Newsletter
Volume 29 | 2006 | Number 3
Trends in International Dissemination: Behavior Analysis on the World Stage
By Dr. M. Jackson Marr
Some years ago the Association for Behavior Analysis became the Association for Behavior Analysis International. This change in title was done for at least two interlocking reasons. First, there really was a significant and growing international (i.e., outside the U.S.) community of behavior analysts with whom ABA would like to develop closer relations through affiliate chapters, joint meetings, special interest groups, as well as program and publication functions. Second, to help accomplish these efforts as well as others, some official recognition as well as responsibilities would accrue from attaching the term "International" to the organization. In some sense ABA would have to put its money where its mouth was. However, I don't believe any of us who were around when these efforts first began could have imagined how they would evolve into their current, extraordinarily active and creative state.
An essential step to upholding the international title was to incorporate distinguished ABA members from outside the U.S. into ABA governance. The 1990s saw our first ABA President from outside the U.S.—Masaya Sato from Japan. Further acknowledgement of the significance of international development was the establishment of an ABA Council position for international affairs and development. Michael Davison, a New Zealander, served as the first representative of the world community of behavior analysts. These recognitions and others have enriched the annual ABA convention program immensely through invited presentations and symposia, receptions, expos, student activities and support, SABA awards, and many other events and efforts.
But these reflections of ABA's international involvement have largely emerged from a rapidly growing behavior analytic representation outside the U.S. The numbers are telling: The non-U.S. ABA membership has more than doubled in the last decade; as has the number of its affiliate chapters; the membership in these chapters (6831) now exceeds that of the affiliate chapters within the U.S. (6015). Some 30 countries are represented, from Iceland to Italy; from Brazil to Bahrain; from Norway to New Zealand; from Japan to Jordan. In some cases independent regional behavioral associations (e.g., the European Association for Behaviour Analysis), involving several countries, have been founded with their own international meetings and publications.
In the past several years ABA has engaged in two major thrusts in international development. The first has been to organize conferences outside the U.S., necessarily involving local representatives of the behavior-analytic community as hosts and attracting students, practitioners, and faculty from the region, as well as "outsiders." So far, Italy (Venice), Brazil (Campinas), and China (Beijing) have, with the support of ABA, served as hosts. These meetings have been extraordinarily successful in terms of attendance, participant satisfaction, and cost. The next meeting will be in Sydney, Australia in August.
The second thrust is more ambitious, but has great promise for the development and longevity of the field of behavior analysis—basic and applied. The simple fact is that people everywhere need what this field, and only this field, can provide. Problems of developmental disabilities, education, management, and many others addressable through behavior-analytic methods have no international boundaries. Simple demographics applied to China, for example, would predict that there at least 10 million autistic children in that country. Who is going to treat these children? The primary issue is training, that is, the development of self-sustaining programs in behavior analysis to produce qualified and effective faculty and practitioners in the region where such problems may begin to be addressed. By invitation, ABA has sent delegations (at the delegate’s own expense!) to Russia, China, and the Middle East to initiate such programs. What has been accomplished so far? Here are some examples:
- China: The ABA delegation resulted in an affiliated chapter, later the 2005 international conference in Beijing, and the subsequent establishment of three schools for children with disabilities, established by Applied Behavior Consultants. In addition, a Chinese person trained in the U.S. in behavior analysis at University of Nevada-Reno went back to China with a dissemination mission.
- Middle East: The ABA delegation resulted in the establishment of the Middle East Association for Behavior Analysis, which is very active. During the delegation visit we held a conference with over 100 attendees from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Publicity about the conference in the media was very positive and detailed, with multiple articles appearing in local newspapers.
Another is being considered for Abu Dhabi as a result of the very favorable reception of the first Middle East delegation. In Jordan, through encouragement and support at the highest levels of government, an M.A. program is under development at the Jordan University of Science & Technology, scheduled to open next summer.
These are complex as well as ambitious tasks and will take several years and much hard work to show their ultimate merit; but, as one who has had the privilege of serving on three of these delegations, I have seen what can only be described as a desperate call by government officials, physicians, parents, university presidents, and other constituents for what we, as behavior analysts can provide. Many in the U.S. think that our field is "dead," or, at least moribund; indeed, there is no doubt that many academic programs in behavior analysis are struggling to maintain their integrity. But in the rest of the world, many are not contaminated by doctrinaire and ignorant prejudices about the value of behavior analysis—as a science and a practice: they see that it works, and they want more. Thus, the future of behavior analysis may well depend on our efforts in international development.