Association for Behavior Analysis International

Polls, presidential politics, and relentlessly increasing greenhouse gas emissions expose an environmental movement that is running on 20th Century metaphors in a 21st Century world. All of the land protection in the world will do little good if 7 billion people do not move to "green behavior." By dissecting past failures, we can learn where to go in the future with how we talk about and do conservation. We need to stop overstating doom and gloom, and recognize that opportunity, not despair, motivates people. Luckily, we have the science to support a new message of a resilient earth, which can then be a foundation for leaving behind worshipping at the false temple of pristine nature.

Background: Impulsivity is a central behavioral feature of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and many other psychiatric and substance use disorders. In recent years, the multi-dimensional nature of impulsivity has been recognized with cognitive processes including risk and reward evaluation, response inhibition, and delay discounting implicated in impulsive behavior. The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) system has long been recognized for its role in regulating attention. Understanding the role of nAChR function in impulsivity has widespread clinical implication including providing a novel pharmacological treatment target. Methods: Data from human experiments using pharmacological manipulations of nAChR function and measuring response inhibition, risk taking and delay discounting will be presented. Studies using acute pharmacological challenge in combination with fMRI will illustrate potential mechanisms for nAChR regulation of impulsivity. Results: Acute nicotine and novel nicotinic agonists improve response inhibition and delay aversion in ADHD. Nicotine and mecamylamine (a nicotinic antagonist) have rate dependent effects on risk taking regardless of diagnostic group. Both nicotine and a novel nicotinic agonist significantly decrease the cognitive and clinical symptoms of ADHD. Conclusion: Targeting nAChR function may provide a novel treatment target for ADHD and other disorders involving impulsive behavior. The use of reliable laboratory measures of different facets of impulsivity will allow for refined treatment strategies targeting precise cognitive mechanism related to impulsivity.

Although the health benefits of consuming a diet rich in fruits and vegetables are well documented, few Americans consume the recommended amounts of these foods. The results of these food choices are many and varied (e.g., increased costs of health care resulting from higher rates of cancers and obesity). A preventative approach targets elementary school children because food-choice patterns in childhood are predictive of these patterns in adulthood. The Food Dudes program was developed by behavioral psychologists Fergus Lowe and Pauline Horne at Bangor University in Wales. The program targets food choices made in primary schools and iterations of it have been successfully implemented for some time in the United Kingdom. These successes will be summarized and data will be shown illustrating the effects of three different versions of the Food Dudes program that have been tested in the United States. These different versions were designed to adapt to the unique characteristics of U.S. schools

Panelists will discuss their personal and professional experiences in developing training programs for students of behavior analysis (within their area of expertise). They will discuss how far the rest of the world has come in recognizing behavior analysis in practice (i.e., political and public recognition of behavior analysis as an evidence-based field of practice; credentialing issues; current barriers impeding further recognition; and future directions). Panelists will also discuss their personal training experience, how it has shaped their area of expertise, and whether or not their training enables them to practice outside of the United States and Canada (practitioner vs. academia). One question panelists could address is what should students of behavior analysis know before committing to a BA training program if they plan to practice outside North America? And/or what can training programs do better to ensure employability of their graduates? Finally, panelists will give recommendations and advice to those looking to expand the professional domains of behavior analysis.

This symposium will be comprised of data-based presentations that describe innovative research on functional analysis of disruptive behavior in children with autism in school settings. In the first study, the authors customized the experimental design, conditions, and session length of a functional analysis to determine the function of aggressive behavior. Findings indicated only when sessions were lengthened to an entire school day (i.e., 6 hours) and attention in the form of physical restraint was evaluated were clearly differentiated functions determined. In the second study, the authors evaluated the effects of pre-session exposure to putative reinforcers prior to functional analysis sessions. Results showed that pre-session exposure resulted in differential levels of problem behavior during functional analysis sessions. The third study included a functional analysis and an evaluation of functional communication training for aggressive behavior maintained by escape from demands. Results showed that over time, positive practice (i.e., direction following) could be faded and functional communication training (i.e., requesting a break) alone was effective.

An Analog Functional Analysis was conducted to identify the environmental conditions maintaining the aggressive and self-injurious behaviors of a 12 year old boy diagnosed with autism (Iwata, et al, 1982; Iwata, et al, 1994). The assessment was conducted in a school setting using first a multi-element research design, which was later changed to a reversal design to control for potential carryover effects. Over 70 sessions were conducted. Initially, sessions were 10 minutes, then 20 minutes in duration. Due to a lack of clearly differentiated results, sessions were extended to six hours in duration, with the exception of needed bathroom and lunch breaks. The experimental conditions consisted of a control condition, escape from demands, no interaction, denied access to tangible items, divided attention, and a series of customized attention conditions. Results suggested that the aggressive and self-injurious behaviors were primarily maintained by two variables, escape from the presentation of demands and physical attention in the form of modified, partial, or full restraint. Based on these results, a treatment package consisting of Extinction, Non-contingent Attention, FCT and Protective Equipment was designed. This individualized treatment entailed the termination of the response-reinforcer contingency maintained by physical restraint and escape from demands. Upon the occurrence of aggressive and self-injurious behavior, there was no immediate, contingent cessation of instructional demands or increased attention in the form of restraint or blocking. Protective equipment was applied as necessary to maintain the safety of the participant. In addition, throughout the participant’s day at school, non-contingent physical attention in the form of play (e.g., hugs, firm shoulder squeezes) and functional communication training, was provided.

An Analog Functional Analysis was conducted to identify the environmental conditions maintaining a student’s aggressive behaviors (Iwata, et al, 1982; Iwata, et al, 1994). Over 70 sessions were conducted during the functional analysis. Sessions were 10- minutes in duration. The experimental conditions included in this study consisted of a control condition, escape from demands, no interaction, denied access to tangible items, and an attention condition. Results suggested that the aggressive behavior was primarily maintained by escape from the presentation of demands. A function based intervention in the form of functional communication training and positive practice decreased aggression and increased appropriate requests for a break from demand. Implications for conducting functional analyses and conducting in-session treatment analyses in a school setting are discussed.

The incidence of autism continues to increase to 1 in 88 individuals. The majority of services that exist now focus on the 0-21 age group and are provided through public education. Over the next several years, services for adolescents and adults are going to be severely needed, and as of right now, few such services exist. The need for these services is extremely critical for two primary reasons. First, the sheer number of individuals with ASD is likely to overwhelm the existing service structure. Second, more information is coming to light that the needs of these older individuals will be intense and dramatic. As these individuals enter the community and adult world, there will need to be a focus on three primary issues – functionality of the activities in which they engage, their happiness, and, subsequently, an enhanced quality of life. These are the three goals that community programming must strive to achieve in order for adolescents and adults with autism to maximally function in their communities. The papers in this symposium will address the conceptual issues involved in community programming and specific research studies that investigate issues surrounding the determination of functional goals and the relationship between preference and affect.

As adolescents and adults with autism leave the public school system and enter the world of work and community, the goals of training change. At this point in their lives, these individuals have goals quite different from those being pursued in the 0-21 public school education system. Now, integration into the community is the ultimate criterion to achieve. But what that means has never been well defined. This presentation will discuss three major areas of importance to community-based individuals. The functionality of the activities in which they engage is of primary importance. In addition, the activities both work and leisure must make the individuals happy and satisfied. Lastly, the quality of life for these people must be taken into consideration when care providers consider training targets. A review of the literature in these three areas will be presented, as well operational definitions of these areas that can be used by service providers to enhance the quality of service provision in the community.

The advent of the Board Certification for behavior analysts has generally been considered a positive development in the field of behavior analysis. In fact, the certification process has resulted in increasing numbers of individuals with autism being provided evidence-based interventions across their lifespans. Unfortunately while instructional priorities for young children are fairly well established, the same cannot be said for adolescents or adults. With this population, there is an increased importance in targeting functional skills and activities for engagement in their lives. The current study investigated the potential effectiveness of newly developed tool, the Functionality Index (FI), in identifying individual specific instructional priorities for this group of learners. By assessing six, operationally defined parameters of potential goals, the FI is intended to aid competent behavior analysts in the identifying contextually appropriate and socially important instructional targets for older learners.

One of the essential and widely applied principles of human behavior is positive reinforcement. Preference assessments can be used to aid in identifying potential reinforcers and their potency. They should also be considered when identifying potential preferred environments or activities. Another component in identifying potential reinforcers is to consider the momentary effectiveness of any stimulus change as reinforcement indicated by the existing level of motivation. Motivating operations (MO) include both establishing operations (EO), a MO that increases the current effectiveness of a reinforcer, as well as abolishing operations (AO) a MO that decreases the current effectiveness of a reinforcer. Prior to determining educational and residential placements, job matches, and leisure activities, a preference assessment and analysis of affect and behavior should be conducted to determine if environments are preferred or non-preferred. This study conducted a preference assessment of various activities available in both the day program and a leisure environment with adolescents and adults with Autism. Data targeting affect and maladaptive behaviors were then collected in those environments. Results showed an inverse relationship between preferred activities and rates of maladaptive behavior. Results indicate that a consideration should be made of individual preferences prior to determining placements for individuals with disabilities.

Learning to observe the behavior of others has both educational and social benefits. Joint attention requires the ability to shift attention among various social and environmental stimuli, and observational learning requires attention to the model and the ability to discriminate the consequences of the model's behavior. The three studies in this symposium have evaluated strategies for addressing specific topographies of both joint attention and observational learning with children with autism using both typical peers and adults as social partners. Responses related to joint attention, such as gaze shifting and commenting were successfully taught in the first study using multiple exemplar training and social reinforcers. Observational learning repertoires, such as selective imitation and the discrimination of reinforced from non-reinforced responses were addressed in the second study. The third study evaluated procedures for teaching children with autism to observe (i.e., monitor) an instructional interaction of a typical peer and teacher and measured the learning of new academic targets by the participants with autism. All three studies have vast implications for improving the ability to learn by observing the behavior of others.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of multiple exemplar training and social reinforcement on the acquisition and generalization of joint attention initiations across toy classes. Participants were 2 typically developing children (TDC) and 2 children with autism spectrum disorder (CWA). After analyzing typical samples of joint attention initiations, a composite score was developed and used to evaluate joint attention initiations of the CWA. Gaze shifting and commenting were taught using social reinforcement in a multiple exemplar format. Training sessions were followed by probes of untrained stimuli both within and across toy classes. Results showed that the CWA acquired both gaze shifting and commenting using social consequences as reinforcers. Multiple exemplar training was also effective in facilitating acquisition within classes and joint attention maintenance during follow-up probes. Additionally, both participants generalized the acquired skills to a class of untrained stimuli. The implications of multiple exemplar training as a way to establish maintenance and generalization of training effects are discussed.

Little research has explored procedures for teaching children with autism observational learning repertoires such as discriminating the consequences of others' responses or the prerequisite skills necessary to do so. To assess possible prerequisite skills, we measured selective imitation as a child's immediate performance of known responses following reinforced and non-reinforced responses of a model. In another series of experiments, a multi-element design was used to determine the effects of teaching a child with autism to discriminate reinforced from non-reinforced responses modeled by an adult on the acquisition of new word labels. Discrimination training was conducted during training sessions with one set of pictures. Discrimination training was not used during probe sessions and the participant was merely exposed to the adult model's reinforced and non-reinforced responses using a different set of pictures. Test sessions conducted 10 minutes after each session revealed that the participant learned new picture labels, but simply imitated the adult's responses regardless of whether or not they were reinforced. Once the target set of words was reduced and the reinforcer made more salient in Experiment 2, the participant quickly acquired the novel word labels as well as the discrimination between reinforced and non-reinforced responses.

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a peer-yoked contingency on the acquisition of two types of observational learning: changes in performance and the acquisition of new operants via observation, as well as the Naming capability. Three male K-1st grade students with disabilities were selected as participants because they did not have observational learning for performance or acquisition, nor did they have the Naming capability in their repertoires. Three other male K-1st grade students were chosen to serve as peers during the intervention because they had performance observational learning in repertoire but lacked the Naming capability and acquisition observational learning. A delayed multiple probe design was used to measure participants acquisition of both types of observational learning and Naming. The independent variable in this study was a peer-yoked contingency game board involving a task requiring the participants to observe their peers. Results showed that the peer-yoked contingency game was effective for inducing both types of observational learning and Naming for the target participants. The intervention was also effective in the induction of Naming and the acquisition of new operants via observational for the peers.

This symposium includes four research papers involving the assessment and treatment of problem behavior evoked by demands. In the first presentation, Lauren Pepa will present a study on the application of behavioral economics to increase compliance with non-preferred tasks in individuals with escape-maintained problem behavior. In the second presentation, Kyung Mo Nam will discuss the relationship between noncompliance and prompt dependence as well as strategies to increase independent compliance during tasks for two individuals. In the third presentation, Jillian Planer will present a study evaluating the effects of including relevant or irrelevant tasks in high probability instructional sequences on decreasing noncompliance. In the last presentation, Rebecca Schulman will present a study on the assessment and treatment of problem behavior maintained by escape from demands in the context of classroom noise.

Autism is characterized by difficulties in communication, social functioning, and the presence of stereotyped behaviors/restricted interests. While not inherent in autism, maladaptive behavior is common in this population. Research suggests that challenging behavior is most effectively addressed with sound functional assessments and function-based treatments. Escape-maintained problem behavior presents a unique challenge as best practice dictates that escape extinction be used to prevent problem behavior from contacting reinforcement. However, attempting to physically prompt older, stronger individuals may put staff and the individual themselves at risk for injury. One potential way to increase engagement in low-probability activities without physical prompting is through the manipulation of pay rates of less-preferred tasks and the cost of preferred reinforcing items. The current study explored the utility of manipulating economic variables to address escape-maintained problem behavior in two adults with autism. Specifically, the cost of reinforcers and the pay for different jobs were altered to encourage the participants to make more cost-effective choices (selecting a less preferred task that pays more over an easy task that pays less). The results from the investigation indicate that the manipulation resulted in the voluntary selection and completion of previously low-probability tasks without physical prompting or the occurrence of challenging behavior.

Independent engagement with activities is a common goal for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities (Hall, McClanahan, & Gast, 1995). However, this independence may be hindered when individuals are reliant on external stimuli (e.g., the presence of or acknowledgement from an instructor) to complete a task. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a stimulus control procedure on decreasing noncompliance and increasing independent task completion. Participants were two males referred for the assessment and treatment of noncompliance during independent activities. Specifically, both students would pause for extended periods of time (e.g., 10 minutes) during independent activities. Assessments indicated that task completion was dependent on staff proximity and/ or delivery of prompts (e.g., keep going). Treatment involved teaching the participants to exchange an all done card to staff members. Next, training took place during independent activities that were correlated with lower levels of noncompliance and prompt dependence to promote successful card exchanges. That is, staff placed a stimulus cue (all done) at the bottom of independent tasks and instructed the participants to a) work until they reached the card and b) exchange card to staff members. Results showed that appropriate card exchanges increased and noncompliance and prompt dependence decreased. Baseline data are currently being collected in the classroom setting for both participants. Treatment will be implemented across activities associated with high levels of noncompliance and prompt dependence.

Non-compliance can sometimes be prevalent in children with autism and related disorders and can often impede skill acquisition for these individuals. Antecedent interventions such as providing high probability requests sequences are viable alternatives to consequence procedures and have been shown to be effective with individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. High-probability request sequences and their implications for increased compliance are well researched with this population. However, previous literature has not evaluated the specifics of the high-probability requests involved in thesequence. Second, previous literature has not evaluated a fading procedure that incorporated variable presentations of high-probability requests. The current study compared the effects of relevant and irrelevant high-probability tasks on compliance to low-probability requests in children with autism. After high levels of compliance were achieved in both relevant and irrelevant conditions, fixed and variable presentations of the high-probability requests were compared. The results show that the relevant high-probability requests increased percentage of compliance more than irrelevant high-probability requests. Additional results and social validity of procedures, goals, and outcomes will be presented.

Research has shown that background noise may influence problem behavior (e.g., O'Reilly, Lacey, & Lancioni, 2000). O'Reilly and colleagues conducted a functional analysis of aggression and disruption with and without background noise. Results showed increased rates of problem behavior in the presence of noise, especially in the escape from demands condition. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of background noise on problem behavior. Participants were two children diagnosed with autism. Both individuals were referred for the assessment and treatment of aggression and disruption, which was reported by staff to be correlated with classroom noise (e.g., peers engaging in tantrums or loud vocalizations). First, a traditional functional analysis was conducted in a quiet environment using procedures described by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richmand, 1982. Next, a modified functional analysis was conducted comparing conditions presented with background noise recordings to conditions with no noise recordings. During the noise conditions, the noise recordings remained on throughout the entire session while specific consequences were in place (e.g., escape from demands). Results indicated the frequency and intensity of problem behavior was increased in the escape from demands (noise present) conditions. A treatment analysis including functional communication training and differential reinforcement using noise recordings decreased inappropriate behavior for both participants. However, behavior remained low for both participants when a reversal to baseline was conducted indicating the participants may have habituated to the noise recordings. Descriptive analyses of events preceding problem behavior in the classroom were conducted for both participants. Results indicated that problem behavior was correlated with classroom noise. Treatment analyses in the classroom are ongoing. Implications for assessing and treating problem behavior evoked by peer vocalizations will be discussed.

Due to increased awareness for assessment and treatment for autism in Korea, more attempts have been made to accumulate scientific knowledge for this population. Along with their core issues such as restricted social interaction, children with autism also show difficulties in sleeping, eating, and problem behaviors. Developing and establishing a valid and reliable assessment tool is a must, for both research and clinical purposes. In this symposium, psychometric properties of the Korean version of few assessment instruments will be introduced, along with their application to autism population. Both parent-proxy reports and computerized tests will be covered and issues related to their use in clinical settings will be discussed.

