Association for Behavior Analysis International

Some researches that have evaluated the reading achievement of university students have found deficiencies of comprehension and writing of complex ideas in specialized texts. To recognize the effect of the types of literacy strategies that are qualitatively differentiated on the analysis of the texts, the classification of the psychological interactions of the progressive complexity was resumed. Based on this categorization, different literacy criteria were developed: 1) identify elements, 2) reorganize information, 3) relate concepts and identify variants, 4) transform or expand concepts by introducing elements of different readings, 5) abstract a non-explicit concept in the readings from the integration of information. In this study, university students participated and were divided into three groups: The Low Group was exposed to exercises of the first two levels, the Intermediate Group to the first three levels and the High Group exposed to the five levels. All the participants read three texts of the same theme. The results showed a higher score in the comprehension test for the Intermediate Group, with significant differences in criteria 2, 3 y 5. Additionally, a downward trend was observed in all subjects as the level of assessed criteria increased. The results are useful for the development of strategies in undergraduate students for the analysis of specialized texts that require profound comprehension.

Society at large has taken a major interest in supporting the need for a science-literate society (National Research Council [NRC], 2011). This is largely due to the fact that more occupational opportunities exist in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. However, for students with disabilities, STEM opportunities lag behind their peers without disabilities. In fact, when it comes to STEM achievement during school, 8th grade students with disabilities score significantly less than peers. Even with the disheartening science achievement outcomes for students with disabilities, there is research that provides support for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in science classrooms and learning science content and concepts. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the efficacy of classroom science instruction for students with ASD. The majority of studies examined used single case research (SCR) methodology, hence the focus of the current review and analyses of SCR effect sizes. The authors of the current study used a variety of SCR effect size analyses to answer the following questions: What were the effects of science-related achievement studies for students with ASD? What were the Intervention-based effect sizes for students with ASD?

Early number skills such as number line estimation, counting skills, and understanding nonsymbolic and symbolic quantities have been found to predict math achievement (Fuhs, Hornburg, & McNeil, 2016). Numeral identification occurs when a student can communicate the symbol’s name representing the quantity shown and is an important skill that can be correlated to numeracy and literacy skills (Neumann, M., Hood, Ford, & Neumann D., 2013). The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Direct Instruction (DI) Mathematics teaching technique on numeral identification of a 16-year-old male with Down syndrome and autism in a high school special education classroom. Event recording assessed the participant’s ability to identify numerals. After being shown a group of blocks and numeral flashcards, the participant pointed to the correct flashcard. A multiple baseline design assessed the progress across the target numerals (2, 4, 5, and 6). For the intervention, the researchers used repeated trials, discrimination practice, and most to least prompting to teach numeral identification. If any error occurred, a model, lead, test procedure was the correction procedure. The participant reached mastery across numerals. The DI procedure was effective for a classroom setting and utilizing manipulatives to develop numeral identification.

Community-based and integrated employment settings are becoming increasingly prioritized for individuals with disabilities, yet rates of employment for this population continue to be significantly discrepant from their non-disabled peers. Two significant barriers to employment that these individuals may face is the need for extensive on-the-job training to learn new job tasks, as well as prolonged dependence on a supervisor or job coach to perform those tasks. Identifying training practices that are both effective and efficient is of critical importance to improving employment outcomes. This study uses a multiple-probe across participants design to examine the effects of a video-prompting treatment package on the rapid acquisition of novel vocational tasks for four high school students with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Results showed an immediate and significant increase in task accuracy, with all participants achieving 100% task accuracy within two to six sessions and maintaining high rates of accuracy when staff-delivered prompts and error correction were removed. These results are significant as an extension of the applied research on video prompting and the development of an intervention package that may be practical, transferable, and socially valid in community-based employment settings.

There is a persistent gap in academic performance between students with disabilities and their typically developing peers. To remediate academic difficulties, one typical instructional practice is the delivery of feedback. Numerous frameworks for instruction, such as direct or strategy instruction, include feedback; however, little is known about the benefits of feedback in isolation. This meta-analysis examined the effects of feedback to teach academic skills to students with disabilities. This poster presents the results of a meta-analysis of single-case design studies that investigated the effects of feedback in isolation. The purpose of the meta-analysis was three-fold: (a) to evaluate the effects of feedback for students with disabilities, (b) to compare the effects of different types of feedback. A total of 20 articles met the inclusion criteria, and 35 effect sizes (i.e., Tau-U) were calculated from the studies. A total of 95 participants were included in the studies. The majority of participants were from elementary school and most of participants were identified as having learning disability, autism, and developmental disability. Ten studies compared feedback to a non-instructional condition. The average weighted effect size was 0.82. Four studies compared feedback to other academic interventions. The average weighted effect size across these studies is 0.65.

