Association for Behavior Analysis International

Discrete trial training is a popular teaching method for individuals with autism. It includes many components, which can make it a difficult teaching method for individuals to learn. This meta-analysis examined the impact of different training techniques on individuals’ ability to implement discrete trials with fidelity. Twenty-five studies and 110 cases were included in the analysis. Only single case designs were included, and discrete trial implementation fidelity needed to be the dependent variable for inclusion eligibility. Training length, participant type, maintenance phases, and training type are among some of the variables that were coded and included for analysis. Hierarchical linear modeling, which has the ability to analyze clustered data, was used to estimate the treatment effect. Results showed that trainings are successful in improving both parents’ and teachers’ implementation fidelity of discrete trials. Furthermore, results demonstrated that behavioral skills training has a statistically significantly effect on discrete trial implementation fidelity. The results showed that the number of sessions in the intervention phase is a positive predictor of discrete trial implementation fidelity. Moreover, the results provide evidence that the effects of the trainings last across time. These results have implications for how individuals should be trained to implement discrete trials and other evidence based practices.

In online higher education environments, students present with diverse contextual factors that decrease students’ abilities to engage in timely coursework. There is limited research on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and procrastination within the online educational setting. This investigation explores whether an ACT values-based approach using Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) will impact procrastination in an online educational environment. Ten students enrolled in a 10-semester online Master of Psychology program were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Treatment consisted of a short media-based values exploration grounded in ACT and daily EMI prompts delivered to participants’ cell phones. Both groups completed pre-, post-, and follow-up questionnaires, the Academic Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ) and Academic Procrastination Scale-Short Form (APS). Outcome data from the questionnaires, Discussion Boards, and assignment submissions were analyzed across the time periods, contrasting the experimental and control groups via t tests. Results indicate a significant decrease in academic procrastination behaviors in the experimental group between baseline and post-test, which maintained and decreased further by six weeks post-intervention; there were minor and non-significant increases in academic procrastination among control participants. Maintaining an active connection to one’s values appears to result in effective decreases of student procrastination behaviors.

The purpose of the study was to analyze the contingency relations of scientific work as an individual practice in an introductory course to go in the Master in Research in Applied Psychology to Education of the Institute of Psychology and Education of the University of Veracruz. Former authorization, 29 aspirants of both sexes, graduates of the degree in psychology and related disciplines, developed and defended in the face of the Selection Committee a conceptual and empirical article to support a research problem in psychology applied to education. Procedure: The course was divided into two stages. In the first one, the applicants received information and advice to elaborate the article and in the second the academic conditions and physical spaces for the realization of the corresponding activity were established. The behavior of the applicants was observed and recorded in real time in interaction with teachers, students and learning contents in the educational spaces of the aforementioned Institute based on six performance criteria. The results showed that the analysis of the scientific practice as a psychological dimension contributed to the selection of eighteen candidates who met the admission profile to the master's program of twenty-nine who participated in the introductory course.

Abstract: Motivating operations affect the efficacy of reinforcers and the probability of behavior maintained by those reinforcers. Michael (1982) proposed a universal term, establishing operations, to refer to events that either increase or decrease the effectiveness of consequences. Conditioned establishing operations (CEOs) are events that alter the effectiveness of a consequence because of the individual organism’s learning history. Michael (1993) outlined three types of CEOs: surrogate CEOs, which are neutral events that acquire the motivational characteristics of the unconditioned establishing operations (UEO) that they’re paired with; reflexive CEOs, which are those that establish their own termination as a form of reinforcement or punishment; and transitive CEOs, which establish some stimulus as a form of effective reinforcement and evokes the behavior that has produced that other stimulus. Since 1982, the establishing operation concept has been modernized with the addition of the motivating operation umbrella term, incorporating both the concepts of establishing and abolishing operations. In this poster, we review the CEO concept and propose updates in line with the current concepts of motivating and abolishing operations.

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) is in evidence based intervention that is easily implemented but is not always sustainable in classrooms. The application of Weber’s Law of Just Noticeable Difference is an efficient method to systematically reduce problem behavior when applied to a fading procedure ensuing a treatment phase. Three participants who were referred to the school’s multidisciplinary data team for behavioral concerns were selected from a rural school district in the South-Central United States. Participants 1 and 2 exhibited a reduction of disruptive behavior from baseline conditions, and experimental control was demonstrated when the same effects were replicated in the second treatment phase. Further, fading the intervention at 25% based on Weber’s Fraction demonstrated to be a sufficient rate to increase the time between each application of NCR and the level of the frequency of disruptive behavior stabilized throughout each fading session. By the final fading session, each participant was receiving teacher attention at the same rate they were at baseline conditions while the frequency of disruptive behavior remained low. NCR did not demonstrate the same effects in Participant 3 as in Participants 1 and 2, likely due to procedural integrity not being maintained by Teacher B throughout the treatment phase.