Cultural differences between countries may produce differences in parent feeding style and children's weight status.The present study investigated cultural differences in parent mealtime actions and children's weight status for 496 US preschool children(261 male, 228 female, 7 unreported) and 325 Korean children(167 male, 158 female). The mean age of US children was 4.06 years (SD=.72) and for Korean children it was 3.88 years (SD=.79). Children's parents were asked to respond to complete Parent Mealtime Action Scale(PMAS; Hendy et al., 2009) with 798 parents completing the nine PMAS dimensions, and with 475 parents providing height and weight information to calculate their children's body mass index percentile (BMI%). Independent sample t-tests were conducted fornine PMAS dimensions to examine the differences between the two countries, with significant differences reported for all dimensions except SPECIAL MEALS and MANY FOOD CHOICES. Korean parents used more PMAS actions of USE OF REWARDS, FAT REDUCTION and INSISTENCE ON EATING, and US parents reported more PMAS actions like DAILY FV AVAILABILITY, SNACK LIMITS, POSITIVE PERSUASION and SNACK MODELING. Also, participants were divided into weight status categories of normal weight(BMI% = 1-85%), overweight(85-95%) and obese(over 95%). For US children, 13.3% were overweight and 35.1% were obese whereas for Korean children 11.4% were overweight and 12.1% were obese. The difference in ratio of overweight and obese children between the two countries were statistically significant(x2=39.094, df=2, p<.001).

CSHQ (Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire) is an instrument to measure the parents’ perception of children’s sleep behaviors. It has been used to identify sleep patterns of children with PDD, showing that more than half of children with PDD have sleep problems (Honomichl, Goodlin-Jones, Burnham, Gaylor, & Anders, 2002). The purpose of this study was to examine how parents of the children with PDD perceive their children’s sleep behaviors in Korea. Participants were 122 mothers of children with PDD, 77.9% (n=95) of the children were male and 22.1% (n=27) were female; and the mean age was 7.4years (SD=2.4 years, range from 4 to 12). The results showed that 52.5% (n=64) of parents reported their children have problems with night waking; 22.1% (n=27) had sleep onset delay problems; 14.8% (n= 18) had problems with sleep resistance; 10.7% (n=13) had sleep duration problems. Also, 9.8% (n=12) had problems with sleep anxiety; 9% (n=11) had daytime sleepiness; 3.3% (n=4) had Sleep disordered breathing and only 0.8% (n=1) had parasomnia. Gender differences were not significant (p>.05). Compare to the research by Liu, Hubbard, Fabes and Adam (2006), Korean children with PDD have problems with bedtime resistance, insomnia, parasomnia and sleep disordered breathing less than U.S. samples (53.9%, 56.3%, 53.3%, and 24.6%, respectively). The results implicate that children with PDD in Korea have problem with maintaining sleep during the night while not many of them suffer from sleep disorders. Also, Korean children with PDD seem to have sleep disorders less than U.S. children with PDD.

The purpose of this study is to investigate out the perceptual thresholds and sensitivity of facial emotion among children with ASD. Two basic emotions, Happiness and anger, were tested. Five children with ASD (Age Mean=8.58(1.52), IQ Mean=102.40(28.48)) and their age and IQ matched typically developing children (controls; Age Mean=8.72(1.50), IQ Mean=95.40(10.53)) were participated. Via use of neutral and full-valenced pictures, 11 levels of gradually intensifying facial expressions were created by a photo-morphing program with 10% increment ranged from 0% to 100%. Participants were asked to identify the emotion (e.g., happy or unhappy) after looking at the picture presented randomly on a computer screen for a very brief time. Psychometric function (bootstrapping) was used to calculate the threshold and the sensitivity. ASD group showed significantly lower thresholds compared to the control group in happy valence. For both groups, the thresholds for happiness were significantly lower than those for anger. Also, both groups responded more sensitively to happy valence than anger valence. Research and clinical implications and limitations are discussed.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are acknowledged as highly heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition to core diagnostic features of ASD, people diagnosed with ASD often exhibit diverse types of aberrant behaviors with varying intensity, including self-injury, tantrums, and aggression (Emerson et al., 2001a). Prevalence rate of challenging behaviors are reported to be very high, and studies report that severity of ASD may be associated with severity of problem behaviors (Matson & Wilkins, 2009). Despite the fact that these behaviors pose significant risk to childrens safety and to their parents mental health (Hartley et al., 2012), relatively few research has focused on problem behaviors among ASD population. The Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Community (ABC-C) developed by Aman and Singh (1994) is one of the most widely used assessment instrument that assesses problem behaviors of developmentally delayed individuals. The purpose of the study is to standardize the ABC-C in Korea to provide an understanding of current problem behaviors, and guide treatment direction. The present study recruited 169 children and adolescents with ASD (142 male, 27 female). Parent reported data were analyzed by Principle Axis Factor (PAF) with a Varimax rotation. Eigenvalue greater than two were selected and five factors explained 52.32% of the variance in the items. A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between factors and items. There was a significant correlation between each factor and its items (r > .30, p < .001). The internal consistency was good with a Cronbachs coefficient alpha of .95. ABC-C seems to be an effective instrument in providing more continuous measures of ASD.

Multiple parent- and practitioner-oriented websites describe pre-session exposure to reinforcers as paramount in order for learning to occur (e.g., Barbera, 2009, "What does an ABA session look like?" 2005). The main proposed benefit of pre-session access to reinforcers is an increase in the student's readiness or motivation to learn (e.g., sitting at the work table, complying with instructions, etc.). Practitioners have also cited a lack of effective pairing between reinforcers and the teacher or context as one explanation for increased problem behaviors such as crying, fleeing from the environment, and protesting during one-on-one teaching sessions (Barbera & Rasmussen, 2007). To date, few published studies have evaluated the effects of pre-session access to reinforcers on subsequent behavior of children with autism (i.e., behavior-altering and value-altering effects of exposure or deprivation). This symposium includes three experiments which examine the relation between pre-session exposure to reinforcers and subsequent performance of children with autism.

As a result of being paired with work demands, the presence of an instructor may signal a worsening set of aversive conditions (i.e., reflexive conditioned motivating operation; CMO-R). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of presession pairing of the instructor with preferred stimuli on disruptive behavior and correct responding. Functional analyses indicated a primary or combined escape function for three children diagnosed with autism. For participants with multiply maintained challenging behavior, attention was also a co-occurring function. The investigator conducted preference assessments to identify preferred items for each participant. In the presession pairing phase, the experimenter engaged playfully with the participant with a highly preferred item for 2-4 minutes immediately prior to the instructional session. The discrete trial training used to teach math and spelling skills was the same across the baseline and presession pairing sessions. Results in a multiple baseline across participants design indicated that presession pairing was effective in reducing disruptive behaviors, increasing latencies to challenging behavior, and increasing inter-response times of challenging behaviors. Interobserver agreement collected on 30% of sessions, averaged 97.6% (91.1% - 100%); procedural integrity collected on 30% of sessions, averaged 98.5% (97-100%). Future research recommendations and implications are discussed.

Reinforcer sampling has been demonstrated to increase correct academic responding during teaching sessions (Park, Pereia Delgado, Choi & Greer, 2008) and to increase the frequency with which adults with developmental disabilities exchanged tokens for reinforcing events (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968). The current study evaluated effects of pre-session exposure to reinforcers on academic skill acquisition, academic skill maintenance, and problem behavior. To date, one child with autism has participated in the study. Data were collected on percentage correct performance (acquisition and maintenance) and percentage of trials with problem behavior. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was collected for 25% of sessions with mean agreement of 98.6% (range 97-100%). Pre-session exposure to edible and social reinforcers was associated with slower acquisition than a no-exposure comparison condition. Results for problem behavior and academic skill maintenance were undifferentiated between conditions.

Laraway, Snycerski, Michael, and Poling (2003) discussed two effects that motivating operations have on behavior. First is the behavior-altering effect, in which the occurrence of behavior is momentarily altered. Second is the value-altering effect, in which the value of some consequence as a reinforcer is altered. Studies have demonstrated changes in behavior that can be attributed to the behavior-altering effect, but few studies have analyzed the value-altering effect. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of deprivation or satiation on the value of edible reinforcers. Participants were children aged 5-10 diagnosed with autism. During conditioning, pre-session edible access was manipulated and paired with neutral stimuli to create conditioned motivating operations. Participants clicked on a red or blue box that moved around a screen; the colors were differentially associated with the deprivation and satiation conditions. Accurate clicking was reinforced via edible delivery, and reinforcers were yoked across conditions. Probes were conducted under extinction, and both colored boxes were concurrently available. During the probes, participant 1 allocated more responding to the box associated with deprivation, which suggests that deprivation from edibles may increase their value as reinforcers. Data collection with additional participants is under way.

Clinical behavior analysts have been working as licensed psychologists and certified mental health professionals for decades. Applied behavior analysis training programs outside of clinical and counseling psychology are currently facing pressures to produce students who are credentialed, and eligible for third-party payment. While training leading to eligibility for BCBA certification is one path that a program can take, there are other credentialing options that have existing training infrastructures and credentialing bodies. Members of this panel will discuss their experiences exploring these other credentialing options: the challenges, opportunities, and potential long-term implications for their programs, staff, and students.

This event specifically targets doctoral level academics who serve as administrators or instructional faculty for behavioral analysis training programs.

This symposium will present four data-based presentations focused on the teaching, maintenance, and generalization of social skills of children or young adults diagnosed with developmental disabilities (e.g., autism spectrum disorder). This topic is important because individuals with developmental disabilities often show deficits in social communication behaviors and may benefit from a variety of teaching strategies. Specifically, presenters will show data depicting the use of differential reinforcement and behavioral skills training to teach social communicative beahviors. The social skills taught range from vocal and non-vocal conversational skills to peer mands. Theses papers also investigate strategies to increase maintenance and generalization of the skills. In addition, one presentation will discuss the effects of teaching multiple social communicative responses (e.g., mands) versus a single response on resurgence of problem behavior and maintenance of the communicative responses. Together, these data demonstrate strategies for increasing and maintaining social communicative behaviors with individuals with developmental disabilities.

Sometimes interventions that eliminate problem behavior during initial implementation become less effective during maintenance. One reason for this might be that caregiver treatment fidelity is lower than that of the original therapist. For example, a failure to reinforce appropriate responses could result in the resurgence of problem behavior. Resurgence is the reemergence of an extinguished response when an alternative response is placed on extinction (Leitenberg, Rawson, & Mulick, 1975). In our study we evaluated whether increasing the total number of responses in a response class would decrease the magnitude of target response resurgence. In Experiment 1 we established target responding in two different contexts. In one context we placed the target response on extinction and we trained a single alternative response. In the other context we trained three alternative responses. Finally, we placed the alternative responses in both contexts on extinction and measured the magnitude of target response resurgence. In all cases alternative responses resurged before the target response. Additionally, the magnitude of target response resurgence was smaller in the context in which three alternatives had been trained. In Experiment 2 we replicated our procedures with the problem behavior (target) and appropriate communicative responses (alternative) of two children diagnosed with developmental disabilities. Results and implications for the use of differential reinforcement of alternative responses or similar interventions are discussed.

Previous research has evaluated procedures for teaching non-vocal children with autism to engage in peer-directed mands using alternative forms of communication such as pictures (Paden, Kodak, Fisher, Gawley-Bullington, & Bouxsein, 2012). Despite the importance of teaching individuals with autism to approach and interact with their peers, few studies have examined the generalization of peer-directed mands to other peers in the classroom. The current investigation evaluated the effects of extinction and prompts on training and generalization of peer-directed mands for preferred items with two children diagnosed with autism. Children engaged in peer-directed mands using a picture exchange communication system. Results showed that peer-directed mands increased during treatment for both participants. In addition, peer-directed mands generalized to a novel peer and maintained in a more naturalistic setting that simulated a free-play activity in a classroom. IOA for all dependent measures exceeded 80%. We will discuss the implications of these results for practice and suggest areas of future research.

We taught social responses to young children with autism using an adult as the recipient of the social interaction and then assessed generalization of performance to adults and peers who had not participated in the training. Generalized performance across new recipients was assessed repeatedly while holding constant other irrelevant aspects of the training that may have exerted stimulus control over responding (e.g., setting, materials). Although the participants performance was similar across adults, responding was less consistent with peers. A subsequent probe, in which we assessed generalization across adults and peers using novel materials and in a novel setting, suggested that the recipient of the social behavior (i.e., adult versus peer) controlled responding. We then evaluated the effects of having participants observe a video of a peer engaged in the targeted social behavior with another peer, who provided reinforcement for the social response. Together, the findings suggested that generalization of social responses may be more likely to occur across certain irrelevant, potential sources of stimulus control (setting, materials) than others (adult vs. peer recipient) and that video viewing may be an effective and efficient way to promote generalization to peers.

Behavioral skills training was used to teach vocal and non-vocal conversation skills to three young adults with autism spectrum disorders. A task analysis identifying various necessary steps for conversations was created. Skills that were included on the task analysis were both vocal conversation skills, such as making comments related to the conversation topic, and and non-vocal conversation skills that included maintaining eye contact with the peer and appropriate distance. The behavioral skills training package included instructions, modeling of an appropriate conversation, and role-playing with the participants in a private training room. In-situ training followed each successful role-play. Access to a preferred item/activity was provided for performing at or above the previous session. The training package was shown to be effective and effects maintained during four to eight week follow-up observations. Implications of behavioral skills training with young adults with developmental disabilities will be discussed as well as areas for future research.

Function-based treatment for challenging behavior often includes Functional Communication Training (FCT) to replace the behavior with a desirable communicative alternative, but for people with intact functional communication repertoires alternative assessment and intervention approaches are often necessary. Study 1 involved a young child with autism and an evaluation, across functional analysis (FA) and FCT sessions, of his destructive behavior, screaming, and manding that each functioned to gain access to preferred items. Results indicated a preference for manding even when the other members of the response class were reinforced. In Study 2 a stimulus control procedure was developed to reduce the rate of requesting in a child with Smith-Magenis Syndrome whose denied requests to escape or alter tasks were reliably antecedent to self-injury. The intervention effectively controlled rate of requesting. Study 3 describes the use of a progressive-ratio schedule to identify demand limitations for a child with autism whose aggressive behaviors functioned to escape tasks. Results will be discussed in light of generalization challenges, determining the momentary likelihood of members of a response class, and the importance of antecedent assessment and interventions.

We evaluated changes in a childs destructive behavior, screaming, and manding to gain access to preferred items across functional analysis (FA) and functional communication training (FCT) sessions. The participant was a preschool-aged boy with an Autism diagnosis. Previous studies have suggested that manding is unlikely to replace problem behaviors within the same response class if problem behaviors continue to obtain reinforcement (Horner & Day, 1991; Shirley, et al., 1997). This study evaluated persistence of destruction, screaming, and manding within multielement designs when: (a) only destruction was reinforced, (b) both destruction and screaming were reinforced, and (c) destruction, screaming, and manding behaviors were all reinforced. Initial results showed the persistence of screaming and destruction when only destructive behavior was reinforced, but only screaming occurred when it was also reinforced. Thus, screaming appeared to occur prior to destruction. However, during FCT when manding was also reinforced, neither destruction nor screaming occurred, suggesting that mands occurred first in the hierarchy. IOA for child behavior was at least 90% and was collected for 30% of sessions. Results will be discussed in relation to the conditions under which extinction, effort, and response history may interact with mands when mands are selected as a replacement behavior.

A functional analysis of self-injurious behavior (SIB) was conducted for an 8-yr old child (Erik) with Smith-Magenis Syndrome. Results suggested denied requests for activity change during seated work were reliably antecedent to SIB, while escape from work was the maintaining consequence. The research team, in-home clinical team, and Eriks mother agreed on a stimulus control approach to intervention, targeting a reduction in requesting during seated work. Results demonstrated that requesting occurred at a steady rate in the presence of an sD (blue work lists) and at a diminished rate in the presence an s-delta (gold work lists). Self-injury occurred at a low rate across conditions, attributed by clinical staff to the structured task presentation. Task completion data indicate increased success following denied requests as the study progressed. Generalization of stimulus control was initially unsuccessful and disrupted stimulus control in the training setting, but stimulus control was regained at the conclusion of the study. Clinical staff and parent social validity ratings indicated good contextual fit of the intervention. Results are discussed in light of generalization challenges and the use of this type of intervention for children whose frequent requests for items and activities are associated with denial and challenging behavior.

The current study describes the use of a progressive-ratio schedule to identify favorable conditions for compliance in an 8-year-old male with autism and severe aggressive behavior. A functional analysis of precursor behaviors to aggression (e.g., Smith & Churchill, 2002) indicated this response class was multiply maintained by access to food and escape from task demands. The progressive-ratio schedule involved increasing the number of matching tasks required for reinforcement incrementally across trials while holding the quantity of the reinforcer constant. Results demonstrated the childs success covaried with the reinforcement schedule. He chose and successfully completed work (without challenging behavior) on a majority of trials when the number of tasks to be completed was 15 or less. When the number of tasks exceeded that amount, the number of trials in which the participant selected a break and/or engaged in challenging behavior increased. This type of analysis may be effective for identifying the conditions under which children with escape-maintained problem behavior will comply with task demands.

The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement has become a significant force in a many of human service disciplines and among important funding agencies. Applied Behavior Analysts interact with many of these disciplines and agencies but to date the EBP movement has not gained much traction within applied behavior analysis (ABA). Perhaps, because of the long tradition within ABA for basing intervention recommendations of empirical research and data-based decision making, EBP is perceived as being redundant and therefore has little to contribute to ABA. The papers in this symposium argue that, when thoughtfully conceived, EBP is supportive of the fundamental values and orientation of ABA and EBP can be a means of further strengthening ABA practice as well as reaching out to important disciplines and agencies outside of ABA. This symposium will offer an analysis of the major components of EBP (best available evidence, professional judgment, and client values and context), describe how these components articulate with the fundamental values and orientation of ABA, and suggest reasons why it is necessary for ABA to adopt the EBP framework.