For the 2018-2019 academic year, nine San Antonio area school districts were funded by the Texas Education Agency to provide verbal behavior training to preschool and kindergarten students with autism. At the start of the year we assessed participants using the Stimulus Control Ratio Equation (SCoRE) to determine the extent to which mands, echoics, tacts, and sequelics exerted disproportionate levels of control over each participant’s verbal behavior. The results of the SCoRE were then used to develop individualized verbal behavior treatment plans for each student to be carried out in his/her home classroom. We subsequently trained more than 100 teachers and paraprofessionals to implement referent-based verbal behavior instruction, with a goal of balancing out the relative strength of these four primary verbal operants. In addition to providing direct classroom-based services for students with autism, the project included ongoing parent trainings conducted by district behavior analysts throughout the academic year. At the end of the year, students were reassessed with the verbal behavior SCoRE to analyze language gains. Here we present an overview of the project along with the results of our grant activities.

Classroom management is vital for an educational setting and should be the first step when addressing behavioral concerns. One strategy to improve classroom management is the use of universal strategies (Johnson & Street, 2005), which can help to improve students’ behavior and foster a positive classroom environment. Even with the use of such strategies, disruptive behaviors may pose a barrier to ongoing fidelity. As such, it is critical for teachers to be trained on basic foundational procedures for managing behaviors as it can help prevent unwarranted and more intensive interventions in the future. The current study provided a training, adapted from Loman, Strickland-Cohen, Borgmeier, and Horner (2013), to early childhood special education classroom staff. Participants’ accuracy of identifying behavioral function and function-matched interventions were collected in via two means: 1) brief classroom scenarios using pre- and post-training written assessments, and 2) through in-vivo classroom observations before and after the training. These results will be shared along with participants’ social acceptability of the training. Considerations for maintenance and generalization of skills will be discussed.

This demonstration project illustrates the This demonstration project evaluated the effectiveness of SAFMEDS on the classwide acquisition and fluency of basic concepts in curriculum-based assessment/Precision Teaching course. SAFMEDS, an acronym for "Say All Fast a Minute Each Day Shuffle," was coined by Lindsley (1983) as a functional flashcard procedure for building large repertoires of sight words in a given content area. Second, this project illustrates the use of traditional Precision Teaching counting, recording, and charting approach that employs the Standard Celeration Chart in comparison to an computer-based charting technology developed by Chartlytics © that utilizes a similar semi-logmetric technique utilizing a Standard Behavior Chart. The perspective of this project was to implement SAFMEDS procedures as a means of teaching college level students to recognize important concepts related to instruction covered in a curriculum-based assessment/Precision Teaching course. Additionally, these SAFMEDS instructional procedures combined with Precision Teaching measurement approaches provide opportunity to model the importance of frequent and daily measurement of curriculum through the use of the SAFMEDS procedure with the class. The monitoring of this procedure, by the instructor on a class wide basis and by the students managing their daily data, was used to determine whether the SAFMEDS procedures was effective for improving the acquisition of key concepts imbedded with in the curriculum of the Precision Teaching and informal assessment course. Further, through the ongoing repeated practice procedures and formative evaluation procedures assure the pre-service teachers in this course practice essential skills necessary for successful implementation of appropriate and measurably effective instructional practices for future use in their respective classrooms and professional settings. This presentation also discusses some of the pros and cons of both the traditional use of the Precision Teaching Standard Celeration Chart as well as the use of the Chartlytics © electronically-based Standard Behavior Chart

We will be looking at ways to improve education decisions across students, classrooms, and teachers through analysis of the standard celeration chart. Over the past few months at JRC use of the standard celeration chart has increased across classrooms, teachers, and students. These increases have led to a wide range of decisions across the school on multiple levels. Standard Celeration charts utilized for the Morningside Math Fluency program have been reviewed for decision making by students, teachers, and coaches on a routine basis. We will be searching for ways to make chart analysis more efficient. Charts shared represent class wide interventions and individual interventions on daily charts. Also included is a monthly chart showing days charted across all teachers maintaining paper charts at JRC with the Morningside Math program. Charts shown demonstrate class wide interventions, individual student interventions, and teacher charting progress and decisions made through analysis of the charts. Listed descriptions of classroom interventions, individual interventions, and interventions utilized to increase teacher charting. Decisions reached from chart analysis include instructional/environmental changes, adjustments to rewards/performance criteria, and amount of teacher coaching received.

