Association for Behavior Analysis International

Ever since Skinner (1938), early on after presenting an extensive study of the rat, invoked his Let him extrapolate who will, we have been hesitant to do so. It is, nevertheless, also true that just a few sentences before that fateful one, in the very same book, Skinner had said: The importance of a science of behavior derives largely from the possibility of an eventual extension to human affairs. In that sense, John Stoddard (2001) should not have been so surprised that Skinner engaged in what the former called premature extrapolation. As we well know, Skinner went on to engage in much-attacked extensive, not to say excessive, extrapolation and for that reason I will try for some more modest, but not too limited, extrapolation, examining how one could apply the basic reinforcement contingency paradigm to complex human behavior and thus (eventually) shed light on how to improve it. Beginning immodestly with some of my early work with conditioning of speech deficient children and flat-affect schizophrenic patients, I will try to elucidate human error, communication (all the while not ignoring the overlap of the latter two), and other human vagaries by means of behavior analysis most basic concepts.

This panel will discuss training programs in behavior analysis from the perspectives of the developers, the implementers, and the consumers (the students who receive training). The panelists will discuss the development of new programs, as well as variables affecting the post-development maintenance and strengthening of programs. Mr. Johnston will provide the consumer's perspective, as well as a unique training model, the Satellite Master's Programs in Behavior Analysis offered by the University of Nevada-Reno. Dr. Sandaker will proffer the international perspective, describing the development of the newly-accredited program at the University of Akershus in Oslo, Norway. Dr. Osnes will offer information from the vantage point of a previous Program Director and as the Coordinator of ABA's Education Board. Audience participation will be encouraged throughout.

This symposium will include three presentations demonstrating advances in functional analysis methodology. The first paper will discuse the importance of familiar and unfamilar therapists and settings in identifying behavioral functions. The second paper will discuse the implications of conducting functional analyses on precursor behavior in order to develop effective treatment of severe problem behavior. The thrid paper will discuse the extenstion of functional analysis methodology tn school setting with children with emotional/behavioral disroders. Finally, comments relating to the implications of these three papers for research and clinical practice for evaluation and treating problem behavior will be addressed.

Individuals with developmental disabilities frequently display serious deficits in verbal abilities. Researchers and clinicians have therefore adopted or developed various alternative/augmentative communication systems to strengthen or supplement the communicative abilities of these individuals. Popular forms of alternative communication include manual signs, pictures exchange systems (or PECS), and microswitch-activated devices. Each of these systems are associated with distinct relative advantages and disadvantages that make them more or less appropriate for use depending on individual circumstances. The present series of studies will explore the conceptual bases for, and applied implications of, differences among these systems. More specifically, these studies involved meaningful comparisons with regard to factors including the assessment of prerequisite skills, ease of acquisition of one form versus another, generalization to new settings and communicative partners, preference across modalities, and the effects of prompts. Collectively, the studies will provide valuable, evidence-based insights towards the selection and promotion of one system versus another.

Social impairment is one of the core deficits in autism. As such, much time is spent developing interventions to address social skills for children with autism. However, there can be a tendency to view socials skills from a narrow perspective of simply teaching greetings and simple games within the school environment. While these skills are useful, social behavior permeates all facets of a students life. As such, the importance of targeting social skills in the broader context of school, family and community must not be overlooked. Social skills instruction needs to be incorporated into every aspect of the curriculum. The current symposium presents some novel methods of integrating social skills instruction into everyday classroom routines, and emphasizes the importance of teaching skills at school that enhance participation in family and community activities.

The 9/11 Commission Report provides a detailed account of the nature and extent of terrorism facing us and recommendations for a global strategy to combat terrorism and build respect among cultures. Their recommended strategy includes a remarkable range of initiatives seeking a coalition of forces to build respect for cultures, tolerance for diversity, opportunities for the disadvantaged, defense of western values, and defeat of terrorism. Many of their recommendations pertain to restructuring the US governments systems for security and defense and will require wide scale organizational change. The challenges and complexity of this are enormous and the struggle will require a unity of purpose and effort perhaps unseen in our lifetimes. The 9/11 Commission has wisely called for an open dialogue on this process. In response, this symposium presents four papers by behavior analysts reacting to the 9/11 Commission report. Our purpose is to contribute to the dialogue needed to develop a coherent response to global terror and suggest contributions by behavioral scientists to this endeavor.

This symposium will highlight the latest technological advances in experimental psychology, from teaching and doing research through web-based methods, to using Visual Basic to program experiments and collect data.

