Association for Behavior Analysis International

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Are you wondering how to interpret your proposal reviews and what strategy to take in revising? This discussion features ABA members who have seen the review process from both sides. Marc Branch and William McIlvane both have a long history of grant funding as well as extensive experience as reviewers. They will provide tips on both the content and the structure of revised grant proposals. This event is sponsored by the Science Policy and Research Board.

Significant progress has been made toward identifying effective interventions for preschool-age children with autism (National Research Council, 2001). However, because interventions are lengthy, complex, time consuming, and expensive, pinpointing active ingredients that contribute to outcome (e.g., method, dose, timing, content) is essential in order to streamline and increase efficacy. This talk will consider curriculum content on core deficits in autism as one important active ingredient of early intervention. Data from a recent RCT for preschool children with autism will be described in which children participating in early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) were randomized to receive brief targeted interventions in joint attention, symbolic play or EIBI only. Results of these targeted interventions yielded significant effects on initiating joint attention, and diversity and level of symbolic play. Children were also tested six and 12 months post-intervention. Compared to the control children, both targeted interventions had significant effects on childrens expressive language one year later. Several important moderators of treatment response were also found, including pre-treatment language and nonverbal communication abilities. Thus, these data provide information on potential intervention targets for improving language outcome in young children with autism, as well as information on who benefits most from the specific treatments.

We frequently encounter difficulty in gaining acceptance for effective behaviorally-based interventions or educational practices; similar difficulty arises in gaining or maintaining a place for behavior analysis within academic curricula. Simply arguing the merits of the case by appealing to the practical effectiveness or the conceptual coherence and relevance of our approach often does not work. In the applied domain, a partial remedy is to improve the aesthetic characteristics of the strategies and techniques that we propose. In the domain of persuasion, we could better apply our own principles, as well as some techniques from other disciplines. For example, in place of confrontation, our principle of shaping suggests that we begin with a potential allys current repertoires and attempt gradual change. In the field of rhetoric and persuasion, a key strategy is to initially establish bases of agreement or commonality before attempting to persuade. Coupled with these should be a concern to discriminate which of the differences matter, between ones own and the position of others and especially to discriminate when those differences matter. My objective in all this is to address these issues in a principled way, thus understanding our own approach more effectively even while introducing it to others.

Proponents of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and its theoretical foundation Relational Frame Theory have described this approach as the basis for a third wave of Behavior Therapy. Skeptical observers view the ACT/RFT third wave as only waving goodbye to the scientific basis of Behavior Analysis. In this Panel Discussion, Steven C. Hayes, a developer of the ACT/RFT model and Daniel J. Moran will present ACT as a necessary extension of behavior analysis. They see ACT as giving greater breadth to the clinical field and filling a gap in the behavioral account of complex behaviors. But some behavior analysts are not convinced that the cognitively oriented approach embodied in ACT and Mindfulness is the direction that the field should take. Kurt Salzinger will discuss the ACT/RFT model from the perspective of traditional behavior analysis. Richard M. OBrien will review some of the core concepts of ACT/RFT as positive additions to the behavioral model or digressions from it with the goal of bringing this approach solidly within applied behavior analysis.

Social interactions primarily consist of approach (i.e., initiations and response to initiations) or avoidance behavior between individuals. Social interactions involve complex nonverbal, verbal, and behavioral cues that typically influences an individuals behavior in some predictable ways. The hallmark deficit in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is the social impairment, which involves a significant difficulty with social interactions. Measurement procedures for social interactions varies across studies in our field, with many research studies using parent or teacher reports as well as standardized assessments, to describe a childs social skills and interactions. The first paper in this symposium will present results from a study that conducted a parametric analysis of some of the variables involved in a social interaction in young children with ASD. In addition, a new behavioral assessment, the Social Interaction Inventory-Revised (SII-R) that was developed to quantify social interactions will be introduced. The second paper presented will share results from a study that included typically developing children for the purposes of providing normative data for the SII-R. The third paper will present results from a study that included children with ASD and a follow-up assessment to determine if the SII-R is sensitive to changes in social interactions in children with ASD.