Parent training has been an effective tool to facilitate access to behavior analytic treatment, especially in countries under development (such as Brazil). Because of the lack of human and financial resources that are available for that purpose, semi-presencial tools (e.g. videomodeling and Interactive Computer Training) have been used to disseminate behavioral intervention to wider portions of the population. However, these tools have been used in the Brazilian context only to teach structured teaching procedures (e.g. discretre-trial instruction) and not naturalistic teaching procedures. Therefore, this study aimed to develop an online training module to teach how to implement the Natural Language Paradigm procedure and assess its effects on the performance accuracy of parents of children with autism. The procedure was conducted at Federal University of Pará, in Brazil, and in a parent association in Pernambuco, Brazil. 4 parent-child dyads participated in the study: Mario and Martin, Sarah and Andrew, Natalie and Daryl and Paula and Victor. A non-concurrent multiple baseline across participants was used. All the participants presented zero levels of responding at baseline. After the online module was presented, the participants’ accuracy increased at least in 64%, but without reaching procedural criteria (i.e. at least 90%). After a 30-minute online feedback session (i.e. Skype) was provided, performance accuracy reached 100% for Mario, 95% for Natalie, 91% for Paula and 96% for Sarah. High levels of accuracy (90% in average) were still found when the participant implemented the procedure in a home setting, as well as with different materials. Based on the current data, it might be promising to use Interactive Computer Training to teach parents of children with autism to implement naturalistic teaching procedures. Since there was not any presence-based workload in order to teach the procedures to the participants, it is possible – by using this tool - to help disseminate the behavior-analytic intervention to places where there’s a lack of professionals to provide continuous training opportunities, as well as reducing the costs needed to provide services with high integrity.

Psychological flexibility, which can be interpreted behaviorally as the ability to adjust responding in order to maximize reinforcement in the current environment, has been shown to correlate with a number of socially relevant behaviors among various populations, such as individuals with mental health needs, employees, parents, and others. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of psychological flexibility, as measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, with other variables relevant to a population of undergraduate university students, including reported stress, as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale, and academic performance, as measured by average performance on weekly quiz scores. The results suggest that there was a statistically significant relationship between psychological flexibility and self-reported stress among participants (r=0.671, p=0.000), however a statistically significant relationship with either psychological flexibility or reported stress and academic performance was not found. These results suggest that, while students’ reported flexibility and stress may be related, while these self-reported measures may not be directly related to performance on academic tasks. The limitations of this study as well as suggestions for future research regarding psychological flexibility-based interventions for stress management and improved performance among university students will be discussed.

Prone restraint in the school setting has historically been a hotbed of controversy for multiple reasons. This case study examines the use of prone restraint in compliance with the requirements set forth by the Professional Crisis Management (PCM), specifically the Brief Assisted Required Relaxation (BARR) procedure on an eight year old male diagnosed with an emotional disturbance. This physical intervention was part of a comprehensive intervention package that included a continuous schedule of reinforcement, discontinuous work schedules, response cost, and high-magnitude social reinforcement. The intervention resulted in a rapid reduction of aggressive behavior toward staff and peers in a tightly controlled setting, which had a collateral effect of reduced need for prone restraint. The case study serves as evidence in favor of the inclusion of prone restraint in a behavior-analytic treatment package that can have a dramatic reduction in dangerous behavior and a corresponding increase in productive classroom behavior.

Previous research has demonstrated that university students experience high levels of demand in their degree programs, which often results in difficulty maintaining their academic performance and managing their distress. As well, research suggests that values- and acceptance-based interventions may be beneficial to support academic success of university students. The present study examined the effectiveness of a 6-week values clarification and committed action training program derived from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which has been utilized in previous research with graduate students, to increase academic performance undergraduate students in a psychology program in a multiple baseline design across across groups and participants. The effect of the intervention was measured in terms of academic performance as indicated by participants’ performance on weekly classroom quizzes. Participants completed the training outside of class, however the intervention was designed to guide participants through values clarification and determining committed actions related specifically to their education. Results suggest that a values-based intervention may be beneficial for students in an undergraduate setting, and limitations and future directions for research will be discussed.