In this paper we will propose that evidence-based practice (EBP) of applied behavior analysis (ABA) be defined as a decision-making process that integrates (a) the best available evidence with (b) professional judgment and (c) client values and context. We will discuss the historical precedence for this definition and how the definition relates to the fundamental tenets of ABA. We will point out features of the definition that are critical if EBP is to be fully supportive of the best ABA practice. We will then discuss the meaning of the key term best available evidence. We will argue that EBP can be most powerful and most supportive of ABA if best available evidence is understood to indicate that many kinds of evidence may be used in EBP, and that the practitioner should be most influenced by the evidence that has the highest validity and most relevance to a particular decision.

While adoption and implementation of empirically supported treatments is critical, so is facilitating the fidelity of implementation of these practices to ensure their effectiveness. This is not a new consideration for behavior analysts. Wolf’s (1978) seminal article on Social Validity highlighted the importance of the subjective side of applied behavior analysis. Specifically, Wolf defined social validity as focusing on the social significance of the goals, the social appropriateness of the procedures and the social importance of the effects. More recently, Sacket et al (1997) refocused scientific practice on client values as a key component of evidence-based practices. This session will identify the continued importance of client values to applied behavior analysis, both from a research and a practice perspective. Additionally, the session will include information on contextual factors including contextual-fit, culture, politics, race and ethnicity.

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is critical in education, psychology, and other fields in which we participate. Systematic reviews have served as the method for determining treatment efficacy in EBP. Instead of adopting EBP, ABA has largely ignored this approach, with many behavior analysts remarking weve always make decisions on evidence. Unfortunately, our lack of understanding and participation in EBP has consequences. Our failure to keep pace with EBP means we do not communicate effectively with colleagues and leaders in our work settings, thus limiting practitioners ability to produce the greatest client gains. States may pass laws requiring insurance companies to reimburse services for specific conditions but if we do not provide evidence that these treatments are efficacious, insurance companies can deny services immediately or after years of service delivery. In the latter case, practitioners can anticipate returning hundreds of thousands of dollars per client as a direct result of our fields inability to participate in EBP. Further, our scientists will not be competitive for federal funding geared toward increasing the identification and full-scale implementation of EBP. If we seek to avoid punishers for all members of our field, we must become well informed about EBP and participate fully in this approach.

The field of behavior analysis has made remarkable progress in analyzing and intervening on a large variety of problems of human behavior, including autism, education, sports and fitness, business and industry, psychopathology, and many others. However, the more complex the behavior, the less time the science of behavior analysis seems to dedicate to the problem. This relation may be the reverse of what is desirable, if progress is to be made in areas of complex human behavior. Thus, more behavior analytic work on complex human behavior is needed. This symposium consists of three conceptual papers grappling with topics of complex human behavior. The first paper, by Jonathan Tarbox, presents a pragmatic approach to research and practice in improving behavioral repertoires labeled as cognitive by the general psychology community. The second paper, by Maria Munoz Blanco, presents a conceptual analysis of creativity. The third paper, by Linda Hayes, presents a conceptual analysis of dreaming. The symposium concludes with a discussion by William Potter.

Psychology has historically been considered to be responsible for explaining a number of concepts frequently used to describe ordinary behavior. As a result, scientists are pressured to provide an explanation for these concepts although many remain insufficiently defined. This is the case for creativity. People are inclined to identify that which is not considered to be “creative”, yet few have attempted to define what the phenomena of creativity actually is and how it occurs. Creativity has been described as magical and mysterious, perhaps related to geniuses who are able to engage in this behavior (Marr, 2003). For behavior analysts, creative behavior presents a problem based on our standard methods of analysis: Creative behavior, by definition, is not dependent on a history of reinforcement. Several authors have tried to define creativity in terms of multiple stimulus control (Epstein, 1991) or informal stimulus control (Sloane, Endo and Della-Piana, 1980); however, these explanations hinder the study of the complexity of creative behavior by reducing it to variability and novel behavior training (i.e. Pryor, Haag and O’Reilly, 1969). In this presentation, the author attempts to explain creativity without reducing this phenomenon to simple novel problem solving activities.

Behavioral interventions for children with severe language deficits often incorporate teaching basic skills under contrived conditions and progress to developing spontaneous complex language that is socially-directed and maintained. Previous research has shown that applied behavior analytic procedures result in acquisition of tact and intraverbal skills in children with language delays. However, many procedures promote acquisition of these behaviors in the context of a specific discriminative stimulus (i.e., what is it?) and may result in inflexible responding. Procedures to enhance tact and intraverbal behavior under more naturalistic conditions that are socially-directed and enhance variability in responding are needed. This symposium will present data from three studies investigating procedures to promote tacts to initiate and reciprocate conversational exchanges and promote variability in intraverbal responding. Contreras and Betz utilized a lag schedule to evaluate variability in intraverbal responses and compared two methods to analyze the findings. Shippee, Shillingsburg, Kliebert, and Discalfani taught participants to emit novel tacts embedded in a vocal exchange and used naturally occurring activities to promote generalization. Perry, Kelley, and Peterson employed an intervention to increase spontaneous tacting to initiate a conversational exchange and assessed for generalization. Results are discussed in terms of promoting spontaneity and variability of verbal behavior.

Tacting is prerequisite for beginning conversational skills in young children. Though tacting programs are a common feature of early intervention programs for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), most programming does not target socially-directed tact behavior. Therefore, we evaluated an intervention to increase spontaneous tacting in preschoolers with ASD who emitted impure tacts (i.e., following the discriminative stimulus, "What is it?" or if a therapist held up an item), but did not do so when in less contrived conditions. Treatment consisted of teaching participants to share an item with an adult while simultaneously labeling it using a progressive prompt-delay. Generalization probes were then conducted, in which untrained, known items were available within a naturalistic setting. Results indicated that all participants were successfully taught to initiate conversation with others with six objects; however, one participant required specific training for each object and generalization did not occur. In contrast, another participant mastered all objects during generalization probes after teaching was conducted with one item only and these gains were effectively generalized to another classroom setting with novel targets.

Tacts embedded in natural reciprocal conversation, as opposed to tacts following a specific vocal discriminative stimulus (e.g., when directly asked what is it?) may have added benefit in establishing complex conversational skills in individuals with language delays. One potential way to establish conversational tacting is embedding instruction within a vocal exchange. In this study, two children diagnosed with autism were taught to engage in tacts embedded in a vocal exchange during common activities (e.g., reading a book, looking through a toy box). The therapist initiated the exchange by tacting an item present (e.g., I see a fish!). A conversational tact was scored if the participant then tacted a different item present (e.g., I see a frog!). Treatment in the form of prompt fading was implemented at the teaching table first using an array of pictures. Following mastery for both participants, probes for generalization were conducted in novel settings. Generalized responding was seen in one participant to a novel activity in 2 different settings. Generalized responding in the second participant was seen in one novel activity but not another. Treatment was implemented during a variety of naturally occurring activities to promote generalized responding for the second participant.

Within the past few decades, researchers have shown that variability is a dimension of behavior that can be directly reinforced. In other words, variability itself is an operant (Page & Neuringer, 1985). Additionally, Neuringer (2002, 2004) stated that the term variability may refer to a continuum from stereotypic to stochastic. One method of directly reinforcing variability within this continuum is the use of lag schedules of reinforcement, in which a response is only reinforced if it differs from a specified number of responses. The purpose of the current study was to more precisely evaluate the level of response variability produced by lag schedules by measuring both responses varied and number of different responses emitted per session. An additional purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which analyzing both response measures alter the interpretation of result. Results showed that lag schedules of reinforcement were effective at increasing response variability for 2 out of 3 participants, and were effective for the third participant following variability training. Evaluating both response measures allowed the researchers to identify different levels of variability within and across the participants and also allowed the researchers to make appropriate treatment decisions.

Rats selectively bred for high (HiS) vs. low (LoS) saccharin preference exhibit high and low vulnerability, respectively, for cocaine-seeking behavior. Also, rats selected for high (HiI) vs. low (LoI) impulsivity, based on a delay-discounting task for food, show similar high vs. low vulnerability, respectively, vulnerability for drug seeking. These findings agree with those of other laboratories that have selected or selectively bred rats for high or low reactivity to novelty or sign-tracking vs. goal tracking. These phenotypic markers for drug addiction also are related to age and sex differences in which adolescents and females are more avid drug-seekers than adults and males, and the vulnerability markers appear to be additive. This presentation will discuss how HiS vs. LoS and HiI vs. LoI rats differentially respond to behavioral (exercise), and pharmacological treatments, and their combinations, to reduce drug seeking. It also will discuss how high and low drug seekers respond to aversive drug effects of drugs such as withdrawal and punishment. Overall, the results suggest commonalities among the drug-seeking phenotypes, and that drug-addiction-prone rats are more sensitive to reward and less sensitive to aversive effects, while drug-resistant phenotypes are more responsive to aversive effects of drugs and less motivated by reward. This information is valuable for developing strategies for prevention and designing treatments for drug abuse. Supported by NIDA grants: R01 DA003240, R01 DA019942, P20 DA024196.

The target audience are researchers and practitioners that deal with populations at risk for developing substance abuse and dependence problems.

This tutorial will outline the steps required to create, expand, and integrate an Accelerated Independent Learners (AIL) model of learning into general education settings. AIL is the general education initiative of CABAS, a systems-based model of schooling at the center of the Teaching as Applied Behavior Analysis programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. These efforts have included teaching district-based staff to implement basic principles and tactics from the science of behavior. The completion of CABAS ranks are part of the training for teachers and teaching staff in AIL programs. The learn unit is the basic method of instruction and learning pictures provide the visual display of learning in AIL classrooms. TPRA observations, and decision protocols assure the accuracy of instructional presentations and related decisions. The VBDA and C-PIRK assessments provide curricular and protocol based objectives and criterion referenced measures of learning for both at-risk and advanced students. Furthermore, the AIL model has been effective in raising performance outcomes for included students with disabilities, students considered at-risk, and students at advanced levels of achievement.

This moderated panel discussion considers cross-science collaboration on issues in environmentalism, human behavior, and sustainable communities within the boundaries of a resilient planet. Mobilizing action for large-scale behavior change might be accomplished by forging linkages across scientific, community, business, and community organizations. Our panelists will provide unique perspectives on this opportunity.

In this symposium we present research regarding popular treatments for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that may be considered alternative and/or are lacking in empirical support. Parents of children with ASD face a multitude of treatment choices, which represent a wide range of experimental support and popularity of use; therefore, it is imperative to not only identify the effectiveness of all treatment options, but understand the treatment selection process. The first paper examines the effectiveness of animal-assisted therapy. Specifically, research regarding the effectiveness of treatment incorporating non-human mammals to improve core characteristics of ASD is systematically reviewed. The second paper investigates the popularity of Social Stories, one of the most frequently-implemented interventions among ASD. A survey among parents of children with ASD reveals the appeal of Social Stories utilizing concepts of social validity. The third paper systematically evaluates the use of sensory integration therapy, the third most utilized treatment among individuals with ASD. Results discuss the variety of intervention procedures, outcomes, and certainty of evidence.

Animal-assisted therapy is the inclusion of an animal into individual and/or group interactions for therapeutic purposes. Animal-assisted therapy has been utilized across therapeutic contexts, including a range of participant characteristics, disabilities, and diagnoses. One such application of animal-assisted therapy is among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We conducted a systematic search to identify studies that (a) included non-human mammal(s) (b) as part of a treatment or treatment package (c) among participant(s) with ASD (d) aimed to ameliorate at least one of the core symptoms of ASD (i.e., communication skills, social skills, and/or repetitive and stereotyped patterns on behavior). Results were analyzed in terms of (a) participant characteristics, (b) treatment characteristics, (c) study outcomes, and (d) certainty of evidence. Results conclude that a wide variety of animals have been incorporated into the treatment of ASD, with horses, dolphins, dogs being most frequently utilized; however, the majority of evidence contains significant methodological limitations.

Intervention studies involving the use of sensory integration therapy (SIT) were systematically identified and analyzed. Twenty-five studies were described in terms of: (a) participant characteristics, (b) assessments used to identify sensory deficits or behavioral functions, (c) dependent variables, (d) intervention procedures, (e) intervention outcomes, and (f) certainty of evidence. Overall, 3 of the reviewed studies suggested that SIT was effective, 8 studies found mixed results, and 14 studies reported no benefits related to SIT. Many of the reviewed studies, including the 3 studies reporting positive results, had serious methodological flaws. Therefore, the current evidence-base does not support the use of SIT in the education and treatment of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Practitioners and agencies serving children with ASD that endeavor, or are mandated, to use research-based, or scientifically-based, interventions should not use SIT outside of carefully controlled research.

The focus of the symposium will be the evaluation of handheld mobile devices, such as the iPod and iPad, and the application Proloquo2Go as a voice output communication aid in children with autism. The symposium will evaluate data comparing acquisition rates between picture exchange and the mobile device, the use of within stimulus prompts in the training of discrimination between pictures on the screen of the device, and the effects of using a peer-assisted communication application training procedure on the acquisition of communicative behaviors.

The focus of this study was to compare mand acquisition using PE and the iPad as a VOCA, in terms of acquisition rate and participant device preference. Three participants acquired the ability to communicate using the iPad as a VOCA more readily and two participants acquired the ability to communicate more quickly using PE, while the overall rate of independent manding was higher for four participants using the VOCA. Regarding device preference, four participants demonstrated a clear preference for the VOCA device and one for PE.

The focus of this study was the use of within stimulus prompts in the training of discrimination between pictures; using the application Proloquo2Go and the iPad as a voice output communication aid. The training procedure involved a multiple step sequence of stimulus manipulations on the screen of the iPad and within the application Proloquo2Go. Three preschool aged children with autism participated in the study. Following training, the participants demonstrated the ability to discriminate between the pictures presented on the screen of the iPad, during mand training sessions.

This study evaluated the effects of peer assisted communication application training to increase communication and social interactions for children with autism. Four children with autism across two schools were taught how to use a communication application to mand using a 2-step sequence and respond to the questions, What do you want? and What is your name? using a 2-step sequence. Using a multiple baseline design, data were taken on the number of independent mands, independent responses, social initiations, length of social interactions, problem behaviors, and verbalizations. The implications of the study are analyzed in regards to the effectiveness of peer assisted communication application training to teach sophisticated communication skills and increase socialization.

One of the diagnostic criteria for an autism spectrum disorder is a qualitative impairment in social behaviors, which can range from failure to develop meaningful social relationships to rejecting others in his or her environment. These impairments in social behavior can lead to negative long term outcomes (e.g., depression). Today, there are several interventions that are being implemented to increase social behaviors for individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum. In this symposium three papers will be presented that evaluate different interventions to improve social behaviors for individuals diagnosed with autism. The first paper will present data that compares two social interventions (i.e., social stories and the teaching interaction procedure) for increasing social behaviors for three young children diagnosed with autism. The second paper will describe the results of the implementation of conjugate reinforcement as it relates to increasing social and other behaviors (e.g., motor skills) to children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The third paper will describe the results of a social skills group that was implemented for children diagnosed with autism who were more cognitively impaired (e.g., lower IQ and limited language) and who have more aberrant behaviors.

Autism spectrum disorders are marked by qualitative impairments in social behavior, which can lead to failures in developing meaningful social relationships, depression, negative views towards school, and problems in school. Over the past 30 years, a variety of methods have been implemented to teach social behaviors to children with autism. Two of these interventions include social stories and the teaching interaction procedure. In this study we compared social stories to the teaching interaction procedure to teach social behaviors to three children diagnosed with autism. Each participant was taught three social skills with social stories and three social skills with the teaching interaction procedure. All skills were taught in a group instructional format. Using an adapted alternating treatment design, we compared the two teaching procedures in terms of skill acquisition, maintenance, efficiency, and generalization of skills across settings or people. The results, clinical implications, and areas for future research will be discussed throughout the presentation.

The effect of a reinforcer on behavior is largely determined by the schedule in which it is implemented. One type of reinforcement schedule that has not been explored extensively in applied settings is conjugate reinforcement. Previous research (Lindsley, 1962; Rovee & Rovee, 1969) suggested that various topographies of behavior reinforced on a conjugate schedule are maintained at high rates across a variety of reinforcers. The current study extended application by exploring the effectiveness of conjugate reinforcement across a variety of responses, across different reinforcers, in a wide range of participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, and implemented by several interventionists. The results indicated that delivering social, audio, visual, and tangible stimuli on conjugate schedules resulted in increased durations of various target responses (e.g. social skills, motor skills) and non-targeted measures (e.g., approach, social bids, speed) across participants. Considerations regarding reinforcer and response selection in implementing conjugate schedules are provided.

Today, there are several studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of social skills interventions to increase social behaviors exhibited by "higher functioning" children with autism. Additionally, social skills groups are now commonly implemented to "higher" functioning children and adolescents diagnosed with autism as part of a comprehensive intervention plan. There are few studies, however, that have evaluated social skills groups for those students who have lower IQ scores, lower language capabilities, and who display more aberrant behaviors. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a description of a summer social skills group that was implemented for children diagnosed with autism who had lower IQ scores and who displayed several aberrant behaviors. The presenters will describe the curriculum that was utilized, the various teaching strategies that were implemented, the reinforcement systems that were put in place, as well as preliminary results. Suggestions for clinicians, steps to run successful social skills groups, and areas for future research will be discussed.

