Newsletter
Volume 31 2008| Number 2
The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group UK and Europe
By Dr. J. Carl Hughes
The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group (EABG) held its biennial meeting at University College London in 2007. The meeting was a great success with over 160 delegates in attendance across the three days; academics, postgraduate students, and applied researchers came from across Europe, North America, and further afield. Reassuringly for the future of behaviour analysis in Europe, at the 2007 meeting we hosted a higher number of student presenters than ever before, and, notably, there was an increase in attendees employed as applied behaviour analysts in service delivery settings. Both of these encourage a positive outlook.
Currently we organise the EABG London meeting and the European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA) meeting on alternating years (EABG on odd years and EABA on even years). The 4th meeting of the EABA was held in September 2008 in Madrid, Spain ( http://eaba.bangor.ac.uk), and the next EABG meeting will be held at Easter 2009 ( http://eabg.bangor.ac.uk).
Special Edition of the European Journal of Behavior Analysis
Our most significant development over the last year was the publication of a special edition of the European Journal of Behavior Analysis (EJOBA). EJOBA is supported by the Norwegian Association of Behavior Analysis (NAFO), and founded by three of its members, Arne Brekstad, Per Holth, and Erik Arntzen, from Akershus University College, Oslo. The first volume of EJOBA was released in 2000 and since then, two volumes have been published each year. More recently, EJOBA has published a number of special editions focusing on stimulus equivalence, bereavement, precision teaching, and non-contingent reinforcement. One of the ongoing aims for the EABG is to provide support for EJOBA. The 2007 edition (Vol. 8:2) is the first volume of the journal to contain peer-reviewed articles arising from a European behavioural conference, and this represents a significant move to both supporting EJOBA and also promoting applied and basic behaviour analysis in Europe.
The 2007 volume contains (a) a brief history of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group (EABG) with some comments on how the group has influenced the development of behaviour analysis in Europe (Hughes, 2007); (b) three of the invited addresses from the April 2007 meeting, and (c) ten other papers that were presented in symposium at the conference. It was fitting that in the first peer-reviewed journal edition of the EABG, two of our most committed supporters from the U.S., Doug Greer and Lanny Fields, contributed papers (Fields & Moss, 2007; Greer, Stolfi, & Pistoljevic, 2007). At the meeting we were pleased to welcome two of the major contributors to British behaviour analysis, Professor Bob Remington and Professor Richard Hastings, to talk about the Southampton Childhood Autism Programme (SCAmP) and the recent important contribution to the evidence for early intensive interventions, reporting results from a field effectiveness study of ABA for children with autism in the UK education system (Remington et al., 2007).
It was also our great pleasure to welcome David C. Palmer to give our keynote address. On the 50th anniversary of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Dr. Palmer talked about structure and function within verbal behaviour and argued that an important goal of the next 50 years is to show how structural phenomena in verbal behaviour are subsumed by a functional account (Palmer, 2007). We also welcomed Dr. Jerry Shook to his first EABG. Dr. Shook is Chief Executive Officer of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc., (BACB). The BACB continues to be a major catalyst in the development of training programs and certification of behaviour analysts internationally, and during his visit he made some significant contributions toward our hope to move forward to increase training initiatives and expand the move towards certification of those working as behaviour analysts in Europe (Hughes & Shook, 2007). It is appropriate at this point to acknowledge the efforts of the EJOBA editorial team, and in particular Erik Arntzen, for bringing the special edition to print. Please help support European behaviour analysis by subscribing to the EJOBA (www.ejoba.org).
Supporting Certification in Europe
Another noticeable difference to the 2007 conference was the number of BCBA and BCABA delegates looking to gain their continuing education units (CEUs) at the conference. In the past few years we have witnessed a huge increase in the number of European behaviour analysts gaining BCBA/BCABA certification. We had 12 events, consisting of symposia, invited addresses, panel discussions, and workshops, offering a total of 19 CEUs. We piloted the inclusion of the cost of obtaining CEUs in the registration payment for the conference. Our aim was to remove one of the barriers to obtaining those much needed CEUs. The feedback from the delegates, especially those who do not have financial backing to attend such events, was that this was a very positive move and for many made the difference as to whether they could fund attendance at the conference. We are now in the situation in the UK and Europe of being able to provide many of the CEUs for certified behaviour analysts; this is a crucial development in the move to certification and self-sufficiency in Europe, and again especially important to those certificants who are often unable to gain funding to attend the ABAI conference and other events in the US on a regular basis (see Hughes & Shook, 2007).
This is an exciting time for behaviour analysis in Europe. We also improved markedly in the training provisions available to behaviour analysts and those wishing to develop their knowledge of the area. There now exist 16 BACB/BCABA course sequences approved across several universities in Europe—Wales, Norway, Ireland, England, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and Portugal (Hughes & Shook, 2007).
Conclusions
During the past year, the EABG has maintained its commitment to continued education about behaviour analysis to the European public and professionals. Our aims for the following year are to continue our support for EABA and the Madrid meeting and to continue to support behaviour analysis through BCBA and BCABA training and promotional events. In brief, the evidence from the EABG 2007 meeting suggests that behaviour analysis in the UK and Europe is vibrant. The EABG continues to provide a forum for the dissemination and discussion of high quality behaviour analytic research. The European Association for Behaviour Analysis and the European Journal of Behaviour Analysis evidence continuing endeavours in the development of behaviour analysis across Europe. The next meeting of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group is scheduled for Easter 2009. Before then, please join us in Madrid, September, 2008.
If you would like further information about the EABG please contact Carl Hughes (c.hughes@bangor.ac.uk) or visit the EABG Web page for updated information of the annual conferences (http://eabg.bangor.ac.uk)
References
Fields, L.,& Moss, P. (2007). Stimulus relatedness in equivalence classes: Interaction of nodality and contingency. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, ;8(2), 141-159.
Greer, R. D., Stolfi, L., & Pistoljevic, N. (2007). Emergence of naming in preschoolers: A comparison of multiple and single exemplar instruction. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 8(2), 109-131.
Hughes, J. C. (2007). The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group, UK and Europe. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 8(2), 105-107.
Hughes, J. C., Shook, G. L. (2007). Training and certification of behaviour analysts in Europe: Past, present and future challenges. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 8(2), 239-249.
Palmer, D. C. (2007). Verbal Behavior: What is the function of structure? European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 8(2), 161-175.
Remington, B., Hastings, R. P., Kovshoff, H., Degli ; Espinosa, F., Jahr, E., Brown, T., et al. (2007). Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention: Outcomes for Children With Autism and Their Parents After Two Years. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 112(6), 418-438.