The four papers included in this symposium discuss various extensions of functional analysis methodology that may facilitate clear outcomes. In the first paper, Jeffrey Tiger will describe a modified functional analysis that included the delivery of consequences by the participants sibling. In the second paper, Sacha Pence will present data showing that the inclusion of modified social positive test conditions facilitated clear determination of function for two participants. In the third paper, Tiffany Kodak will describe an assessment for identifying various forms of attention for inclusion in a functional analysis. In the forth paper, Lynlea Longworth will present data on an empirically-based method for identifying tasks for inclusion during the demand condition of a functional analysis.

Behavioral interventions have proven to be effective in reducing problem behaviors exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. Despite the efficacy of this technology, there continue to be barriers to long-term treatment success. One such barrier is treatment integrity, which is the extent to which an intervention is implemented as designed. The purpose of this symposium is to present research in treatment integrity. The goal is to facilitate a meaningful discussion of treatment follow through, which we hope will promote a growth of research in this area.

Headsprout Early Reading is a demonstrably effective program at teaching elementary school children how to read. Its eighty on-line lessons take a beginning reader from being a non-reader to a reader performing at about the mid second grade level in approximately thirty hours of instruction. Since its inception, however, creative educators have crafted implementation strategies, additional materials, and clever models of use to bring the benefits of Headsprout Early reading to an even broader audience. This symposium highlights applications and implementation support for users not typically well served with traditional educational approaches to the teaching of reading.

The proposed symposium is consisted of four papers that used behavioral techniques to teach parenting skills. The first study examined the effects of parent education training on their childrens learning achievements in school. Dependent variable included standardized assessment and the criterion-referenced assessment on thirty preschoolers. The independent variable consisted of parent education training package that included: (a) parent education workshop and (b) individual parent session. The second study evaluated the effect of a parent-training curriculum on parents positive teaching interactions. Specifically, the number of accurate tacts and positive responses to situations were measured. The third study investigated the effectiveness of a parent training package which emphasized teaching parents to identify appropriate skills of a target repertoire for their child to test for a) how many appropriate behaviors of particular target skill the parents could identify, (b) children's mastery of the appropriate behaviors within a particular target skill, and (c) parents generalization of identifying appropriate skills across other target behaviors. The fourth study examined specific skill such as increasing rates of childs compliance through the use of unflawed antecedent commands and contingent consequations. Results are discussed in terms of parents understanding of three-term-contingencies, observational learning, and effective parenting repertoires.

Choice responding refers to the manner in which individuals allocate their responding among available response options. In this symposium, a series of translational studies ranging from basic to applied are presented that show how variables that affect choice responding, such as reinforcement rate, immediacy, and quality, can be quantified and manipulated to improve our understanding of behavior and inform clinical assessments and interventions.

To date, there are few studies that report the long-term effects of applied behavior analysis treatment with children with autism ( e.g. Lovaas, 1987; Mceachin et al., 1993; Harris & Handleman, 2000; Sallows & Groupner, 2005).These studies have focused on variables such as classroom placement, IQ scores from standardized tests, and other such measures to infer treatment efficacy. There is little information on behavioral variables of treatment outcome for children with autism. In addition, few studies have provided a longitudinal analysis of treatment efficacy with follow-up many years after treatment completion. The present study presents preliminary findings of longitudinal evaluation of treatment outcome of 10 children with autism over a span of 15 years. Data were collected on behavioral measures, four appropriate behaviors and four inappropriate behaviors, during six month intervals on the waiting list for treatment at the Claremont Autism Center, during treatment, and after treatment for up to 15 years post-treatment. Thus, a multiple baseline design across children was used to assess the efficacy of the behavioral treatment at the Center, and the children who started their treatment at under 6 years of age were followed well into their 20s. In this symposium, we will present the importance of longitudinal analysis with children with autism, our methodology and treatment efficacy variables, and findings from our initial 10 children analyzed in terms of concrete behavioral measures.

Three data-based research studies examining the use of self monitoring for improving health and safety related behaviors will be presented. The first two studies will each present data examining the parameters of self-monitoring as an intervention for improving postural safety. The last study will demonstrate the use of a self-monitoring program in an actual organization to improve the health and safety-related behaviors of long haul truck drivers. Finally, our discussant will discuss the potential behavioral mechanisms underlying self-monitoring from a relational frame theory perspective.