The purpose of this symposium is to present studies in the use of a comprehensive set of programming and management skills that have been developed and validated to both establish and maintain childrens skills consistently throughout the child's life. A particular challenge is to train staff to use independent clinical judgment and make the dynamic programming decisions on a daily basis that support optimal rates of child behavior development. In addition, the team leaders must possess the skills to organize and progress programming as the child's behavior rapidly develops. The skills necessary in the third year of programming are much more complex and varied than are those in the first year of programming. A dynamic system requires functional data-collection system for staff management at the child and programmatic levels. Dynamic self-feedback systems give staff daily, weekly, and 6-month feedback on the success of their treatment decisions, enabling the most cost-effective therapy for achieving the best outcomes.

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of agencies implementing organized service delivery systems to treat children with autism. Organizational management features designed to manage staff and child progress are critical in producing the highest quality outcomes in the children served. The current study seeks to identify a system for management of clinical outcomes. Four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the four teams of staff implementing their ABA treatment program participated in evaluating the effects of a system for management of clinical outcomes. During baseline, typical systems were in place to manage the childrens learning. The clinical management system, known as Dynamic Programming was introduced via a multiple baseline design across children. Dynamic Programming is an intervention package that includes: (a) therapist self-monitoring while teaching new program exemplars, (b) therapist public posting of child mastery (c) probes of child behavior to test or confirm therapist self-monitoring and public posting (each therapist reports their results on the Dynamic Programming sheet and team members check one another). After treatment implementation, each childs rate of learning increased and maintained 5-10 weeks post treatment. Results suggest that the childrens rate of learning was accelerated through the implementation of Dynamic Programming. The parents of the children were satisfied with the implementation and outcome for their children.

Social comprehension refers to the ability to understand social concepts which entail the interactions between two or more individuals. The present study utilized commercially-available children's books to evaluate the effectiveness of a dynamic social comprehension training procedure that utilized multiple exemplars to develop generative social comprehension in children with autism. A multiple probe design across five common childhood social concepts (e.g, sharing) was employed for each of the three children who participated in this study. Probes were conducted on the first presentation of novel books and the proportion of correct responses to the questions was measured. Training on each social concept continued until a generative mastery criterion was met in which the child responded correctly to at least 14 out of 16 questions on three consecutive novel books. The results showed that all of the children were able to answer an increasing proportion of the questions correctly on novel books. However, only 2 of the 3 children were able to meet the generative mastery criterion on 4 out of the 5 social concepts. Generalization probes across untrained in-vivo social scenarios were also assessed. Here, all of the children responded to a high percentage of questions following social comprehension training.

Early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is one of the most widely used treatments for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this presentation is to examine the research on EIBI, based upon a series of reviews, including a recent Cochrane review (Reichow, Barton, Boyd, & Hume, 2012). It is believed that the Cochrane review may be the most rigorous meta-analysis of EIBI to date, given the requirements of the process. The Cochrane review, for example, found a total of five studies that compared EIBI to generic special education services for children with ASD in schools. Only one study randomly assigned children to a treatment or comparison group, which is considered the 'gold standard' for research. The other four studies used parent preference to assign children to groups. A total of 203 children (all were younger than six years old when they started treatment) were included in the five studies. The Cochrane review found that children receiving the EIBI treatment performed better than children in the comparison groups after about two years of treatment on tests of adaptive behavior (behaviors that increase independence and the ability to adapt to one's environment), intelligence, social skills, communication and language, autism symptoms, and quality of life. The evidence supports the use of EIBI for some children with ASD. However, the Cochrane review concluded that the quality of this evidence is low as only a small number of children were involved in the studies and only one study randomly assigned children to groups.

The evaluation of treatment outcomes across all clinical disciplines is based almost exclusively in group-based designs. Randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and expert panel evaluations of empirical evidence are considered the highest standards for the ascertainment of evidence-based treatments. Behavior analysis, with its long tradition in single-subject design is a relatively newcomer to this methodological scene. Behavior analysis focus on non-standardized outcomes and individualized treatment places the field in a disadvantage when confronted with a scientific standard that promotes standardization of outcomes and interventions. In this presentation, I will discuss common methodological limitations of ABA-based intervention studies following group-based designs. Also, I will describe approaches to controlled trials design and treatment outcome measurement that may help to reconcile ABA interventions with traditional methods for the evaluation of treatment outcomes.

A misimpression stands that the treatment of autism lacks evidence-based approaches. However, in actuality, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) are possibly the best examples of evidence-based behavioral health care. In contrast to the folklore that one hears, independent reviews consistently agree that ABA and EIBI treatments for autism are effective, and that the extensive body of research meets high standards of evidence. A variety of such independent reviews will be analyzed for the relative quality of research from the perspective of both ABA criteria (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968), and criteria for RCT Randomized Clinical Trials. It is clear that expert pane reviews typically will restrict their analysis to a small range of the available research, and that this selectivity will affect public policy decisions. This paper will review the pyramid of available research, presented here in rough order of strength of evidence: o Independent Expert Panel Reviews o Peer Review Papers o Multi-site Group Outcome Studies o Between-Group Outcome Studies o Long-Term Outcome Studies o RCTs Randomized Controlled Trials o Non-Randomized Matched Trials o Clinical Registries o Comparison Data Reviews o Meta-Analysis Studies o Cost-Effectiveness Analyses o Service Delivery Research o Program Evaluation Research o Component Analysis Research o Within-Subject Experimental Studies o Quasi-Experimental Large N Analyses o Individual Case Studies o Pilot Studies o Descriptive Papers The implications of various selection criteria will be examined.

Despite the growth of school-wide positive behavior supports and IDEA mandates for function-based assessment, schools still have difficulty supporting students with challenging behavior. A continuum of supports, with primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions in place, helps schools effectively meet the needs of students by providing a structure from which to approach assessment and intervention of challenging behavior. Wilcox and Lewis present the results from semi-structured interviews of school personnel on the barriers to implementing function-based assessment, along with data demonstrating the impact of systems-level changes at one school spurred by interview results. The remainder of papers in the symposium examine the efficacy of the Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) procedure, a secondary intervention designed to support students with mild challenging behavior. Charlton and Ross discuss the outcomes of a study examining a modified CICO procedure at the high school level. Ross and Sabey present results from a study on the implementation of social skills training within a CICO system. This supplemented-CICO procedure, implemented with students in elementary school with social deficits, resulted in increases in behaviors related to self-control, assertiveness, and cooperation. Finally, Snyder and colleagues systematically review the quality and quantity of research supporting Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) and related procedures, discussing the implications of the review for the treatment of challenging behavior within systems of tiered supports and future research on the prevention, assessment, and treatment of challenging behavior in school settings.

The efficacy of the Check-in/Check-out (CICO) procedure has been examined in elementary and middle schools (Davies & McLaughlin, 1989; Campbell & Anderson, 2008; Davies & McLaughlin, 1989; Fairbanks, Sugai, Guardino, & Lathrop, 2007) using a variety of research designs (Simonsen, Myers, & Briere, 2011). These studies support the efficacy of this approach when addressing the needs of students with attention maintained problem behavior (Campbell & Anderson, 2008; Fairbanks, Sugai, Guardino, & Lathrop, 2007). Unfortunately, there is no research to date on the efficacy of CICO in secondary schools and very little focused on tier 2 intervention in general. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a modified version of the CICO procedure in a secondary school setting. Modifications to the procedure include a focus on emphasizing access to peer attention as an important reinforcer for the targeted students and an opportunity to fade out potentially aversive elements of the intervention including regularly checking in with adults at the school and receiving teacher feedback. These components are systematically faded and elements of self-management are implemented (Shapiro, DuPaul, & Bradley-Klug 1998; Young, Smith, West, & Morgan, 1978).

Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) and Check, Connect and Expect (CCE) are secondary interventions designed to address challenging behavior within a framework of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS). As secondary interventions, CICO and CCE are intended to reduce challenging behavior in a manner that requires low teacher effort and is rapidly accessible for students who need extra support (Mitchell, Stormont, & Gage, 2011). CICO and CCE share similar features, such as providing students with prompts about behavioral expectations, frequent monitoring and feedback about performance via daily report cards, and reinforcement contingent upon meeting daily behavior goals. Although CICO and CCE are widely used, the literature supporting these interventions has yet to be summarized. In this paper, we systematically review both the quantity and quality of empirical evidence supporting CICO and CCE. Results of the 22 reviewed studies suggest that CICO and related interventions are particularly effective for students with challenging behavior maintained by attention, and that their effectiveness can be enhanced for students whose behavior is maintained by other consequences with the addition of functionally-matched reinforcers. The implications of the results, in terms of the implementation of CICO in school settings and future research on CICO, will be discussed.

This symposium brings together four experiments that apply behavior analytic skill acquisition procedures to teaching under-addressed skill areas to children with and without autism. In the first experiment, by Angela Persicke and colleagues, children with autism were taught to identify when others were lying to them for the purposes of excluding them or taking their possessions. The second presentation, by Megan St. Clair and colleagues, describes an experiment in which children with autism were taught to shift attention to socially relevant changes in environmentally stimuli. The third paper, by Mei Ling Joey Chen, consists of an experiment on a procedure for teaching abduction prevention skills to typically developing preschool-age children. The final paper, by Michele Bishop and colleagues, describes an experiment using stimulus fading procedures to teach tooth brushing to children with autism who show resistance and anxiety-related behaviors when presented with this task.

Research has shown that children with autism often have deficits in deception, both in the ability to lie to others and in the ability to detect when they are being lied to. Additionally, children with autism are often the target of bullying and it is conceivable that deficits in their ability to detect and respond appropriately to peers who lie to them makes them easy targets. The purpose of this study was to teach individuals with autism to identify when others were lying to them, specifically when peers lied to exclude them or to take their possessions. The results of this study indicated that a treatment package including rules, modeling, role-play, and immediate feedback across multiple exemplars was effective for teaching three children with autism to identify and respond appropriately to the deceptive behavior of others. Additionally, generalization was demonstrated to novel, untrained lies and with same-age peer confederates.

Research has shown that children with autism often fail to attend to relevant stimuli in social situations, likely resulting in unsuccessful or absent social interactions. The purpose of this study was to teach children with autism to attend to stimuli with socially relevant features. Specifically, this study evaluated a teaching package including rules, modeling, role play, and specific feedback across multiple exemplars to teach children with autism to attend to and respond to others' bids for social attention (e.g., "Whoa!" or "Ouch"). Three participants successfully learned to shift attention towards others and mand for information in response to a socially relevant stimulus. Furthermore, generalization was observed across novel exemplars and people.

Child abduction, although rare, is a serious safety issue for children in the United States. The consequences for the child and their family are so horrific that research on abduction prevention is vital. The current study examined the effectiveness of instructions and video scoring on teaching children abduction prevention skills. Also, a social validity questionnaire was included to identify any possible negative side effects. Participants were 6 children between the ages of 4-6 years old. A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across subjects was used. Assessments were conducted within 48 hr of training and at 3-5 weeks follow up. Five out of six participants acquired the targeted skills. Three out of five children that completed follow up assessment maintained the skills. All parents returned the questionnaires and only one parent reported negative side effects. Behavioral mechanisms, implications, and future research are discussed.

Resistance and anxiety-related behaviors can occur during toothbrushing, and have also been observed to occur at the sight of materials associated with toothbrushing (e.g., toothbrush and toothpaste). Some behavioral interventions, such as escape extinction, which involves continuous presentation of the aversive stimulus, may be inappropriate for teaching compliance with toothbrushing because there is an increased risk of injury when attempting to place a toothbrush in the mouth of a child who is actively resisting it. Alternatively, stimulus fading interventions involve gradually increasing the size, proximity, and/or duration of a stimulus while reinforcing compliance; thereby reducing or eliminating the need for escape extinction. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of a stimulus fading procedure for increasing compliance with toothbrushing in three children with autism. The toothbrushing task was divided into 30-34 smaller steps starting with showing the toothbrush to the child, placing the toothbrush in the child's mouth, moving the toothbrush around the mouth, and ending with the terminal goal brushing teeth for 60 s. Results indicate that the stimulus fading procedure was successful at increasing compliance with toothbrushing for all three children. In addition, pre and post generalization probes reveal increased compliance with caregivers following the intervention. A discussion about the practical implications of stimulus fading interventions and their application to other dental procedures will be provided.

In this presentation, the essential features of a Multi-Level System of student evaluation and progress monitoring at Morningside Academy will be described. The process by which target behaviors are selected that mirror the scope and sequence of the Morningside Instructional Model will be briefly introduced. The defining elements of each level of the measurement model will be illustrated to demonstrate how each tier yields data that have been used to empirically validate the Morningside Model. At the heart of the system is the Micro Level of assessment, or the daily measures of component and composite skill mastery that are included in Precision Teaching at Morningside. In 1995, a new measurement component was added to the Model the Meta Level of assessment, which has been used to help document the effectiveness of Precision Teaching at Morningside by offering a long-term measurement paradigm that is unique from the Micro Level, yet blends seamlessly into a user-friendly and highly sensitive progress monitoring system. Finally, the third tier of the Multi-Level Assessment System, the Macro Level, will be discussed in terms of a fundamental assertion - that the integration of both norm-referenced and individually referenced decision-making is vital to comprehensive behavioral assessment in education.

Over the last decade there has been a movement in education emphasizing progress monitoring and other data collection procedures using a Response to Intervention (RtI) approach. RtI procedures aid in decision making for special education eligibility, help to determine the intensity of interventions needed, and can also be used to judge the effectiveness of instruction. This presentation will focus on the evolution of the Morningside Multi-Level Assessment Model from 2007 to the present, including the conceptualization of the Morningside Assessment Model into an RtI framework. Audience members will be informed of new policies that have been implemented to ensure that the Model continues to guide instructional decision making in a manner that is conceptually sound, as well as cost effective and sustainable over time. Notable modifications and additions to the Model will be described, including new curriculum placement tests, the integration of a computer-based system for assessing reading comprehension skills, and updated progress monitoring administration schedules.

This professional development panel discusses the design, development, delivery, administration, and research strategies in online behavior analytic instruction. Online education is growing and, with several options available to a student pursuing education in behavior analysis, it is critical that those delivering this instruction consider a variety of factors to better ensure a quality experience and high performance standards. Panel members will speak to their individual efforts addressing these factors and propose future directions in online instruction and education.

The degree to which staff implement teaching procedures, behavioral interventions, or other job tasks as instructed is known as procedural fidelity. Research has shown that staff fidelity impacts organizational outcomes. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight research on the range of training and feedback considerations necessary to promote desired staff, client, and organizational outcomes. This symposium will span use-inspired basic research and applied research akin to a bench-to-bedside framework. The first presentation will share findings from a human operant task evaluating the effects of feedback accuracy on short- and long-term learner outcomes with a college student sample. In a more applied evaluation, the second presentation will describe a two-part study of the prevalence and effects of errors in forward chaining procedures to teach with children with autism self-care skills. The third presentation will summarize the results of an evaluation of the effects of training procedures on the fidelity with which volunteers implement a multi-component dog-walking procedure. Finally, the symposium will conclude with an analysis of the effects of types of feedback on workplace performance.

Feedback commonly plays a strong role in educational and organizational settings. Research has shown that in both settings, the implementation of prescribed procedures does not always occur as planned or intended. Previous studies have shown that the imperfect implementation of reinforcement and prompting procedures negatively impacts outcomes. Additionally, inaccurate instructions have been show to control participant behavior even when following instructions does not maximize reinforcement. Further research is needed, however, to determine whether these findings might extend to feedback procedures. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of varying levels of inaccurate feedback on task acquisition among 64 college undergraduates. An arbitrary match-to-sample task was presented under varying levels of feedback accuracy and acquisition of the task was recorded. The results demonstrated a weak linear relation between accuracy and rate of acquisition with the highest rates occurring under perfectly accurate feedback. A second condition was implemented in which only accurate feedback was provided to determine if prior exposure to inaccurate feedback would inhibit future learning. A consistent delay to acquisition was obtained for participants previously exposed to 25% and 50% accurate feedback. Implications for research and practice are highlighted.

When embarking on the endeavor to design a successful behavior analysis private practice it is advantageous to examine different segments of the health care industry. Medical practitioners, as an example, experienced a momentous shift in their operating practices due to the introduction of universally accepted standards of practice and the involvement of third party funding sources. These key variables required practitioners to either join the ranks of large health care organizations (i.e., hospitals and medical research centers) or design and operate efficient private practices. Practitioners could no longer just deliver high quality health care in their community and expect their practice to survive. Just as the introduction of these variables required clinicians to become knowledgeable of best business practices (e.g., finance, management, human resources), so too has the implementation evidence-based practice guidelines for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and health insurance reform made similar demands on professional behavior analysts. This symposium will show 3 recent applications of Human Performance Technology (HPT) and OBM tools used to identify and address critical business issues in human service agencies. After seeing Optimals approach to system management and seeing the results of its applications, audience members will leave with a rudimentary understanding of how HPT can help managers improve productivity, solve performance problems, and realize opportunities related to the performance of people.

Optimal encourages the employment of evidence-based approaches, which enlists tools from human performance technology (HPT). These tools drive the analysis and design of performance systems that can be maintained by employees within the organization. When designing performance systems, we strive to equip agencies with a strong infrastructure that will support highly proficient & sustainable services, prevent inefficient waste, and minimize costs. While working with a California-based organization, we identified an opportunity to reduce their rate of staff turnover. Through the improvement of key processes such as scheduling, billing, hiring & recruiting, and progress reporting, the setting of clear expectations, and the alignment of staff and organizations goals; we were able to significantly reduce the agencys turnover rate in a short period of time. As a result, we observed a substantial improvement to employee moral as well as an increase in profit margins.

