Newsletter
Volume 31| 2008| 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 International, is a membership organization devoted to promoting scholarly interchange in behavior analysis through its annual convention. The 8th annual MABA convention was held October 5th–6th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More than 100 people attended the convention, with graduate and undergraduate students comprising the majority of attendees. The convention began when Dr. Jay Moore (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) described the effects of reinforcer delay on choice and Tal Yarkoni (Washington University) discussed the use of functional neuroimaging to study decision-making. Later, Dr. Douglas Woods (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) spoke about basic and applied research on Tourette’s Syndrome, and Dr. David Wacker (University of Iowa) described the long-term maintenance of functional communication training. During the afternoon of the first day, Dr. Linda LeBlanc (Western Michigan University) addressed the role of intraverbals and problem-solving in children’s language, Dr. David Jewett (University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire) spoke about discriminative stimulus effects associated with acute food restriction, Dr. Valeri Farmer-Dougan (Illinois State University) presented research on individual differences in reward sensitivity during paired and group foraging, and Dr. Leonard Green (Washington University) shared his recent research on choice, impulsivity, and self-control. The first day ended with poster presentations by students and faculty.
The second day of the convention began when Dr. John Borrero (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) discussed the assessment of stimulus value in applied contexts, and Henry Roane (University of Nebraska) presented new research on the treatment of problem behaviors in autism. The final talks were by Erica Pozzie (Southern Illinois University), winner of the MABA student paper contest, who spoke about enhancing self-control in children with brain injury, and outgoing president Dr. Ruth Anne Rehfeldt (Southern Illinois University), who spoke about assessing relational learning deficits in perspective-taking in children with autism.
The 2008 convention will be held October 3rd–4th in Champaign, Illinois at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center. The conference will again include addresses on both basic and applied behavior-analytic research.
MABA holds a business meeting at the annual convention and again at the ABAI convention. Persons interested in this organization are welcome to attend either meeting. The current president of MABA is Dr. James Carr (Western Michigan University) and the President-Elect is Dr. Kevin Klatt (University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire). More information about MABA and the annual convention can be found at the organization Web site: http://www.uwec.edu/maba/ or by contacting Adam Derenne at adam.derenne@und.edu.