This symposium presents two empirical studies and two conceptual papers on issues related to Skinners analysis of verbal behavior. Results are presented for (1) an investigation of procedural modifications of the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure and the role of automatic reinforcement in establishing speech as a conditioned reinforcer and (2) a study on generalization of mands for information across establishing operations. A third paper presents a behavioral interpretation of the etiology and intervention for aphasia by providing a taxonomy of the disorder based upon observed deficit relations. The final paper discusses transfer of stimulus control across verbal operants, reviews variables that increase procedural efficiency, and concludes with a discussion of stimulus blocking and multiple control.

Behavior Analyst Certification Board: New Developments & Requirements The meeting will address important developments within the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) relating to growth and changes in the BACB including: new continuing education and recertification requirements, new professional experience and supervisor requirements, university coursework approval and new university practica approval, new examination administration procedures, new ethics requirements for certificants, new specialty credentials, and disciplinary standards. The presentation also will focus on development of the BACB in the future, particularly as it relates to International development, and will explore the possible role of BACB certifications and certificants in the US and abroad.

Behavioral Couple Therapy (BCT) is the most widely researched treatment for couples. Developed by Patterson, Stuart, and Weiss, it emphasizes positive behavior change. BCT therapists assist couples in defining their global complaints into specific, actionable behaviors, learning communication and problem solving skills for discussing problem behaviors, and then negotiating for changes in relevant behaviors. Although BCT has clearly demonstrated its effectiveness in comparison to control conditions, many couples do not respond to treatment and of those who do, many relapse. Developed by Christensen and Jacobson, Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT), part of what Hayes has called the third wave of behavior therapy, was designed to be truer to behavioral analytic principles and to improve on the outcome of BCT. Specifically, IBCT relies on a functional analysis of couple behavior, includes both private and public behavior, focuses on contingency-shaped versus rule-governed change, and balances an emphasis on acceptance as well as change. In this talk, I will describe the theoretical principles and therapeutic practices involved in the evolution from BCT to IBCT. I will also describe some of the emerging data on IBCT.

The early vocalizations of songbirds and human infants, though immature in form, are similar in function. Producing these early sounds is crucial for the later development of speech and song. The process of vocal development has a strong social component: the responses of conspecifics create social feedback for early sounds that guides the young towards mature vocalizations. I will present experiments demonstrating how immature sounds of young birds and babies regulate and are regulated by interactions with conspecifics. These studies view the infant as taking an active role in its own development and introduce new paradigms for understanding the origins of communicative skills. In cowbirds, Molothrus ater, immature vocalizations of young males elicit reactions from adult females (who do not sing), and this feedback facilitates the development of more advanced forms of song. In humans, playback experiments show that mothers use prelinguistic vocal cues to guide their responses to infants. Vocal learning studies reveal that prelinguistic infants use social feedback from caregivers to build more developmentally advanced forms of vocalizations. Feedback from conspecifics thus provides reliable cues about the consequences of vocalizing. These cues serve to facilitate infants acquisition of the basic building blocks of speech and song.

This symposium will address how all aspects of the scientific study of behavior are utilized to build effective instructional programs. Though often thought of as applied work, designing effective instruction requires the application of experimentally derived principles from the laboratory, the application of useful techniques from applied settings, the direct experimental controlanalysis of behavior, and the interpretation and analysis of complex behavioral relations. Symposium participants will address a fundamental area important to Headsprout's success, and discuss the contribution of basic, applied, and conceptual analysis in each of the areas described.

This symposium will present three studies on behavioral applications for enhancing quality of life among people with severe disabilities and their support staff. The first study will describe a systematic procedure for using verbal reports of support staff to identify indices of happiness and unhappiness among nonvocal adults with autism, and then observational and choice procedures to validate the reports. Results indicated the procedures reliably identified happiness/unhappiness indicators among adults with autism who lacked conventional means of expressing their emotions. The second study will describe a means of assessing nonpreferred work tasks among support staff, and then altering the tasks by pairing them with preferred activities to make the tasks more desirable. Results indicated the behavioral pairing procedures enhanced the preferred nature of disliked tasks among all four participating staff. The third study will describe a means of maintaining desired work behavior among staff by focusing on enhancing the self-reinforcing nature of the staffs appropriate work performance. Overall, results of three studies indicate how behavioral procedures can be applied in socially important areas such as quality of life that are often considered to be outside of the realm of applied behavior analysis.