An organization's survival rests entirely on its ability to adapt to change. Companies are constantly adapting to change, through the revision their processes to meet new state & federal regulations, the amendment of their policies to meet funding source requirements, or the training of their staff to implement improved protocol, to name a few. However, do to so successfully requires effective management of organizational structures, processes and performers. It is these internal structures that define your company's service delivery, and in turn your corporate identity. The creation of new services not only requires an existing infrastructure to support it, but will also requires the design and implementation of new internal support structures. In this presentation, we will show you an example of how we collaborated with a company to improve their strategic planning; project management, and product development processes to help them create a viable and needed service. We will show an actual example of how to take an idea from inception to fruition.

A hallmark of behavior-analytic research and practice is the use of direct observation in measuring the behavior of interest, which leads to high level of accurate data collection. The papers in this symposium, collectively, represent a move toward evaluating more efficient measurement systems while maintaining high levels of accuracy. Sellers and Bourret examined the accuracy and efficiency of discontinuous and continuous measurement systems for discrete trial training during early intervention programming. Lesser et al. assessed the accuracy and reliability of a nighttime camera with motion-detection technology for conducting videosomnography in an analog sleep setting. Machado et al. conducted a discovery-oriented comparison on the accuracy and efficiency of using different fast-forward speeds in scoring problem behavior during parent-child interactions. We are fortunate to have Dr. Dorothea Lerman, the editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, serve as the discussant for this set of papers, given her exceptional scholarship in the area of evaluating measurement systems.

The current set of studies sought to identify a fast-forward speed for scoring in-home problem behavior with sufficient accuracy and efficiency in comparison to scoring at normal speed. In Study 1, two groups of participants scored instances of programmed problem behavior from video records using several fast-forwarding speeds (3.5x, 4.0x, 4.5x, 5.0x) in ascending (n = 6) or descending (n = 6) order. Omission and commission errors and the total duration of scoring time were used to evaluate accuracy and efficiency, respectively. In Study 2, repeated measures were obtained for three groups of participants who scored instances of problem behavior from video records using either 3.5x (n = 5), 4.0x (n = 5) or 5.0x (n = 5) fast-forwarding speeds. Results from both studies suggested that scoring problem behavior 3.5x faster than normal speed consistently produced the fewest errors overall and produced similar efficiency scores across participants. These data suggest that fast forwarding could have marked implications for scoring measures of interest from large video records (e.g., 4 hr) if a speed is chosen at which observers maintain an acceptable level of accuracy and efficiency.

Parent diaries and actigraphy are commonly used to measure sleep disturbances with young children at night, although both have been shown to introduce some measurement error (Sadeh, 2011). Recent advances in infrared-nighttime cameras with motion-detection technology may provide a practical means for obtaining direct measures of in-bed movements with little to no error. We evaluated the accuracy and reliability of a cameras motion-detection capabilities across two studies. In Study 1, we systematically moved standard-shaped objects at different distances in an attempt to quantify the proportion of the video feed required for motion to be detected. Next, we evaluated the effects of systematically introducing artificial light and additional objects on the accuracy of the camera. Depending on the size of the object, movements that changed 2% to 7% of the video feed were detected. In Study 2, we assessed the generality of the finding across human motor-movements varying in size (e.g., from mouth movements to a whole-body turn). Based on the results from Study 1, we were able to predict the type of movements that would be detected; in addition, by decreasing the size of the video feed, we able to reliability detect movements as small as the turning of a single hand. The results of these preliminary evaluations suggest that the motion-detection technology is a viable measurement system for detecting in-bed movements. In addition, although the results are germane to the specific camera model we assessed, the procedures provide a methodology for evaluating other camera models.

Previous literature has examined data sampling in the context of free operant responding. However, relatively few studies compared the effects of data sampling to continuous recording in discrete trial teaching. Thus, continuous and discontinuous data collection methods were compared in the context of discrete trial programming. Archival data sets were analyzed using trial sampling techniques (first five trials, first three trials, and first trial only) and session sampling techniques (every other session, every third session, and every fifth session). Results showed trial sampling to systematically underestimate the number of sessions and days to mastery and overestimate the number of sessions and days to the first independent response. Session sampling systematically overestimated sessions and days to mastery and sessions and days to the first independent response. A time-savings analysis was included to empirically test how much time would be saved by using the sampling methods. Results suggested that data sampling would produce relatively minimal time savings.

The mand and the tact are two of the elementary verbal operants described in Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior. Skinner's analysis implies that these verbal operants should be functionally independent of one another. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of empirical studies on the independent acquisition of mands and tacts, mostly among individuals with developmental disabilities and young, typically developing children. Many procedural variations can be found in this literature, and the results have been quite variable across studies. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the procedures that have been used to promote the presence of appropriate motivating operations when mands are tested following tact training, and consider the extent to which variable results can be attributed to this procedural variable. We will also review the types of evidence that researchers can present to support the presence of a motivating operation during mand testing.

The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) measures the putative strength of verbal relations among stimuli in an individual's verbal behavioral repertoire. These verbal relations, as measured by the IRAP, have commonly been termed "implicit," as opposed to other methods of assessing verbal relations, such as surveys and questionnaires, which have been labeled as "explicit" measures. The IRAP is not the only assessment tool which claims to measure implicit attitudes (i.e., verbal behavior), but it is the only tool based on and analyzed with a behavior analytic perspective. To date, IRAP research has focused primarily on validating IRAP results against those of other implicit attitude measures (e.g., IAT), and has done so using group-based designs, as has been the precedent in implicit attitude research. However, consistent with behavior analytic thinking, emerging IRAP research has begun to draw on within-subject research designs and explore the potential utility of application of the tool in a variety of settings, including but not limited to clinical and organizational settings. The papers presented in this symposium discuss empirical work aimed at addressing these advances, and implications for further research and pragmatic application involving the IRAP.

The IRAP has been used as a means of measuring implicit attitudes, or assessing implicit verbal relations, for several years. Much of the early work with IRAP consisted of validating the results obtained using the IRAP with those of another well-documented tool used for measuring implicit attitudes (i.e., IAT; see Barnes-Holmes, Barnes-Holmes, and colleagues). Findings in this vein have been promising, leading researchers to begin asking the next logical set of empirical questions; primarily, to what extent are the measures captured by the IRAP indicative or predictive of more overt, probable patterns of behavior in naturalistic settings, such as the home, the workplace, or the community at large. Recent work has begun to address this question and more research is needed. The present study investigated this question, as it relates to patterns of behavior in organizational settings, by asking participants to complete an IRAP assessment comprising target stimuli related to the workplace and workplace behavior, and then exposing participants to an analog data entry work task, with dependent measures related to those concepts assessed in the IRAP. IRAP results are correlated with more overt, persistent behavior patterns in the analog work task to evaluate the extent to which IRAP results are predictive of such behavior, in this particular setting.

Both behavior analysts and ethologists are aware that observable changes in facial expressions and body postures provide invaluable information about behavior. This presentation will include slides and videos illustrating subtle changes in expression in humans and canids that are not only similar, but are often predictive of future behavior. This perspective is not new: Charles Darwin wrote an entire book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, about the predictive value and comparative similarity of emotional expression in man and selected mammals. However, recent advances in visual analysis and neurobiology have greatly advanced our understanding of the link between expression, emotion, and future behavior. This information can be used by analysts working with either species, who are interested in improving their ability to notice, evaluate, and act on subtle but observable changes in facial expressions or body postures.

Behavior analysts interested in improving their skill in interpreting facial expressions and body postures as predictors of future behavior and suggestions about internal emotional states.

Quantum behavioral change refers to sudden, distinctive, and benevolent experiences resulting in enduring changes in a broad range of emotions, cognitions and behaviors. Although the phenomenon of quantum change has been well described for more than 100 years, it has rarely been addressed within modern psychology and there are few meaningful prospective experimental studies because such experiences usually occur at low rates and often unpredictably. Recent rigorous double-blind studies at Johns Hopkins have shown that under carefully controlled conditions psilocybin, the active component of hallucinogenic mushrooms, can occasion profound personally and spiritually meaningful experiences (i.e., mystical-type or insightful-type experiences) in the majority of healthy participants. The experiences mediate sustained positive changes in behavior, attitudes, and personality. As assessed with questionnaires, most volunteers had a "complete" mystical-type experience after a high dose of psilocybin, although more than a third of volunteers also had experiences characterized by some fear, anxiety, or unpleasant psychological struggle. The finding that psilocybin can occasion, in most people studied, quantum change experiences indicates that such experiences and the behavioral changes they produce are now amenable to rigorous prospective scientific study. An exciting direction for future research is the exploration of possible therapeutic benefits of such experiences in treatment of various psychological and behavioral conditions (e.g., anxiety and depression among patients with life-threatening medical conditions such as cancer; treatment of behaviorally based public health problems such as drug dependence disorders).

In this presentation, the author will describe two projects that have successfully transferred functional analysis procedures to community settings. The first example is a 4-year project in which the Iowa Department of Education teamed with the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD) to train educational teams to conduct and interpret functional analyses in local schools. The second example summarizes National Institutes of Health- and Maternal and Child Health-funded projects that have shown how functional analyses can be conducted by parents in local outpatient clinics and in their homes. Behavior analysts at the CDD teleconsultation center remotely guided the parents as they conducted the functional analyses. For both projects, functional analyses were conducted within multielement designs, and IOA was conducted for approximately 25% of all sessions and averaged more than 80%. Following the summary of the projects, the author will discuss the results in terms of why it is critical for applied behavior analysts to continue to share their procedures with local staff and parents and how this practice of sharing sets us apart from most other professional groups.

Classroom management consists of instructional classroom procedures and routines implemented by teachers for the purposes of increasing students' positive behaviors and minimizing problematic behavior. Social ShapeUp (SSU: Singletary, 2009) was initially developed in 1997 as an intervention for students engaging in high frequency and challenging behaviors. The components of SSU are based upon the research that demonstrates the efficacy of behavioral principles and child behavior change. SSU recently evolved into a complete system that includes a web application to facilitate data collection, progress monitoring and reporting. The preliminary data showed student achievement gains were higher compared to the previous year without SSU implementation.

Informed activism and advocacy supporting human rights, sustainability, and democracy is a crucial contemporary need with high visibility, whether in the Middle East, where the question of armed or nonviolent civil resistance is paramount; in phenomena like the Occupy movement challenging failed economic systems, where questions regarding "diversity of tactics" has been an obstacle to collective action; or in stalled efforts to achieve sustainable cultures. For example, last year at the ABAI convention, Erica Chenoweth reported on her research demonstrating that nonviolent civil resistance is twice as effective as armed alternatives for challenging dictatorship or repression, and in most cases produces much more promising long-term outcomes. Yet the armed option continues to be chosen, in part because the resources dedicated to the development and dissemination of rigorous science supporting nonviolent alternatives have been vanishingly small. Even less attention has been given to the strategic exercise of power addressing issues of sustainability or structural injustice. The moment now appears to be right, however, for behavioral systems science to contribute to the development of effective activism and science-based advocacy in all of these areas. This tutorial will briefly review the current state of knowledge regarding nonviolent activism, advocacy, and civil resistance, drawing on examples of more and less successful campaigns from every inhabited continent. Drawing particularly on current work in cultural analysis and organizational behavior management,the presenterwill then provide detailed explorations of behavioral systems science principles that have promise for supporting strategic civil resistance and leveraging "people power." The tutorial will offer practical analytic approaches for exploring behavioral systems dynamics that obstruct cultural change, and those that might support it. Examples for analysis will be drawn from current work being done by the presenter and others involved in activism and advocacy. Particular but not exclusive attention will be paid to "constructional" (Goldiamond's term) alternatives. While acknowledging the limits of current knowledge and the ethical challenges involved in working as a scientist-activist, the presentation will offer resources for immediate application, suggesting directions for the next generation of behavioral systems science advancing sustainability, human rights, and structural justice.

Effective practice of applied behavior analysis requires carefully targeted and efficient intervention procedures which lead to meaningful and generalized behavior change outcomes across circumstances and time. Informed by evidence-based research, the ABA practitioner in the field is presented with pressures to deliver services effectively within the fee-for-service business environment, while being responsive to consumers and to the constraints of insurance and payment plan competitive forces. Practice requires acumen in the behavior analyst's ability to analyze and assess functional variables quickly and implement procedures that require practical data systems, while avoiding complicated intervention variables and implementation strategies for therapists, teachers, and parents. The strong practice movement toward interprofessional collaboration and communication among professionals across multiple disciplines also may be a perplexing challenge. These issues will be presented within the context of case examples focusing on outcome assessment and data-based planning and adjustment in procedures as treatment continues from initial focused changes to generalized outcomes. Case examples will include oppositional defiance related to sensory defensiveness, leukemia with excessive hospital visits resulting from pain, interpersonal-focused interventions based on teacher and parent-child interaction therapy protocols, sibling interaction for children with autism, and interprofessional treatment merge in coordination of services for children with autism.

Although extinction in Pavlovian learning is highly context-dependent, less research has investigated the role of context in the extinction of operant learning. This talk will fill this gap and explore a number of parallels between Pavlovian and operant extinction. Recent research has studied the "renewal" effect after operant extinction, in which extinguished responding returns when the context is changed. We have produced clear evidence of ABA, ABC, and AAB renewal (where the letters correspond to the contexts of conditioning, extinction, and testing, respectively), even when the learning history of the contexts is controlled. We also have demonstrated renewal in nondeprived rats working for sucrose or sweet/fatty food pellets--the rodent equivalent of junk food. The ABC and AAB renewal effects suggest that operant extinction is more context-dependent than operant conditioning. Other experiments have studied "resurgence," in which a behavior that is extinguished while a second is reinforced recovers when the second behavior is extinguished. Resurgence can be viewed as another renewal effect. Contextual cues have a general role in the control of operant behavior. But the extinction of operant behavior, like the extinction of respondent behavior, is especially sensitive to the context, with a number of interesting implications for understanding behavioral inhibition, lapse, and relapse.

This panel will discuss effective strategies for teaching behavior analysis to different levels of students in different contexts. The topics to be discussed include planning course content to promote understanding of principles and procedures, active learning strategies to promote participation by all students in the classroom, strategies to teach undergraduates knowledge and skills related to certification, incorporating research into classroom instruction, strategies to program and implement effective distance learning in applied behavior analysis.

Operant principles apply everywhere from simple invertebrates to Wall Street. On the occasion of the 100th birthday of behavioral psychology, it's reassuring to observe how scientists and practitioners in related fields are increasingly discovering "our" operant principles and applications--with or without discovering our field of behavior analysis and its established terminology, methodology, and practices. Like other sciences, ours has always been part of a larger interdisciplinary effort. John B. Watson performed original work in a variety of disciplines, and, while the days of the generalist may be gone, interdisciplinary work is arguably more important than ever: We now know how fully operant principles interact with others in the large and complex nature-and-nurture system, for example. This talk will take stock of our field's current interdisciplinary extensions, with boundless opportunities. Our biological context includes significant advances in operant-related genetics and epigenetics as well as sophisticated neuroscience. When it comes to higher-order skills, the functional linguists are among many fellow travelers. In application, ever more randomized controlled trials are expanding our reach in the mainstream, even as our small-n designs are increasingly accepted (and adopted). The presentation will summarize selected advances in all of these areas, and discuss what behavior analysts can learn and how we can contribute. While interdisciplinary work entails some barriers to be surmounted, the benefits can be considerable, and they flow in both directions.

General

Children with autism can have difficulty acquiring discrimination and communication skills. These difficulties can slow the overall learning process making gains slow to non-existent. Three presentations will explore the use of educational strategies that can help learners with ASD possibly overcome these difficulties. The first, discusses the use of an auditory-visual discrimination procedure and the use of sign language, most notably LSF (French sign language) as prompts to teach conditional discriminations. Results indicate the use of LSF rather than images is an effective prompt in teaching these important conditional discriminations. The second presentation proposes a conditional discrimination procedure for teaching receptive language skills through the use of preferred items and a visual prompt presentation. The results indicate that use of a visual prompt coupled with an auditory discriminative stimulus is effective in teaching receptive skills. The third presentation explores the use of a stimulus pairing procedure and echoic training to develop sentence structure and increase spontaneous requesting. Each strategy was used individually to teach a request and a third request was taught using both strategies together. Results indicate that the when echoic training and stimulus pairing where used together, participants increased the number of spontaneous requests during the learning and generalizations phases.

The purpose of the study was to show that using French Sign Language (LSF) as temporary prompts rather than pictures of objects was an effective prompt to establish the verbal stimulus control and help the student discriminate between words. Using the conditional-only method, a procedure was developed for teaching auditory-visual conditional discriminations to an 8 year old boy diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders who communicates with French Sign Language (LSF). The stimuli consisted of three reinforcing objects the student was able to request using sign language, and were based on items already present in the reinforcement repertoire. Items were also chosen based on the number of syllables required to name the item. Names of items containing more than 2 syllables were eliminated in order to facilitate auditory discrimination. The student was engaged in a prompted observing exercise then followed by presentation of an auditory stimulus every second until the child selected the correct object. The LSF gestures for the items were used as prompts and a most to least prompting strategy was used. The gestures were systematically faded until the student could select the object independently. Once the student was able to emit a correct independent response, during three consecutive session probes, a retention probe was carried out one week later. The student acquired two of the three items targeting for teaching. The results indicate that use of the LSF, rather than images, as prompts was an effective way to teach conditional discrimination.

