constanza Aguilar Bustamante, Juan Pablo Gamboa, Camilo Hurtado, and Luis Manuel Silva
During 2006 and 2007, ABA Colombia has been developing and improving the Web site www.abacolombia.org.co, which has supported the Author Seminar devoted to B. F. Skinner given by Professors Blanca Patricia Ballesteros de Valderrama and Wilson López López, at Javeriana University. ABA Colombia’s Web site is a space for communication and exchange of knowledge, with almost 13,000 joined and registered members who use our resources everyday. Our Web site has exceeded 88,000 hits, and it has become a meeting point and source of knowledge for many users. Our membership in the Iberoamerican Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (FIAP) (http://www.fiapsi.org) has also contributed to develop the visibility of ABA Colombia.
In addition, ABA Colombia, together with the Spanish Association of Behavioral Psychology, has been editing The International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology (http://www.aepc.es/ijchp/index.php?coid=English). That journal was rated among the top Spanish journals in psychology and at the end of 2005 was included in databases such as the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Current Contest/Social and Behavioral Science.
As mentioned in our last report, ABA Colombia assumed the commitment of being one of the nongovernmental organizations devoted to the development of cooperation in Bogotá. Nowadays, we are engaged in a development process supported by the Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá (City Council). In 2006, all City Council requirements were satisfied by ABA Colombia and at the end of 2007 our organization was certified to participate in programs and projects which principally aim to solve social problems in Colombia.
ABA Colombia has been developing training programs in accordance with our members’ demands. For instance, in 2006 our organization gave support and auspice to the organization of the V Iberoamerican Congress of Psychology (http://www.uv.mx/facpsi/), which took place in Veracruz, Mexico (May 16–20, 2006). On the other hand, we gave support to the Iberoamerican Congress of Psychology and Law, which took place in Bogotá in November, 2006 (http://sparta.javeriana.edu.co/psicologia/congresos/juridica/). During 2007, ABA Colombia worked together with the Peruvian Association of Psychologists to organize the IV Iberoamerican* Congress of Psychology, which will take place July 16–19, 2008 (http://www.congresofiapperu.com/principal.htm).
Finally, FIAP, ABA Colombia, and the Spanish Association of Psychologists developed an alliance with the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (Autonomous University of the State of Mexico) and its Redalyc project (Journals Network of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal), generating one of the most important open access information projects in psychology around Iberoamerica (http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/portales/areas/index.jsp?area=15). In 2008 we hope to improve the site and increase its services. In addition, ABA Colombia will open an international service of free information in psychology on FIAP’s Web site (http://www.fiapsi.org/jl/).
ABA Colombia has continuously identified the need to work with autism and learning disabilities, because of the increasing number of people asking for help with these problems. However, there aren’t any Colombian organizations giving financial support for poor and disabled children. In addition, there is no specialized information available. For these reasons, we ask the analyst community for their financial and professional support for training and attention towards these issues.