School psychology trainers rely on collaboration with community schools to provide authentic field experiences to promote meaningful outcomes for candidates. As education administrators consider the assessment practice alternatives offered in IDEA 2004, school psychology candidates also serve as a resource for training educators, developing and managing student assessment data, and providing micro and macro level evaluations of student achievement outcomes. The findings from student research collaborations between the Eastern Washington University School Psychology Masters Program and area schools are presented in this symposium. The three studies presented support the utility of CBM in educational decisions in a rural elementary and middle school and an assessment of the degree to which educators utilize these data in daily practice. Replication studies of CBM Reading, Math Computation, and Written Expression quarterly performance as predictors of statewide achievement test performance in Washington State were conducted for elementary and middle schools in the same rural district. Results indicate that CBM was a significant predictor of performance on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), with CBM Reading the most significant determinant of WASL success. The final study indicates that educators utilize CBM data regularly in screening and inclusion decisions and progress reporting situations.

Research presented in this symposium will illustrate methodological extensions of functional analysis procedures, including naturalistic (classroom) application and assessment of high-intensity and low-frequency problem behavior, as well as clinical extension to self-injurious behavior in a specific genetic disorder (Prader-Willi Syndrome).

This symposium provides an update, including demonstrations and data, on 18 of the most recent and exciting instructional design projects occurring in our field. Many areas of interest will be represented including higher education, staff development, instructional design for children, design methodology, and dissemination of good instructional design.

Behavior Analysts, Inc. (BAI) provides behavior analysis services to families and school districts in the San Francisco Bay areas. BAI uniquely utilizes B.F. Skinner's verbal behavior conceptualization to assist in the development of the verbal repertoires of individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. This symposium will describe the new procedural implementations and tracking systems at BAI and its STARS School, with exemplary data presented.

Outcome data from a several Early Intervention Programs for children with autism are presented: 1) Coyne et. al., discusses their ABA based in-home program serving children younger than three years old. Participants gained significantly more than controls; program duration (age when enrolled) was a better predictor of success than total service hours; 2) Weatherly and Mallot present their use of Organizational Behavior Management methods to analyze the effects of a pre-school ABA based autism program. They examined treatment at various levels affecting the children, the families, the staff at the autism school and the people involved with behavioral treatment. Areas of focus included: discrete trial teaching, maintenance of previously acquired skills, and family life; 3) Jonaitis presents 10 years of data from the Croyden Ave School Autistic Impaired Preschool serving children 2-6 years old. One goal was to prepare children for general education kindergarten using students from Western Michigan University; and 4) Youngbauer presents data from the North LA County Regional Center ABA intervention program. The program included an integrated process of parent information, parent education, use of several competent behavioral agencies, and monitoring of services.

Four papers on recent research in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) will be presented. First, the effects of a process change, feedback, and a tiered incentive system on warehouse quality were examined. The next study examined the effects of individual daily feedback and the withdrawal of disincentives on delivery errors among transit drivers (n = 45) in a national furniture distribution company. The third study examined telephone customer service behaviors in a medical clinic setting. The fourth paper used a descriptive assessment to examine the variables responsible for poor employee performance in a restaurant.

The corporate university, a contemporary educational model designed to maintain an expert workforce, brings higher education opportunities into the workplace. In this model, on-site credit-bearing courses allow employees to acquire additional academic degrees and certifications. Increasingly, agencies offering behavioral services are developing programs of research and professional development that allow them to assume scholarly functions beyond housing courses. The three papers included in this symposium illustrate human service agency contributions to higher education. Topics addressed include (a) establishment of a laboratory to increase graduate students verbal fluency with behavioral principles and procedures, (b) development of a model for providing supervision required for certification that integrates classroom learning and work experiences, and (c) establishment and integration of a Ph.D. program in ABA in a human service agency.

