Association for Behavior Analysis International

If a child is put in the product part of a shopping-cart the risk of accidents due to falling from the cart increases. Eirîksson & Sigurdardottir (2011) demonstrated how an intervention based on antecedent control could dramatically decrease the rate of a child being put into the shopping-cart. Since the original study was conducted in 2010, larger scale studies have been executed more recently with the aim of measuring the long-term effects of the original intervention and, of a similar but new one; studying how common the target behavior is, as well as of identifying the active ingredient of the intervention. Results revealed that the effects of the original intervention maintained at 1, 2, and 3-year follow-up. Also, the target behavior is common, especially in low price supermarkets. Results also revealed that using a pictogram instead of a photograph of a real child proofed nearly as effective. Combining the picture with written instructions (as in the original study) proved more effective than the picture alone (of a real child or a pictogram) but the instructions alone were almost as effective as the picture and instructions combined. Systematic replications in other societies are needed before recommendations can be made for large-scale interventions.

The vast majority of all legal cases are resolved via plea bargain arrangements. However, relatively little research in the area of psychology and behavioral economics has evaluated how contextual factors, such as impulsivity, risk aversion, and sensitivity to immediate outcomes, influences defendants' legal decision making. Using the delay-and-probability discounting model, the purpose of the current project was to evaluate the degree to which college students' decision making involving legal outcomes (i.e., jail time and registration on the sex offender registry) was affected by delayed or uncertain consequences. Participants completed a series of probability discounting tasks or delay discounting tasks, each designed to assess the rate at which the subjective value of rewards and costs diminished as a function of uncertainty or delay and consequence magnitude. Results suggest that legal outcomes are discounting differently according to the magnitude of the consequence, the type of consequence, and the delays to and odds against receiving the legal consequence. Accordingly, these results potentially inform best practices for individuals working with young adults in legal decision-making contexts and add to extant domain-specific behavior-economic discounting literature.

The increased inclusion of individuals with intellectual disability (ID) in the community has been accompanied by a concomitant increase in their involvement with the criminal justice system as suspects and/or victims (Davis 2006). Limitations in both intellectual and adaptive functioning can result in a person displaying poor communication and reasoning skills, decreased social awareness, and poor mobility due to the potential physical challenges sometimes associated with ID (National Research Council 2001; Modell & Mak 2008), increasing their risk of being detained even when they have not been involved in a criminal act. Most police officers receive little training on how to recognize that someone may have a developmental disability and how to interact with these individuals. Research examining trainings used to educate police officers about disabilities shows that those strategies are not always effective in changing their behaviors. Teaching individuals with ID appropriate responses if stopped by a police officer is another option. However, there is limited research examining educating someone with a disability how to respond when stopped by a police officer. This project focused on developing a video modeling intervention to teach adults with ID how to respond when stopped by a police officer.

In today's sociopolitical climate, the discussion of individuals wrongly shot by cops is the forefront on the news. The Ruderman Family Foundation, a disability organization, found that about half of individuals that have been killed by police have a disability. Individuals on the Autism Spectrum Disorder are not immune to this reality; in fact, with ASD being such a spectrum disorder, it is easy for a police officer to mistake a mildly impacted individual with ASD as neurotypical, instead of needing further assistance. Furthermore, many individuals in law enforcement do not have the necessary skills or training to understand various disabilities and mental health disorders that occur amongst individuals. With this harsh reality, it is important to discuss how to teach individuals with ASD (and other developmental disorders), how to safely respond to law enforcement when stopped. This poster will discuss the use of social stories, scripts, and role-playing, to help teach individuals how to respond and "resist arrest" correctly. Furthermore, the ethical discussion of when to focus on teaching minority individuals with ASD and other developmental disorders will be discussed.

Sedentary lifestyles are becoming more common in today's populations leading to an increase in serious health issues. Behavioral interventions to increase physical activity are needed to address this socially significant issue. This study used a changing criterion design to evaluate the effects of a self-tailored deposit contract on physical activity for six weeks with three sedentary adults. Each participant deposited a monetary amount that could be earned back or forfeited contingent on meeting weekly goals. A fixed-ratio schedule was used to increase gradually the minutes exercised per week. Each participant met 100% of their weekly goals across the six-week intervention demonstrating that the intervention was effective, but the behavior did not maintain when the intervention was discontinued. Self-tailored deposit contracting with a changing criterion design was an effective intervention for increasing physical activity, but further research is needed to determine how to successfully fade the intervention while maintaining the target behavior.

