Association for Behavior Analysis International

The traditional way of training gymnasts is to provide verbal feedback. Most feedback focuses on what the athlete has performed incorrect and seldom on what is correct. There is a time delay between the athlete completing the skill and when feedback is provided. One technique, teaching with acoustical guidance also known as TAGteach is a conditioned reinforcer that provides the athlete with immediate feedback on a specific skill in the moment. In addition to TAGteach, receiving support in the form of praise from teammates when playing a sport can increase an athlete’s performance. The participants consisted of one female coach and six female students between the ages of 7 and 9 who were in an advanced competition level class also known as the Junior Olympic Level 3. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of TAGteach and social praise to increase the fluency of 3 foundational gymnastics skills using a multiple baseline design across behaviors. The target behaviors consisted of a cast, shoot through, and handstand. The data showed that teaching with acoustical guidance and social praise can increase not only the acquisition of a previously learned skill but increase fluency and consistency over time.

The Function of Behavior MEDICAL Screening Tool (FOB-MED) was developed to streamline an indirect functional behavior assessment administered by non-behavior analysts in a medical setting. A direct functional analysis can take approximately 2 hours for behavior analysts to conduct (Roane, Ringdahl, & Falcomata, 2015). In contrast, the FOB-MED consists of eight basic questions that produce hypotheses regarding function of problem behavior (i.e., escape, automatic, tangible, attention) in approximately 15 minutes. For 100 children enrolled in the current study, a FOB-MED was administered to a parent by a psychiatric social worker or other professional at the same time a functional analysis of problem behavior was conducted with the parent’s child by a behavior analyst such that the predictive validity of the FOB-MED to the functional analysis could be evaluated. The results for these 100 children were compared and analyzed using Signal Detection Theory (SDT) (Peterson, Birdsall & Fox, 1954). Preliminary results showed that the escape function was most accurately identified by the FOB-MED and the automatic function was most often identified as a “false alarm.” A discussion of validity for indirect methods to identify hypothesized function of challenging behavior with medical professionals is included in the poster presentation.

Recommendations to produce improvements in physical performance, fitness, and health exist, but many of these recommendations require a certain level of commitment, which some individuals find unfavorable. In response, many people endorse alternative strategies that claim to produce faster and more effective results, although these alternative strategies lack empirical support. A recent example is the use of ergogenic aids, which can include athletic wearables infused with Aqua Titanium. Results from previous evaluations of athletic wearables infused with Aqua Titanium have been mixed with respect to ergogenic effectiveness. This might be due to exclusive reliance on group designs in previous studies. The purpose of our study was to evaluate and compare the individual and group differences in responsiveness to an Aqua-Titanium necklace. Using a single-subject (reversal) design, we measured the running speed of 10 healthy adults across baseline (no necklace), test (Aqua-Titanium necklace) and placebo conditions using a 61-m indoor track. The entire sample was then considered for group analyses. Results showed that our single-subject and group analyses produced similar outcomes, and that these outcomes provided little evidence to support the ergogenic effectiveness of the Aqua-Titanium necklace.

The number of individuals diagnosed with a disability in Japan has risen steadily over the past several decades. Unfortunately, however, sufficient resources are not available to support these individuals. Many Japanese mothers have expressed parenting-related stress, anxiety and lack of confidence in their parenting skills. Along with diagnosed disabilities and prevalence of maternal stress, the rate of child abuse and neglect has been climbing in Japan as well. With the increasing prevalence of disability, reported number of child abuse, and parenting stress in Japan and lack of supports in place, a sustainable solution is urgently needed to address this problem. Parent training is a promising option to address issues associated with developmental disabilities in childhood, including corresponding problem behaviors and the parental stress that often accompanies a diagnosis. Parent training programs often take specific forms and have been empirically shown to improve children’s behavior while also reducing parental distress. The effectiveness of parent training has been established in various populations among different ethnic groups and cultures, however, most parent training programs have been developed and administered in the West.These programs need to be localized and tested in a Japanese context to begin building evidence of their effectiveness for this population. Despite these needs, only one evidence-based manualized parent training program has been evaluated in Japan: Triple P Parent Training.The purpose of the present study is to develop and evaluate a behavioral parenting program that teaches principles of applied behavior analysis, which should increase positive parent-child interactions and decrease negative parent-child interactions and child problem behavior.

From the basic research to application in real life settings, the research on discounting has received enormous attention, and still researchers find new areas of development within this domain of behavioral economics. Researchers began to focus on delay and probability discounting in the early stages, however soon new discounting factors have been proposed such as effort or social distance. Because people maximize happiness with the outcome or minimize negativity connected with it, which leads to choices that result in the highest wellbeing possible, the main aim of this research was to test whether wellbeing can function as a novel discounting factor. Analyses were performed on 37 university students, who completed titration procedure with fixed amounts in two conditions of large and small monetary payments. After initial model selection based on fit indices, our analyses showed that with decreasing wellbeing participant’s subjective value decreased. Furthermore we found the magnitude effect to be present (large monetary gains were discounted less steeply than small monetary gains). Present research gives a foundation to treat wellbeing in behavioral economic categories, and shows that human choice in function of wellbeing can be quantitatively modeled.

Many parents of adolescents experience high level of parenting stress, so a psychometrically sound instrument that quickly evaluates the stress level is needed for both clinical and research purposes. In the current study, factor structure of the extended form (item N=112) of Korean-Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (K-SIPA) was explored for the possibility of developing the shorter version with acceptable reliability and validity. Data collected from the standardization study of K-SIPA was used (n= 942 parents of children age from 11 to 19). Half of the sample were randomly selected to conduct exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the rest was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) as well as to examine reliability and validity. The EFA yielded three factors solution with 37 items, followed by the CFA which showed acceptable fit indices. Both internal consistency and test-retest reliability fell in the acceptable range. Results from a correlation analysis among factors, a correlation analysis between K-SIPA short form and other measurements, and t-test of stress level between different groups of parents indicated acceptable level of validity. The results confirmed that K-SIPA short form is valid and reliable to measure parenting stress of Korean parents of adolescents.

Caregiver-implemented interventions are increasingly utilized to address the needs of families of children with autism. However, no previous systematic review has evaluated the efficacy of caregiver-implemented interventions for adolescents and young adults with autism despite evidence that the majority of individuals with autism continue to live at home into adulthood. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the effects of interventions implemented by caregivers of teens and young adults affected by autism. We conducted a systematic analysis of the dependent variables most often targeted for intervention, the caregiver adherence to the interventions, and the outcomes of caregiver-implemented interventions for the included studies. We identified ten studies that evaluated the quality of a caregiver-implemented intervention for the adolescent and young adult population. Across studies, results suggest positive outcomes related to intervention effectiveness and social validity. The current body of literature provides some evidence of value in utilizing caregiver-implemented interventions to produce behavior change for adolescents and young adults with autism, although there is a need for additional research in this area.