This presentation will discuss the development of a team of Masters level behavior analysts within a large public special educational service agency. The behavioral team was designed to: 1) treat individuals with severe problem behaviors across a number of diagnostic categories; 2) build behavioral capacity within the agency by providing staff and parent training in behavior analysis; 3) work with the various school districts who had contracts with the agency; and 4) ensure that treatment gains were maintained once responsibility was transferred from the behavior analysts to the classroom personnel. This discussion will specifically focus on describing the behavior treatment team model and methods of effectively incorporating behavior analysis into a public educational agency. Several successful treatment cases also will be discussed.

Addiction has been conceptualized as a chronic relapsing disorder with roots in impulsivity and compulsivity, and neurobiological mechanisms change as the individual moves through the stages of the addiction cycle. Animal models of excessive drinking include binge models and models that focus on interactions with stress and dependence and include abstinence-induced drinking, drinking following abstinence and withdrawal, and drinking during protracted abstinence in animals with a history of dependence. Key neurochemical elements involved in reward and stress within a basal forebrain macrostructure termed the extended amygdala are hypothesized to be dysregulated in addiction to convey the vulnerability for compulsive drug intake. During intoxication, elements in the extended amygdala are activated. During the development of dependence, the reward systems become compromised, but there is also dysregulation of the brain stress systems such as corticotropin releasing factor, and norepinephrine and neuropeptide Y. In addition, critical neurocircuitry in the basal forebrain for cue-induced reinstatement are providing clues to the neurobiological basis of craving. Neurocircuitry involving separate components for craving, reward deficits, and compulsivity provide a heuristic framework for the study of individual differences in the vulnerability for addiction.

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The farm-bred silver fox (Vulpes vulpes) has been subjected to strong selective breeding for docility for about 45 years at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is believed that during early domestication, all animals were challenged by the same evolutionary situation that is produced by selection pressure on the specific behavioral traits that facilitate adaptation to humans. This event is considered as a key mechanism of morphological transformation of domestic animals. As a result of the selection for the capacity to be tame, a strain of foxes with behavioral responses to humans analogous to those of the domestic dog has been produced. It is remarkable that the morphological characters of domestication have been acquired along with doglike behavioral patterns. Developmental shifts and neurohormonal changes in the domesticated foxes have been demonstrated. The strong heritability of tame behavior has been confirmed in experimental pedigrees among foxes. A rigorous system for measuring behavior as a truly continuous variable has been implemented. The availability of mapping tools developed for the canine genome has enabled the development of a fox meiotic linkage map and thus the mapping of loci influencing these behavioral phenotypes in the fox genome.

Meta-analysis has become an essential tool for summarizing large bodies of primary research literature in the social sciences. Among the many applications of meta-analysis is the determination of whether a given educational or clinical practice can be termed evidence- or research-based. With a few exceptions, however, evidence from single subject research has not been included in meta-analyses. The reason for this is primarily technological rather than ideological, that there is little agreement on optimal statistical methods for doing meta-analysis of single subject research, and that the methods for doing this kind of meta-analysis have not received the advanced statistical attention necessary to identify sampling distributions for pertinent effect size estimators, appropriate weights, homogeneity tests, and all the ancillary statistical methods such as fixed versus random effects models. This address will review the existing methodological literature on doing meta-analysis of single subject research, identify some of the key strengths and weaknesses of some of these methods, and discuss statistical developments that may improve those methods.

The panelists will give advice on effective oral presentations, with a focus on presenting to multidisciplinary audiences, including professionals, students, paraprofessionals, and parents. The audience will be invited to ask questions and hold discussions with the panel members.

Four papers will be presented to demonstrate the types of socially significant changes what may be made in a relatively brief peiod of time, 15 weeks, in community settings.

CLG, a Behavioral Based Consulting firm, supports corporate wide initiatives towards achiving desired business results through behavior change. The methodology is grounded in the Applied Behavioral Sciences, working with leaders to effectively manage and maintain high levels of performance. The symposium will present three different client experiences on three different types of coaching (executive coaching and two different performance coaching designs).