A smaller portion of the behavior analytic literature has established literature in assessing and increasing physical activity. The need to increase physical activity has been a talking point for several national organizations. Therefore, one can consider physical activity as a socially significant behavior that may require intervention. This study assessed how often participants modified physical intensity during treadmill exercise when heart rate biofeedback was available. Modifying physical intensity was defined as participant initiated increase or decrease in treadmill speed or incline. The methods used successfully increased the frequency participants modified physical intensity (M=97%) for two of the three typically developing women included in the study. It is suspected that the third participant did not achieve stable responding because of the inconsistency in study session attendance. However, across all participants, average heart rate was higher, but within healthy ranges during intervention phases (M=9%). The results of the study suggest that the use of biofeedback during treadmill exercise increases the frequency participants modify physical intensity to achieve a heart rate that aligns with effective cardiovascular exercise practices. Additionally, the technology used in the study provides a method for recording physical activity that can be considered more valid than other recording devices commonly used in the physical activity literature (e.g., pedometer-based devices).

Bullying has been an increasing national and international concern over recent years. However, despite this growing concern and the negative impact of bullying for both perpetrators and victims (e.g., academic, interpersonal, physical health, and mental health problems), a limited amount of research examines bullying from an interventional or functional position. The clear majority of research is correlation based, and simply looks at variables that may relate to the presence bullying, not any way to decrease or eradicate it. It is unclear based on the current research when bullying begins to be an issue with children, how to prevent it, and how to address existing bullying. Additionally, researchers have not agreed on a single definition of bullying. The present meta-analysis reviews bullying research in the psychological and behavioral literature over the past 10 years. A discussion of the current research trends, limitations of current research, and ideas for future research will be included.

During emerging adulthood, the developmental period between 18 and 25 years of age, behaviors of aggression are common among dating couples (Woodin, Caldeira, & O`Leary, 2013). College is a main arena for dating aggression, defined as physical, psychological, and sexual violence and harassment (Carr & VanDeusen, 2002). Busby, Holman, and Walker (2008) claimed that if aggression happens in the family, aggressive behaviors might be normalized, so making them highly likely in adulthood. Since exposure to aggression in one's family of origin may affect aggression in romantic relationships (O'Keefe, 1998), college students in a dating relationship may respond to anger in a way that they have observed and learned from their parents. Wolf and Foshee (2003) found that experiencing aggression from parents was positively related to children's use of detrimental anger expression styles for both gender, and that such anger expression styles made the rate of perpetration of dating aggression among college students higher. The purpose of the study is to investigate the role of anger expression styles as mediators of the association between experiencing parental psychological aggression and psychological dating aggression perpetration among dating college students. The sample of the study comprised of 614 college students from a public university in Turkey. Emotional Abuse and Neglect Subscale of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, (CTS), Anger Expression Style Subscale of State-Trait Anger-Anger Expression Styles Inventory (STAXI), Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse (MMEA) were used to collect data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the hypothesized model. The results of single-sample SEM demonstrated that the proposed model explained 15% of the variance in the perpetration of psychological dating aggression. The findings revealed indirect effects of experiencing parental emotional aggression in predicting psychological dating aggression perpetration via expressing anger outwards and controlling anger types of anger expression styles. Therefore, the findings of the study demonstrated the importance of both parental and behavioral variables in use of psychological dating aggression. The theoretical and practical implications and recommendations for future research will be presented.

A lack of English proficiency in the Latino community living in America has great repercussions in education, access to healthcare, the workplace, and in communication between family members, as well as with education and health care providers. Latin parents are left to rely on their children to act as translators; furthermore, they have a limited understanding of the U.S. school system, curriculum, and what they are entitled to as parents. Latin-American parents could benefit from learning specific education-related terms to better understand the education system. Stimulus equivalence is a behavioral technique that can be applied to language learning and target these specific terms. This study worked with Latin-American parents with a lack of English proficiency. Six education-related terms were selected and participants were tested and trained for these through match-to-sample procedures. Stimuli were presented in five different modalities: name, acronym, picture, English definition, and Spanish definition, creating a total of twenty possible relations. Results showed the emergence of 4 to 12 relations, while only two to four were explicitly taught. This adds to the literature on stimulus equivalence and demonstrates the effectiveness of using stimulus equivalence procedures to teach language to parents in the Latino community.