A modified conditional discrimination procedure was used to teach receptive identification skills to an autistic 6-year-old girl who presented a severe language delay (five-word repertoire). Initially, stimulus preference assessment for items was used to identify strong reinforcers. A conditional discrimination was implemented involving a sample stimulus (reinforcer), an auditory discriminative stimulus associated with a two second visual prompt presentation (photograph of reinforcer), and a comparison stimulus, response and consequence for which the child directly accessed the preferred item. Combination of the two sensorial modalities for discriminative stimulus auditory and visual decreased the probability of an incorrect response. Visual prompts were quickly faded in order to transfer stimulus control to the auditory discriminative stimulus only. Finally, reciprocal trials were applied involving trials with the child's choice of item to identify, and trials with adult's choice of item, which provided information of verbal stimulus, control and decrease motivation bias. The results indicated that combination of auditory discriminative stimulus and visual prompt facilitated receptive skills learning for preferred items and transfer of stimulus control to auditory stimulus. This method appeared to be successful in training receptive skills and probably could be used in training other receptive skills as daily objects or environments.

Many children with autism and developmental disorders have great difficulty to acquire and develop functional verbal language. Scientific studies have reported that 50% of children diagnosed with autism have developed no vocal language. The subject of our study suggests that the effectiveness of echoic training combined with a procedure called "stimulus pairing on the vocal" can develop syntax structure and increase the number of spontaneous demands * in the natural environment. For each participant, and depending on their motivation, three requests, each of about 4 to 7 words, were taught initially in the classroom and then generalized in the natural environment. The first demand received an "echoic training" procedure. A second request was taught using a stimulus pairing on the vocal procedure. A final demand was taught with an echoic training combined with a "stimulus pairing on the vocal" procedure. The results indicate that the combination of an echoic training combined with the stimulus pairing on the vocal procedure was the most effective teaching, and enabled each participant to increase the percentage of formulating target spontaneous demands during the learning phase and to increase the number of spontaneous requests in the generalization phase.

Effective communication is a common goal of instruction with children with autism as the developmental disability itself is characterized by significant deficits in communication (APA, 2000). Therefore, much research has been conducted to determine the most effective strategies of instruction to target this deficit. This symposium addresses two common areas lacking in the research literature: assessment of communication modality for a particular learner, and transferring stimulus control of manding to naturally occurring stimuli. Two papers will address determining the most appropriate communication modality (vocal speech, sign language, Picture Exchange Communication System, or a speech output device) for individual learners by assessing acquisition and preference across the different modalities. This type of modality assessment was conducted across learners at three different sites and data will be presented on acquisition of and preference for the various modalities. The third paper will address the topic of transferring stimulus control of mands to naturally occurring discriminative stimuli.

Deficits in communication are displayed by individuals with Autism, and many other intellectual disabilities (APA, 2000). Therefore, in the field of special education, many families, clinicians, teachers, and speech pathologists are faced with the task of providing effective methods of communication since many individuals with autism do not communicate vocally (Frankel, Leary, and Kilman, 1987). Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of many types of communication modalities and augmentative or alternative communication devices such as speech (Carr & Durand, 1985), sign language (Mirenda, 2003), Picture Exchange Communication System (Bondy & Frost, 1994), or speech output devices. While research has shown each to be effective, there is a lack of research in determing how to choose a specific modality for an individual learner. Decisions about which type of modality is appropriate for a particular learner are often left to clinician preference, or philosophical groundings of an agency. The current study seeks to expand on recent research (Hansford, et al, 2011) to use systematic assessment techniques to determine the most appropriate communication modality for a particular learn based on rates of acquisition and preference.

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by difficulties in communication, social interaction, and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors (APA, 2000). Looking at the communication domain, individuals with autism have significant impairments in their ability to communicate wants and needs, as well as using verbal and nonverbal language to navigate social situations. Further, estimates indicate that about fifty percent of children with autism are entirely nonvocal (Frankel, Leary & Kilman, 1987). To address these deficits, several supplemental/ alternative communication strategies have been developed. Different topographies of trained communication responses have included vocal speech (Carr & Durand, 1985), communication cards/ picture exchange (Bondy & Frost, 1994; Horner & Day, 1991), and sign language (Mirenda, 2003). While these communication modalities have all been shown to be effective in specific clinical instances, the selection of communication modality for individual learners has generally been based on subjective guidelines, such as the learners developmental level, motor skills, and the recommendations of a speech-language pathologist. This is particularly problematic as the selection of communication modality for learners with autism can be a contentious issue. Parents often fear that vocal ability will be diminished by the provision of an alternative strategy, and many also fear that other modalities will not generalize outside of school settings. Disagreements among parents and professionals can delay the intervention process and adversely affect individuals in need of intervention. To this point, relatively little research has evaluated procedures to determine which modality represents a "best fit" with individual learning styles. The current study explores an individualized assessment for informing communication modality selections, specifically looking at rates of acquisition and preference within individual learners with autism.

Several studies have demonstrated the effects of teaching multiply controlled mands and transferring control of those mands to the establishing operation (EO; e.g. Charlop, Schreibman, & Thibodeau, 1985; Guiterrez, Vollmer, Dozier, Borrero, Rapp, Bourret, & Gadaire, 2007). Teaching appropriate environmental controls over mands may be an alternative to teaching "spontaneous" or "pure" mands, only under control of the EO. In the current study,a rolling tine delay (RTD) procedure (Sweeney-Kerwin, Carbone, O'Brien, Zecchin, & Janecky, 2007) was used to transfer control of mand responses from an intraverbal prompt in the presence of the item (tact) to a more naturally occurring discriminative stimulus in the natural environment. Results indicated that the RTD procedure successfully increased mands in the presence of the naturally occurring discriminative stimulus. However, a mand test suggested that responses continued to occur in the absence of the EO, and may have functioned as tacts for two of the three participants.

A training model from two school based programs will be described. The first model, derived from a large scale public school training and technical support system, will demonstrate training methods and outcome data for large group trainings that prepare teachers and other staff to deliver instruction derived from an applied behavior analysis and an analysis of verbal behavior. The training method includes a competency based model to teach a mixed and varied approach to discrete trial training of the verbal operants and for skills to be used in mand training. Data will be presented demonstrating outcomes from participant responses across an array of response forms including timed trials, choral responses, written and oral conceptual checkouts, and analogue demonstration of instructional processes. Specific skills taught over the course of the three day intensive training include fluency in tacting the verbal operants, stating definitions for key concepts in behavior analysis, demonstrating errorless teaching procedures and error correction procedures, demonstrating materials management during teaching procedures, transferring operant control from prompted to unprompted conditions in the mand frame and mand training error correction procedures. Data will suggest the efficacy of the pre-implementation training on the initial degree of instructional fidelity on a measure of implementation. An additional program evaluation study compiled at a school for students with Autism will review processes for training staff using direct feedback including a transcription of instructional interactions. This study will include demonstration and data derived from treatment fidelity measures.

Critical review of a multiple method 3 day competency based training for staff providing educational services for students with autism derived from the field of applied behavior analysis and including an analysis of verbal behavior. The descriptive study will provide an example of training methods that allow rapid acquisition of teaching skills for discrete trial training, mand training, and basic conceptual skills needed to deliver effective instruction for students with autism. Specific data related to participant competencies for both conceptual skills and procedural skills will be reviewed. Additionally data related to instructor behavior such as cues for choral responding and guided notes and the density of opportunity to respond will be discussed. Training methods for assuring basic conceptual acquisition for concepts related to reinforcement, motivating operations, discriminative stimuli and prompts will be described. Training methods derived from the work of Fred Keller and Siegfried Englemann will be briefly demonstrated. This session will provide a demonstration of advantages of active participant responding during all phases of the training package.

Deriving outcomes for training participants in an analogue test to specific levels of competency does not necessarily mean that the skills taught will be implemented in actual teaching environments. Initial competency-based training may assist classroom teams in implementing effective practices sooner than if training only occurs in situ. Through use of a site review process, this session will present data documenting levels of implementation of specific skill sets trained in a competency based analogue format. Included will be a comparison of initial evidence of implementation criteria for discrete trial training, mand training and aspects of classroom organization such as data collection and materials organization with implementation of the same criteria after approximately six months of consultation. Comparison of outcomes will be presented across two school years and multiple autism support classroom settings. The site review tool used to assess implementation will be described with an emphasis on components most relevant to analogue training competencies.

Challenges in addressing problem behavior could be due to difficulties with altering the stimulus conditions under which the behavior occurs and is maintained, and identifying potent reinforcers for the absence of problem behavior. In the first study, the frequency of problem behavior evoked by noise (i.e., coughing) changed reliably with the introduction and removal of the stimulus shaping, video modeling, and reinforcement procedures. Additionally, exposing the participant to gradual increases in the number of coughs provided the opportunity for reinforcement for the absence of problem behavior during the initial phases of treatment, possibly facilitating the reduction in problem behavior to zero levels throughout treatment. In the second study, non-contextual vocalizations were brought under the control of environmental stimuli (e.g., the presence and absence of a bracelet) using discrimination training. The stimulus that acquired control over occurrences of non-contextual vocalizations was then used contingently for the absence of non-contextual vocalizations within a differential reinforcement procedure. The third study found that the opportunity to engage in stereotypy was a more effective reinforcer than edibles for increasing appropriate engagement with leisure activities. Following this experimental demonstration, the use of stereotypy as a reinforcer will be used within a DRO procedure to help reduce stereotypy.

For an adolescent girl with autism, non-contextual vocalizations (NCV) consisted of making repetitive comments about unusual topics during work and leisure tasks. A functional analysis indicated that NCV were maintained by social attention in the form of reciprocal comments made by teachers and other adults about these topics. Non-contextual vocalizations were first brought under the control of environmental stimuli (e.g., the presence and absence of a bracelet) using discrimination training. A reversal design was then used to examine the effects of a differential reinforcement procedure on reducing NCV. IF NCV occurred during baseline, teachers responded as they normally would by making one reciprocal comment and directing the learner back to work. During intervention, the learner wore the bracelet that was discriminative for “quiet” for a specified interval. If the learner completed tasks during that interval in the absence of NCV, the bracelet was removed and she was provided with the opportunity to engage in NCV for a short period of time. Levels of NCV changed reliably with the introduction and removal of the DRO in baseline and intervention phases. In the most recent intervention phase, the DRO interval was systematically increased and timed access to NCV was decreased.

A ten-year-old child with autism engaged in high rates of object-related motor stereotypy and low rates of engagement with leisure activities. A multi-element within a reversal design was used to examine the effects of two types of reinforcement, edibles and access to motor stereotypy, on increasing independent engagement with leisure activities. During baseline the percentage of 10-s intervals in which the participant was appropriately engaged was low with both puzzle types. During intervention, appropriate engagement with Puzzle A was reinforced with 5-s access to motor stereotypy while appropriate engagement with Puzzle B was reinforced with edibles. Responding was differentiated in that higher rates of engagement were observed with Puzzle A than with Puzzle B. During the second baseline phase, appropriate engagement with Puzzle A was more resistant to extinction than engagement with Puzzle B. Additionally, post-intervention preference assessments showed a learned response allocation to the puzzle paired with stereotypy further demonstrating the effectiveness of stereotypy as a reinforcer for appropriate engagement in leisure activities.

A 15-year-old girl displayed high rates of problem behavior evoked by others coughing. Antecedent assessments determined that problem behavior occurred at high rates when exposed to in-vivo coughing and did not occur at all when exposed to coughing presented on video or audiotape. A reversal design was used to assess the effects of video modeling, stimulus shaping, and reinforcement to reduce problem behavior in the presence of coughing. During 15-minute baseline sessions, the participant was exposed to in-vivo coughing every minute and frequency of problem behavior was scored. During intervention, the participant viewed a video segment of a model encountering someone coughing and receiving reinforcement for working quietly in the presence of the cough. Following the video model, the participant was exposed to one in-vivo cough during the first three intervention sessions. The number of coughs presented was systematically increased throughout the phases of intervention. During the second baseline phase, problem behavior increased and returned to zero levels again with the reintroduction of treatment. Video modeling, reinforcement, and the gradual exposure to coughing via stimulus shaping, was effective at decreasing problem behavior.

Despite the large body of research on the effectiveness of ABA for autism, the focus tends to be on early childhood and on school, clinic, or home-based treatment settings. To achieve the highest level of generalization and independence, it is important to provide interventions within the community. In addition, although early childhood research has had a dramatic impact on how interventions are delivered for autism spectrum disorders, research needs to shift toward how to adapt effective ABA practices for adolescents and adults. This symposium will present recent data on an intervention designed to teach community and safety skills to a more severely impacted adolescent with ASD, an intervention utilizing iPad and video technology to teach vocational sills to teens and adults with ASD, and an intervention using an inclusive model with peer mentors to teach employment skills to teens with ASD. All presentations focus on the importance of teaching skills in the generalized setting and providing opportunities for individuals with ASD to participate in the community. The importance of moving the field of ABA into adolescence and adulthood will be discussed, along with a discussion of the importance of teaching in community settings, and educating the community about ASD and how they can learn to work with and accept these individuals as part of their community. Presentations will include video examples, participant outcome data, fidelity of implementation, reliability, generalization, and social validity outcomes. Best practices for adolescents and adults will be discussed including an analysis of how ABA needs to evolve to better serve individuals beyond childhood.

The dearth of services and supports for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) who are aging out of public school is a fast-growing concern. Research shows that skills learned in school and vocational centers do not often generalize to community and life contexts. We propose a model for training community and life skills directly in the environments in which those skills will be used. Components of this model include selecting training targets that will be naturally reinforced by the community settings, training in ways that will results in long-term generalization and maintenance, and developing behavioral interventions that are implemented in the community settings that will lead to improved behavior in those settings. The use of technology to train individuals to skill mastery is a powerful tool that that maximize training efficiency and long-term maintenance of competence. The instant study demonstrates the application of these concepts and skills to vocational skill sets in competitively employed adults in community jobs. Data will be presented showing adolescents and adults with ASD learning and generalizing various vocational skills in the community through the application of technology.

Obesity is a significant problem in the United States, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2012) reports that 35% of adults and 17% of children are classified as obese. This symposium will address issues related to assessing and improving eating and exercise behavior of adults and children. The use of a stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach healthy eating behavior (food portion size estimation) will be presented. In addition, best practice strategies for measuring activity levels will be presented, and an intervention for increasing aerobic activity by adults will be evaluated.

The prevalence of obesity continues to increase, especially among children (Gordon-Larsen, The, & Adair, 2010). Rising costs to society make obesity a national health priority (Daniels, 2009; Gibson et al., 2008; Stommel & Schoenborn, 2010; Storch et al., 2007). Obesity can be attributed, in part, to overconsumption of energy dense foods. Given that overeating plays a role in the development of obesity, interventions that teach individuals to identify and consume appropriate portion sizes are warranted. Specifically, interventions that teach individuals to estimate portion sizes without the use of aids may be critical to the success of nutrition education programs. The current study evaluated the use of a stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach children to estimate portion sizes. Participants ranged in age from 4-7 years (N = 7). Results suggested that the stimulus equivalence paradigm was effective in teaching children to make accurate portion size estimations without aids. Furthermore, 6 of 7 participants were able to estimate the target portion size of novel foods during generalization probes. These data extend the existing research on teaching accurate portion size estimations and may be applicable to treatment seeking populations (i.e., overweight or obese children and adults) to teach healthier eating habits.

Descriptive observation is typically employed to identify environmental variables related to levels of physical activity. The primary purpose of the current study was to compare the results yielded from descriptive analyses of physical activity across brief and extended observation times. Additionally, because discontinuous measurement systems are often used to record the occurrence of physical activity, a second purpose was to compare results of the analyses using partial and whole interval recording methods. Descriptive analyses for six preschool children were conducted during repeated, 30-min naturally occurring outdoor times on a playground at a local daycare. The Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children was used to define the conditions and various levels of physical activity. Overall, results for all participants suggested high correspondence between outcomes of descriptive analyses when observations were brief or extended, and when using whole or partial interval recording methods. These results suggest that brief assessments using partial-interval records might be the most efficient way to conduct descriptive assessments of physical activity. However, the degree to which such assessments would yield reliable data about functional relationships will also be considered.

Relatively few studies have evaluated behavioral interventions aimed at increasing activity levels of sedentary or obese children. Crucial to this line of research is the development of reliable and valid measures of activity. In this study, four typically developing children ages 6-13 engaged in various structured activities for one minute and their activity levels were simultaneously recorded via several methods. Number of steps taken was assessed using two devices: Fitbit Tracker Accelerometers and less expensive Fit Solutions SW-200 Yamax Digiwalker Pedometers. In addition, data on the types of activities and relative effort were collected via direct observation and heart rate monitors respectively. The reliability of multiple Fitbits and pedometers across repeated measures was assessed, as was correspondence between all measures of physical activity across predefined levels of the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children (OSRAC). The results indicated that steps per minute and heart rate covaried for most activities between OSRAC levels, with a few exceptions for specific activities that did not involve translocation. Reliability of the Fitbits was consistently higher than that of the pedometers.

Obesity is a widespread problem in the general population but affects a greater percentage people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Braunschweig et al., 2004). Four adults diagnosed with an intellectual disability and a Body Mass Index (BMI) above the healthy range participated in an aerobic walking program at a residential facility. Measures were taken regularly on BMI, quality of life, and waist-to-hip ratio across conditions. The first phase of treatment consisted of prompting and token reinforcement. The second phase of treatment consisted of a direct training protocol that included modeling and a fading component, reinforcement, and goal setting. The presence of the trainer and immediacy of the token delivery were faded incrementally. After training completion and independent performance goals were increased incrementally from 1000 steps 3 out of 7 days to 3000 steps 5 out of 7 days. Results were evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design and showed increased walking and decreased measures of BMI and waist-to-hip ratio when direct training was introduced. Findings indicate the importance of including a direct training component with fading in order to maximize results of pedometer usage in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Certain behavioral features are often associated with specific disabilities. Historically, these behavioral phenotypes predominantly involve behavior topography. Although identification of behavior topography is essential, applied behavior analysis emphasizes the identification of the function of behavior in the description, assessment, and management of problem behavior. Functional analyses are the gold standard for identifying variables that maintain problem behaviors. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to identify potential behavioral phenotypes among the existing functional analysis literature. Studies included in the review were those that (a) reported participant diagnosis (b) identified problem behavior topography, (c) conducted a functional analysis of problem behavior. Approximately 600 published studies met this criteria for inclusion and were analyzed in terms of (a) participants characteristics, (b) problem behavior topography, and (c) problem behavior function. Patterns of topography and function or problem behaviors across specific disabilities emerged. The potential value of topography and function phenotypes across disabilities will be discussed.

Treatment planning for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and gastrointestinal (GI) problems benefits from clarification of relationships among challenging behaviors, their functions, and physiological states. In efforts toward documentation of the phenotype(s) of children with ASD and GI problems (e.g., chronic constipation, abdominal pain), behavioral and physiological assessment was conducted with four children, ages 3 to 5. Behavioral assessment included functional analysis of challenging behaviors (e.g., aggression, stereotypy) and coding of antecedents of target behaviors. Physiological assessment included testing of intestinal permeability, intestinal flora composition (i.e. bacteria species types and number of organisms per species), and blood levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, glucose, and insulin before and at 6 intervals during the 2 hours after consumption of a meal. In this presentation, results of the assessments will be discussed with regard to patterns within and across participants in behavior, function, and physiological state. Discussion will additionally address the findings' implications for treatment and results of on-going intervention with the study participants.

Challenging behaviors (aggression, self-injurious behavior) are common to individuals with fragile X syndrome. Research suggests that individuals with fragile X syndrome exhibit a unique behavioral profile (tangible and escape, but less likely attention maintained challenging behavior; Langthorne & McGill, 2012). If true for young children, early intervention should emphasize caregiver education to prevent the development of such behaviors. We compared results of indirect functional behavior assessments (interview, Questions About Behavioral Function) and caregiver implemented functional analyses of challenging behavior for 12 children, 27 51 months, with fragile X syndrome. Parent report indicated that 58% of the children engaged in self-injurious behaviors and 67% engaged in aggression. In each of the 12 cases, escape, tangible, and attention were the most common consequences reported by Questions About Behavioral Function. Tangible and escape were the most common consequences for challenging behavior obtained by the functional analyses. Four functional analyses were inconclusive. Attention was not identified as a maintaining consequence for any participant. These results suggest that challenging behaviors develop early and may commonly serve tangible and escape functions in this population. Inconclusive functional analyses results for several participants suggest need for additional assessment procedures.

Using appropriate social skills while working can make the difference between keeping and losing a job, particularly for individuals with autism and/or developmental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of video modeling and video feedback on independent correct responding of vocational tasks and use of appropriate employment-related social skills of four young adults with developmental disabilities. The video modeling condition involved showing positive examples of the complete task with embedded appropriate social skills on an iPad prior to work. The video feedback involved video recording learners with an iPad while they worked and asking them to evaluate their own performance by reviewing the videos. All participants had an in-school job of delivering passes to teachers throughout the building. Data were analyzed within the context of a multiple treatments with withdrawal design and results indicated that although both conditions resulted in improved independent correct responding and use of targeted social skills, three of the four participants demonstrated more substantial gains with the video feedback condition while the fourth demonstrated similar results across conditions and improved performance with video feedback only after the video modeling condition was presented. A discussion of the results will be provided.

Effective communication requires one to demonstrate simple and conditional discriminations. Teaching one to communicate and to perform discriminations is not always an easy task. The collection of studies presented in this symposium used some creative procedures to address some barriers of teaching PECS and of teaching arbitrary matching-to-sample. The studies include participants with different characteristics and diagnosis; typically developing children, children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, and hearing impaired children with cochlear implants. Each study reports on some teaching procedure variations which facilitated the acquisition of skills that are required in order for one to communicate more effectively. Together, the three studies represent an effort to systematically test procedural variations which may lead to better skill acquisition.

The current study compared two errorless prompting procedures to teach visual conditional discriminations. Participants were six typically developing children and three children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The procedure was three-choice matching to sample; the stimuli were unfamiliar forms such as Greek letters. The SD prompt condition required simple discriminative control: The sample and correct comparison stimuli were both presented in the same color (e.g., both were red) and the two incorrect comparison stimuli were black. The CD prompt condition required conditional discriminative control: The three comparison stimuli were presented in different colors on every trial (red, green, and blue), and the sample stimulus was always presented in the same color as the correct comparison. For both SD and CD conditions, the luminance of the color prompt was reduced over five steps until all stimuli were black. Periodic probe trials with no color prompts (all stimuli black) were also presented. Results indicated that 8 of 9 participants acquired conditional discriminations in fewer trials with the CD condition; one child with ASD required fewer trials with the SD condition. Results suggest an advantage for teaching conditional discriminations when the stimulus control requirements of prompts and target discriminations are consistent.

This presentation describes results of a pre-training phase in a series of studies aimed to teach auditory-visual conditional discriminations to prelingually deaf children using cochlear implants. The procedure was a three-choice delayed-sample-matching; the stimuli were familiar cartoon figures. Each trial began presenting four comparison stimuli -one in each corner of the computer monitor screen. After a 2-s delay, the sample stimulus was presented. The procedure comprised three blocks: 1. The sample stimulus was a picture identical to one of the comparison stimuli (identity matching); 2. The sample stimulus became a compound: the picture and its spoken name were presented simultaneously; the visual component of the sample stimulus was gradually faded-out; 3. Only the auditory component of the sample stimuli was presented. Blocks 2 and 3 were repeated if performances were less than 100%. The procedure was appropriate to promote rapid transfer of stimulus control from identity visual-visual to arbitrary auditory-visual matching-to-sample in children with cochlear implant: Fifty-one out of 54 children (94.4%) learned to select pictures under the control of spoken words; three participants failed to reach the learning criterion; 36 (70.5%) completed the procedure with a single exposure to the three blocks; 15 participants repeated the procedure from two to six times.

The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is widely used in teaching individuals with autism spectrum disorders to initiate communication with other people (Bondy & Frost, 1994). According to the PECS teaching protocol (Bondy & Frost, 1994), phase 1 requires two teachers working with the student simultaneously; the first teacher serves as the Communicative Partner, while the second teacher is the Physical Prompter. Having two trained teachers present during all PECS training sessions is not always practical. For this reason, researchers have raised the question of whether it may be possible to effectively teach phase 1 of PECS with only 1 teacher present (Ross & Lavallee, 2009). The current study compared the number of trials to acquisition of an independent mand in the two conditions (1 trainer and 2 trainers). The order of treatments (1 teacher or 2 teachers) was randomly assigned, inter-observer agreement data as well as procedural fidelity data were collected. Results suggest variability across students and that some students may acquire the independent mand more rapidly in the single trainer condition.

Determination of the effects of variables that influence preference and reinforcer efficacy are important for determining stimuli to be used in interventions. Numerous variables including stimulus dimensions, response dimensions, and individual histories may affect preference for and reinforcing efficacy of particular stimuli. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight the effects of some of these variables including choice, stimulus variation, response effort, stimulus magnitude, and immediacy of stimulus delivery. Participants in the four papers presented include young typically developing children and children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

The prevalence of childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years (U.S. Centers for Disease Control, n.d.). The serious medical complications associated with pediatric obesity (e.g., increased risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, breathing difficulties) warrants the identification of strategies to prevent and treat obesity. The current study assessed young childrens relative preferences for various food-group categories (meat, dairy, fruit, vegetable, starch) as well as preferences for healthy v. nonhealthy food items within each food-group category. Subsequently, we evaluated the viability of an assessment designed to identify the relative influence of quality, magnitude, and immediacy on food selections made by 10 typically developing children. A concurrent-operants arrangement was used to identify the influential parameters of food reinforcers governing subjects choices. Across subjects, results showed that responding was differentially affected by the reinforcer dimensions. These results suggest that the assessment can be used to develop interventions to promote the consumption of healthier foods by manipulating the arrangement of influential reinforcer parameters.

Few applied studies have examined the stability of preference assessment data over extended periods of time. In this study, 19 young typically developing children (toddlers and preschoolers) participated in two multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessments (one edible-item assessment and one leisure-item assessment) each week for at least 3 months (up to one year for some children). The items used in each childs preference assessment remained constant across assessments. The top two preferred items from each assessment during a given week were used as reinforcers in the childs toileting training program that week. Results are discussed in terms of the stability of young childrens preferences across time as well as differences in preference stability across children and assessment type (edible or leisure). Recommendations on how frequently to assess preference will also be discussed.

The Iowa Department of Education contracted with behavior analysts at the Center for Disabilities and Development in the fall of 2009 to provide a state-wide training program for challenging behavior teams who practice in school settings. Training was offered via didactic lectures and by assessing students who were referred to the challenging behavior teams for engaging in a variety of challenging behaviors (e.g., work refusal, destruction, aggression, self-injurious behaviors). Fifty-five trainees were involved in training opportunities. Trainers modeled assessment procedures to trainees or trainees conducted the assessment with coaching from the trainers during the assessment of 307 students. Training sessions occurred both in school and clinic settings in the areas of data collection, graphing, data analysis, preference assessments, functional analyses, antecedent analyses, and concurrent operants assessments. No trainee demonstrated independence in these skills after one year. However, after 3 years the percentage of trainees achieving independence increased to 56% in data collection, 42% in data summary, 22% in data analysis, 42% in preference assessments, 26% in functional analysis, 8% in antecedent analyses, and 12% in concurrent operants assessment. A review of the training model, measures for evaluation of growth, and progress across the 4 years of training will be presented.

In this presentation three experiments will be discussed that use derived stimulus relations to explore the processes underlying the counterproductive nature of thought suppression. In Experiments 1 and 2 participants were given training in equivalence and same-opposite relations, before being asked to suppress one item of a relational network. Subsequently participants had to complete a program where they were free, should they wish, to avoid a number of words presented on a computer screen. Results showed that participants avoided items in trained/derived same and trained/derived opposite relations with the target item, suggesting that thought suppression may be futile due to the large amount of directly trained and derived environmental cues in the environment. Experiment 3 was designed to assess if attempted suppression of a target item would cause a shift in behavioral choice. Results indicated that participants would alter their behavioral preferences in order to avoid a target item and items in trained/derived same relations. Each of these exploratory studies suggests that the investigation of derived stimulus relations is warranted in this area.

Many children with autism experience difficulties with developing functional language, which leads to problems with socialization, academics, and other critical skills. In this series of studies, the authors focused on teaching two elementary verbal operants--mands and intraverbals. In the first study, the authors taught three parents of children with autism how to teach manding using vocal shaping procedures using a multiple-baseline-across-modules design. All parents performed above specified criterion levels and spontaneous manding in children increased by the end of the study. In the second study, the authors evaluated the effects of a Total Communication (TC) teaching format and a Prompt Delay (PD) procedure to teach intraverbal responding in five children with autism. In the TC condition, children were required to emit a sign and vocal response simultaneously, whereas in the PD condition, children were required to emit the sign only. Acquisition rates did not differ between the two procedures. In the third study, the authors compared two procedures for teaching intraverbal responses, echoic versus textual transfer of stimulus control methods. Effects were evaluated using a parallel treatments design. Both treatments were found to be equally effective for teaching intraverbal responses to three children with autism.

We evaluated the use of behavior skills training (BST) using a multiple-baseline-across-modules design to train caregivers on procedures commonly associated with mand training. We trained two caregivers on the following procedures: (a) conducting preference assessments, (b) delivering preferred items contingent on appropriate behavior, (c) capturing and contriving motivating operations, (d) conducting probes to assess the child�s current mand repertoire, (e ) errorless prompting using an echoic to mand transfer, (f) vocal shaping, (g) collecting data, and (h) correcting errors. We also assessed whether a trained caregiver could train their spouse on these procedures using pyramidal training. The effects of the intervention were evaluated through measurement of child behavior, specifically the frequency of spontaneous and prompted mands. During baseline, all three caregivers performed all skills near zero percent accuracy. Following training, caregivers� performance accuracy increased to above 80% accuracy which persisted during most maintenance probes. These results were replicated for the parent who received pyramidal training. Data collected with both children revealed spontaneous mands were occurring more frequently than prompted mands at the end of the study. The implications of caregivers implementing mand training procedures based on Skinner�s analysis are discussed.

Verbal behavior encompasses a wide range of aspects in our everyday lives, laws, and activities of a society. Many verbal behavior interventions often include programs to teach answering questions, referred to as intraverbals. Previous research has demonstrated a higher rate of acquisition of verbal targets such as mands and tacts for children with a limited verbal repertoire when a presentation of both sign and vocal prompts occur simultaneously (Total Communication), in comparison to sign-alone, or vocal-alone trainings. However, an important variable not often examined in the literature is the comparison of Total Communication (TC) and Prompt Delay (PD) to further evaluate what aspect of TC leads to higher rates of acquisition. The current study extended previous research by evaluating the relative effectiveness of TC and PD in teaching intraverbal skills to five children who have been diagnosed with autism. During the TC condition the participants were required to emit a vocal and sign response simultaneously. During the PD condition, participants were required to emit only a vocal response. A constant time delay strategy was used with a most-to-least prompt fading hierarchy for both conditions. It was found that acquisition rates did not differ between procedures.

Children with autism often have delays in language, resulting in lack of functional language needed for them to excel by the normed standards of their typical peers. Skinner's Verbal Behavior has been used to train language skills in these children, filling in the gaps of deficits. Few published research articles are available relating to prompting procedures to train intraverbal behavior in children with autism and other developmental disabilities. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the differences in rates of acquisition of target intraverbal questions using echoic and textual transfer of stimulus control methods. This study also replicated and extended previous studies that asserted that textual prompts were more efficient in training intraverbal responses to children with autism. Results of the present study indicated that for the three participants chosen, there were not many differences in the rate of acquisition of the target intraverbal questions. The results show that both prompting procedures may be equally efficient for training intraverbal behavior in children with autism.

Perhaps the ultimate responsibility that behavior analysts, working in the field of human services, are charged with is that of ensuring the delivery of quality services to their clients. This is no easy task and requires multiple levels of strategies that must be employed in order to make certain that the services being delivered positively impact these clients. This symposium addresses three different levels of intervention that pave the way to providing quality service. The first is that of providing training to direct line staff. In our current economic and task-impacted environment, training must not only be effective, but also be delivered in an efficient way. The second level of intervention discussed is providing support and supervision training to personnel who oversee direct line staff. The third level of intervention discussed is utilizing monitoring systems for both a micro and a macro view of performance. Best practices, current interventions in place in one nonpublic school system, and challenges of implementation are addressed.

When providing behaviorally based services to students or clients a great deal of effort is placed on training and supporting interventionists or line staff. However, an often underemphasized area of focus is the support of program supervisors. These personnel may have exceptional technical skills, but often have limited experience in supervising, and those that have experience may still lack the skills to actually train, coach, and reinforce staff behaviors. This presentation will discuss the history and rationale for providing training to supervisory staff as well as a review of some of the challenges that are often faced by mid-level managers and supervisors in maintaining programmatic quality and work enjoyment. Effective supervisory strategies are crucial to the success of direct support workers, student or client outcomes and overall program fidelity. Several approaches to this topic as well as a review of a curriculum and training package developed by Reid, Parsons, & Green (2011) will be presented.

Training is not always sufficient to ensure consistent application of evidence-based behavioral practices in natural environments such as schools for students with special education needs. Research shows that despite the most effective training, behavioral drift can occur for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss specific methods for ensuring the consistent application of interventions for which staff have received training, through a variety of monitoring systems in an educational program. These systems are designed to monitor the implementation of the programs across time and to deliver supports to sites when drift occurs. Examples of monitoring systems discussed will include a staff observation form for specific staff skills, a classroom observation form to evaluate systems in place for each classroom, and systems designed to assess the needs for an entire site across a variety of areas. These systems will be discussed in terms of frequency of use, process for data analysis, and feedback delivery systems.

Compared to alternatives such as the medical and ethological models, the behavioral model is comprehensive, parsimonious and has a high degree of predictive utility for professionals working in animal behavior. Yet, recognition of theapplied behavior analysismodel in captive animal environments has been slow, often encompassing little more than a pejorative head nod to Pavlov's dogs, Skinner's box, and Ringling's circus. It is not uncommon to hear ABA erroneously described as simplistic, mechanistic, and based on the belief that animals are incapable of thought or emotion. Successfully disseminating ABA to this sector of stakeholders requires an expanded approach to ABA that addresses the relevance of the law of effect on a global level, species' evolutionary-based behavioral preparedness, and additional technological behavior change tools such as marker signals and food management. These and other issues unique to changing the game for captive animals with ABA will be discussed.

Behavior analysts interested in applying behavioral principles to captive animal populations, or those interested more generally in the dissemination of behavior analysis.

Evidence has been increasing that drugs of abuse alter sexual motivation, arousal, and performance. Drugs use also has been linked to an increase in high risk sexual behaviors such as increased sexual activity, multiple sex partners, and unprotected sex. This presentation will review the findings of the effect of drugs of abuse on sexual motivation and performance in humans and nonhuman animals, including those from a laboratory with an avian species. In particular, the effects of commonly abused drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine will be discussed. The presentation also will include data on the effects of drugs of abuse on a risk-taking model recently developed in a laboratory. Finally, potential brain areas where drugs of abuse may be exerting their effect on sexual behavior will be discussed.

Companies have been introducing and massively investing in e-learning since the 1990s. The reasons for such development are as much technical as economic. This represents a very special business and professional chance for all the behavior analysts specialized in learning technologies because all around the world self-claimed experts are proliferating, but few of them can effectively teach low performers. However, the legacy of B. F. Skinner's Teaching Machines seems to be lost: Current technologies for e-learning and virtual training do not take into account the principles of learning. This is the main reason why so many programs have failed. This tutorial will describe different applications of Teaching Machines, Precision Teaching and Fluency Building to industrial and commercial training situations. Thanks to the use of software and contents designed by the speaker and his staff, pharmaceutical sellers learned product features and verbal skills; helicopters pilots learned the layout of commands in a cockpit and memorized safe procedures; train drivers learned signals and maneuvers; nuclear power plant maintenance operators learned to discriminate the status of metals and how to handle their tools. All these applications warranted valuable benefit to companies: all employees learned the expected contents, according to the pre-defined curricula; all employees reduced their latency in responding the correct answers; and all employees remembered for a longer period.

Students and practitioners interested in reviewing a possible application of behavior analysis to business and eLearning.

The expansion of behavior-analytic services and tools to non-behavioral systems is an important endeavor and essential for the acceptance and regulation of behavioral practices. The growth of applied behavior analysis and the recognition of the efficacy of behavioral services are largely impacted by the dissemination efforts offered by parents, practitioners, and academics. These efforts can influence widespread cultural change across our systems as seen in areas such as private industry, education, legislation, sustainability, and community areas that, up until recently, may have been largely unaware of the benefits of our science. Consistent, effective dissemination is likely to continue this already substantial progress. Disseminating behavior analysis and expanding our field to those non-behavioral systems in need of our services not only offers a unique opportunity to further the field, but also may substantially impact society. The panelists will be reviewing strategies and barriers pertinent to the practical and ethical dissemination of behavior-analytic services to non-behavioral colleagues and systems.

The advances of digital and interactive technology have revolutionized the dynamics of modern culture. Researchers who have taken advantage of technological advancements have not only benefited in efficiency, but have been able to investigate increasingly complex phenomena. Specifically, behavioral researchers have had success applying modern technology to the presentation of stimuli, the tracking of behavior, and the delivery of consequences. However, the full potential and integration of said technology into behavior analysis has not been realized. The three presentations within this symposium offer insight as to how elements of modern technology has been successfully implemented in behavioral research. Additionally, future directions for behavioral and technological research will be discussed. The research topics span basic, applied, and conceptual domains, such as internet-based contingency management for healthy behavior, unique computer applications in operant labs, and using video game elements in non-video game contexts to facilitate socially relevant behavior change. An evolving reciprocal relationship between the behavioral and technological sectors would perhaps bolster the position of behavior analysis in modern science and culture.

Behavior analysts concerned with addressing practical problems of social significance could learn quite a bit from video games. The area of Gamification is a conceptual approach to applying video game design elements to non-video game contexts. Gamificiation may inform how behavioral interventions are applied, and to this date, there are numerous examples of Gamification across multiple subject areas. A prominent example of Gamification comes from Volkswagens Fun Theory the Bottle Bank Arcade in which a recycling bin is designed like an arcade game. Gamification is quickly gaining popularity among businesses. The Gartner Research Project (2011) suggests that more than 70 percent of the Global 2000 companies will have gamified at least one process within their organization by 2015. This presentation will address what gamification is, what it is not, and how this informs both the practice and science of behavior analysis. While Gamification does not necessarily say anything new about the basic principles of behavior, we may collectively learn something about innovative programmatic design related to socially significant issues such as health and fitness, sustainability, organizational safety, and education.

The time and effort associated with measuring and assessing children's behavior at home can present significant practical challenges. In response, the presentations in this symposium describe innovative procedures for increasing the practicality of measuring sleep disturbances by comparing momentary-time-sampling intervals (Jin et al.), improving parental reports of child problem behavior via automated prompting mediums (e.g., test messaging; Yu et al.), and assessing behavioral function via trial-based analyses by levering web-based technologies (Hood et al.). Dr. Matthew Normand, a leading researcher in evaluating practical yet accurate measurement systems, has graciously volunteered his time to discuss the implications of the presentations.

Currently, state of the science behavioral services are limited to clients in geographical regions where providers reside. The use of web-based technologies can expand the reach of behavior-analytic services. We conducted a trial-based functional analysis to determine the environmental variables maintaining one childs problem behavior. The entire assessment was conducted via web-based technologies (i.e., internet-protocol wireless cameras, web cameras, and video-conferencing platforms) with the researchers at a clinic and the parent-child dyad in their home. The dependent measures included the proportion of problem behavior while the establishing operation was present in comparison to the proportion of problem behavior while the establishing operation was absent. The results showed that the function of problem behavior was maintained by access to tangible items. The use of web-based technologies allowed the researchers to deliver immediate feedforward and feedback to parents, which produced high levels of procedural integrity. We will discuss some practical considerations in conducting analyses in the context of a familys home (e.g., how to minimize potential confounding variables). Future research should evaluate the cost-effectiveness of web-based service models and the potential benefits of having the parent function as the behavior-change agent in the specific setting in which problem behavior likely developed.

The speakerwill provide three general suggestions for embarking upon a career in developmental disabilities and applied behavior analysis. First, he will suggest that you should become familiar with various developmental disorders and recognize that some professionals identify their specialization by disorder type. Second, he will suggest that you should become familiar with contemporary issues influencing practice in a range of settings such as schools and residential facilities. Examples will be provided. Third, he will suggest that you can guide a research career around behavior analytic models of assessment and treatment. There need not be a dichotomy between clinical goals and research aims. Examples from the presenter's research career will be discussed.

Behavior analysts clinicians and researchers working in the field of autism and developmental disabilities.

Angelman syndrome is a neuro-genetic disorder characterized by intellectual and developmental disability. Common behavioral characteristics of this disorder include a heightened interest in social interactions and frequent bids to initiate interaction. These bids can be problematic, for instance when a child attempts to hug strangers in public places. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a discrimination training program to teach appropriate and inappropriate times to initiate a social interaction with a 16 year-old male with Angelman Syndrome whose mother reported frequent hugging as a problem. During a baseline, we alternated periods in which attention was delivered on an FR-1 schedule following hugs with periods in which hugs were blocked (i.e., placed on extinction). Following this baseline, we implemented a discrimination training program to bring hugs under the stimulus control of a salient discriminative stimulus and then presented that stimulus during FR 1 conditions in sessions that were similar to baseline. We evaluated the effects of presenting the discriminative stimulus in a combination reversal design and multiple baselines design across therapists. In the second baseline, the childs mother conducted sessions. Upon development of discriminated hugging, we then extended treatment to the participants home during longer observation periods.

Vicarious reinforcement (VSR) refers to a change in behavior as a result of observing another individual receive reinforcement (Kazdin, 1973). VSR has implications for programming reinforcement-based procedures in classroom and therapeutic settings. The purpose of the study was to conduct a systematic replication of Camp and Iwata (2009; unpublished dissertation) on the extent to which vicarious reinforcement effects are influenced by stimulus control. Six typically developing preschool children have participated in the study to date. During each phase of the study, sessions were conducted in each of two different rooms (SD and S?), and the participant was seated next to a peer model. During baseline (BL), the model did not engage in the target response in either the SD or the S? setting, and no programmed consequences were delivered to the model or to the observer. During VSR, the model engaged in the target response in both the SD and the S? settings. Model responses resulted in reinforcement only in the SD setting, but observer responses were never reinforced. During Discrimination (Dis.) Training, both model and observer responses resulted in direct reinforcement (SD setting only). Overall, results showed that vicariously reinforced responding (a) was more likely following a history of direct reinforcement, but (b) rarely maintained across sessions. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for operant mechanisms involved in vicarious reinforcement effects and programming reinforcement in classroom settings.

The year 2013 marks two notable occasions. First, it is the 100^th anniversary of the 1913 founding of behaviorism by John B. Watson -- his classical behaviorism. Behavior analysis is a variant of behaviorism. Second, the year 2013 is behaviorism’s 100^th birthday. Behavior analysis is its latest variant. This symposium commemorates both occasions by looking backward at classical behaviorism and forward to behavior analysis in three presentations and discussant comments. The presentations address the evolution of behaviorism’s basic research, conceptual foundations, and applied research. Basic research is addressed in the context of Skinner’s early research (i.e., from reflexes to operant behavior to stimulus control). Conceptual foundations are examined through the lens of contemporary issues (e.g., behavior as subject matter in its own right, private events, pragmatism, verbal behavior). Applied research is reviewed in several significant domains (e.g., experimental analyses of human behavior, the dimensions of applied behavior analysis, institutional foundings, professionalization). Basic and applied research and conceptual foundation are not, of course, independent of each other nor of the social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences -- and they have a future. These points are also considered in the presentations and discussant comments.

The main theme of Skinner's early research in the 1930s was an empirical and methodological separation between what is now known as respondent conditioning and operant conditioning. Skinner acknowledged and respected Pavlov's respondent conditioning, but argued that there was an additional form of conditioning that did not need an eliciting stimulus preceding conditioned behavior. In the new form of conditioning, behavior is controlled by the stimulus that follows the behavior, that is, by consequences. In 1937, Skinner used the term "operant" conditioning for this second type of conditioning and separated it from respondent conditioning. But Skinner's early experiments also showed that operant behavior could be brought under control by stimuli that preceded it. Incredibly, Skinner first demonstrated that an eliciting stimulus is not needed in operant conditioning, only then shortly thereafter to show that a stimulus preceding a reinforced operant response can control that response just like a conditioned stimulus in respondent conditioning controls a response. This discovery of the discriminated operant brought about a whole new area of research--stimulus control of voluntary behavior. The presentation will mix methods and facts from Skinner's early research with autobiographical accounts of this research.

The presentation will examine the relation between Watson's classical behaviorism and nine conceptual issues from contemporary behavior analysis: (a) Behavior as subject matter in its own right; (b) Selection by consequences; (c) A distinction between elicited and emitted behavior; (d) Private behavioral events; (e) Anti-mentalism; (f) Pragmatism; (g) Generic and functional nature of analytic and explanatory concepts; (h) The importance of verbal behavior; and (i) Social activism. We conclude that Watson anticipated many but not all conceptual issues that are important in contemporary behavior analysis, perhaps because of Watson's early influence on Skinner.

The presentation will describe the significant developments in the history of applied behavior analysis since Watson's declaration of behavior as the proper subject matter of psychology and his demonstration of learning principles in humans. It focuses on eight activity domains that have culminated in the applied behavior analysis of today. These include the development of radical behaviorism, early efforts to transport the experimental analysis of behavior to humans, the codification of applied behavior analysis (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968), the development of key scientific journals and textbooks, the influences of major graduate-training programs, the breadth of successful behavior-analytic applications, the emergence of a practitioner base, and professional credentialing and legislation.

Interteaching (Boyce & Hineline, 2002), an emerging evidence-based behavior analytic teaching method, has been shown to positively impact student learning and satisfaction. While interteaching in face-to-face courses has been shown to be highly beneficial (Saville, Lambert, & Robertson, 2011; Saville, Zinn, & Elliot, 2005; Saville, Zinn, Neef, Van Norman, & Ferreri, 2006) and preferred by students, the utility of integrating interteaching within online courses has not been reported and therefore is not yet known. This symposium will provide preliminary reports of implementing interteaching within online courses. First, a comparison of student learning outcomes across two sections of the same course will be presented; one course received teaching-as-usual and the other, interteaching. Next, an investigation into the pair discussion component of interteaching online, and the effects on student quiz scores, will be presented. Finally, the effects on interteaching on test scores of lower performance topics in an online program will be discussed.

Several studies have shown interteaching to be more effective than traditional methods of face-to-face instruction in higher education (e.g., lectures; Saville, Lambert, & Robertson, 2011; Saville, Zinn, & Elliot, 2005; Saville, Zinn, Neef, Van Norman, & Ferreri, 2006) and students have reported a preference for face-to-face courses utilizing interteaching and find it impactful on their learning (Kienhuis, Elgar, Chester, & Wilson, 2011). While including interteaching approaches into face-to-face courses has been shown to be highly beneficial, the utility of integrating interteaching within online courses is not known. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating interteaching into an asynchronous online graduate Applied Behaviour Analysis course. Outcomes (e.g., assignment and test scores) were compared across two sections of the same course that were taught simultaneously. The control section experienced the course as has been traditionally offered (i.e., teaching as usual) while the experimental section included interteaching. Between condition comparisons will be presented as well as issues (e.g., material preparation, instructor time, technology) relevant to implementing interteaching online.

Interteaching is a behavioral approach to instruction that has been demonstrated as effective and preferred by many students in both undergraduate and graduate courses. To date, this technology has not been demonstrated in peer reviewed research in an online medium. In the current study, we demonstrate the use of interteaching in a characteristics and principles of behavior course offered through Florida Institute of Technology's online professional development program. We identified topics that generally result in lower performance on tests, targeted them with the interteaching and compared the randomly assigned subjects' scores on related test items to others who have not been exposed to treatment. Examination of data indicate that interteaching is both effective and preferred even in an online medium.

The practice of applied behavior analysis consists of both knowledge and skills delineated in the 3rd Edition Task List of the BACB(TM). The 72 skills described in this document can be considered the scope of practice in behavior analysis although a definitive standard of practice is not universally accepted. This panel will consider how to address supervision as part of a comprehensive training program, differentiate between supervision and training and discuss methods to ensure competence in behavior analytic skills of students enrolled in behavior analysis preparation programs. Faculty, community partners and students will discuss their efforts to improve the quality of training and directions for future development.

Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior has been applied to many different populations, though it has been used predominately in the establishment of language. Recently, researchers have also begun to apply Skinner's analysis to the re-establishment of language. That is, older individuals who had a complex verbal repertoire but as a result of aging or pathology, have begun to lose that repertoire. This symposium will involve empirical talks evaluating Skinner's analysis among older adults with and without cognitive impairment. Talks will include evaluations of protocols to teach intraverbal problem solving skills to older adults without cognitive impairment, the assessment and treatment of aphasia, and teaching mands to older adults with dementia.

Older adults with dementia gradually lose their ability to communicate effectively, often leading to conflicts among patients and their caregivers. Additionally, these individuals fail to initiate basic wants and needs, which contributes to patient isolation and depression. Communication training using augmentative, nonverbal strategies may help to mitigate these problems. Picture systems have been used to facilitate communication in non-demented populations, but it is unknown if this technique can be used with dementia patients. The present study examined the effects of using picture cards in mand training with older adults diagnosed with moderate to severe dementia. A multiple baseline design was used, and results showed that participants were able to acquire the skill of exchanging a picture card to get access to preferred activities. Complexities of training this population are discussed and suggestions for future research are reviewed.

As the number of people age 65 years or older continues to grow, the need for better designed gerontology programs aimed at addressing the normal memory changes associated with aging, which may lead to treatments designed to offset the effects Alzheimers (Peterson & Wendt, 1990; Rosen et al., 2002) is also increasing. Looking at memory from a behavior analytic point of view may provide additional insight into ways to develop treatments needed to increase memory in older adults. Therefore, this study will compare and systematically replicate two previous studies, Dixon et al. (2011) and Sautter et al. (2011) to investigate if older adults without dementia can learn to recall names of pictures of famous people using problem solving techniques which involve tact training and response prompting versus echoic prompting and immediate intraverbal questions.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) involve social and language impairments and repetitive behavior. Prevalence rates have grown 20-fold, and ASD now affects about 1 in 91 children. Without effective treatment, long-term outcomes for individuals with ASD remain bleak; few maintain friends, jobs, or independent living. A principal barrier to successful community life for this group is the presence of destructive behavior (e.g., aggression). The greatest recent advancement in the treatment of destructive behavior has been the development of functional analysis (FA), which is used to prescribe effective treatments. One such treatment, functional communication training (FCT), is often prescribed when an FA implicates social reinforcers (e.g., attention) for destructive behavior. With FCT, the consequence that heretofore reinforced destructive behavior is delivered contingent on an appropriate communication response and problem behavior is placed on extinction. Although this straightforward approach to the treatment of destructive behavior can be highly effective, many pitfalls and practical challenges arise when this treatment is implemented by caregivers in natural community settings. The presentation will feature data and describe a line of research aimed at increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, and practicality of FCT for individuals with ASD who display destructive behavior in typical community settings.

The target audience for this presentation is graduate students, practitioners, and researchers interested in the study and treatment of individuals with autism and related disorders who display severe destructive behavior.

Sorting through the wide variety of interventions available for students experiencing academic difficulties can be difficult. The challenge is to identify not just any empirically supported intervention, but the right intervention that works for a particular child. The purpose of this presentation is to present a practical model for selecting supplemental academic interventions based on the four-term contingency. A variety of intervention strategies will be examined according to functional properties and presented to illustrate how to adapt instruction to the learner's level of skill proficiency. The intervention model will emphasize both efficiency (i.e., ease of use) and level of skill proficiency as guiding principles for selecting supplemental interventions. Interventions for behavior problems related to skill deficits also will be addressed. Attendees will learn how to prioritize a variety of supplemental interventions and how to use them.

We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Everyone is fond of paleofantasies, stories about how humans lived eons ago, and we use them to explain why many elements of our lives, from the food we eat to the way we raise our children, seem very distant from what nature intended. Many diets and self-help books are predicated on the notion that our behavior and bodies evolved under a certain set of circumstances, from which we deviate to our peril. Implicit in that idea is the assumption that humans in a modern society aren’t evolving any more, that we have somehow freed ourselves from evolution, or at the very least, that evolution always requires so long to act that we can’t expect to have adapted to our current circumstances. But popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence, and they reflect a basic misunderstanding about how evolution works. There was never a time when everything about us—our bodies, our minds, and our behavior—was perfectly in synch with the environment. Evolution is continuous, and all organisms alive today, whether chimpanzees, modern-day hunter-gatherers, or bacteria, are all equally evolved. What really matters is the rate of evolution, which is sometimes fast and sometimes slow. Instead of trying to live like cavemen, we need to understand that process.