This symposium will consist of three presentations that describe experimental studies of the applications of peer tutoring to children with and without disabilities and how pre-service teachers can be prepared to implement classwide peer tutoring (CWPT). First, Lisa Bowman will describe how CWPT was implemented in secondary classrooms for children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Her data suggests that CWPT is useful for promoting both academic and behavioral performance in children with EBD. Next, Renee Van Norman will discuss how peer-tutoring procedures can be adapted when tutors do not have sufficient academic skills to provide accurate feedback to tutees. Her results show that adding pre-recorded answers to tutoring flashcards promoted more accurate feedback and error correction from tutors. Then, Larry Maheady will describe how general education pre-service teachers were trained to implement CWPT via a 2-hour workshop. Results indicated that pre-service teachers could quickly learn to implement the procedures, and their students demonstrated increased performance in the academic area in which peer tutoring was implemented. Finally, Deborah Kamps will summarize the findings of these studies and discuss how these findings could impact educational practice.

Three data-based papers will be presented on the role of assessment in organizational behavior management. The first paper describes a comparison of two methods of assessing preference among employees in organizations. The second paper describes an antecedent analysis and intervention of the conditions under which employees greet customers in a restaurant. The third paper describes the use of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist to identify an intervention to increase employee completion of tasks in a physical therapy clinic.

There is growing evidence of a developmental trajectory for key verbal capabilities. The evidence comes from research guided by Skinners (1957) theory of verbal behavior and the accomplishment of schools based entirely on scientific practices. The broad verbal developmental factures identified include: listener, speaker, speaker-listener exchanges with others, speaker as own listener (self-talk, conversational units and naming), reader, writer, writer as own reader, and advanced verbal mediation. Many of the capabilities, and related subcomponents identified in this research, are higher order operants or relational frames. Our work in this area began when we first identified missing verbal capabilities in children, which, in turn, led to the identification and induction of pre and co-requisite repertoires. Once the missing verbal capabilities were induced, the children acquired repertories that had not been previously possible. We suggest that new evidence on the role of behavioral and cultural selection in the acquisition of verbal capabilities dismantles accounts of language as instinct. We shall present 2 papers on the evidence and related theories.

Joint attention is recognized as one of the earliest forms of communication in young children. Joint attention involves the coordinated attention between a social partner and an object in the environment. For young children, episodes of joint attention provide the context for communication with others. These reciprocal interactions are characterized by glances and gestures and are viewed by many as critical to the development of symbolic language. It has been demonstrated that children with autism often manifest deficits in joint attention skills. The development of behavioral assessment procedures for identifying deficits in joint attention and effective teaching procedures to teach these skills is critical to our ability to provide effective treatment for these children. The purpose of this symposium is to describe several research projects in which the authors are using the principles of applied behavior analysis to develop protocols for evaluating joint attention in children with autism. The implications of these analyses will be discussed as they relate to a behavior analysis of this traditionally developmental phenomenon.

Many college courses have fairly clear goals related to a specific verbal content, and are taught by assigning text material, giving lectures, and assessing student repertoires with in-class exams. Some learning occurs during class attendance, but most results from out-of-class study. This tutorial will describe the evolution, rationale, and current status of the use of detailed study objectives and frequent exams as a way to produce highly effective out-of-class study, excellent student performance, and very good course evaluations. The approach does not require any resources other than those ordinarily available to an instructor, nor any special class-scheduling arrangements, and over time can result in a course that approaches programmed self-instruction in appearance and effectiveness.

The purpose of this session is to demonstrate how the principles of applied behavior analysis can use used to effectively assess and treat individuals that are rarely represented in the extant literature. The first paper demonstrates how a modification in functional assessment procedures can result in the successful assessment of truant adolescents. The second paper demonstrates the relevance of a constructionalist approach for teaching critical content areas (e.g., math) to high school students with learning disabilities. And the final paper demonstrates how a word-picture association method was used to teach high school students with dyslexia to prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Social behavior deficits, while central to the diagnosis of Autism, remain an elusive behavioral target. In ABA, specific behaviors related to social functioning are often measured and targeted for treatment. Skills such as eye contact, intraverbals, or other specific responses are successfully developed through systematic instruction and programming for generalization. However, it remains much more difficult to define, assess, and target social competence as a more abstract concept. Agreement in the literature and clinical field as to what constitutes key social behavior and appropriate tools for direct measurement has not been established. Such agreement, to whatever extent possible, is necessary for more universal outcome research and comparison across individuals and interventions. This session will address a number of issues related to this central topic. The first paper will describe a series of pilot investigations developing a methodology for measuring social behavior in various settings. The second paper focuses on measuring social behavior in contrasting settings and over time as an instrument of assessing change and examining how setting and time interact. The final paper will examine the ways in which these systems are sensitive to change, with regard to other measures of social behavior. Future directions will be discussed.

Children and adolescents can be treated effectively using functional behavioral assessment and behavioral interventions for social, emotional and medical difficulties in a variety of settings. These settings include: a hospital treating children for chronic or terminal illnesses, a permanent residence with a loving family, a group home specifically designed to treat adolescents with multiple diagnoses, and a regular public school. The speakers in this symposium will present research-based approaches from the behavioral literature, as well as techniques they have used in clinical case studies, that effectively deal with numerous social, emotional and medical difficulties in children. Diagnoses that have been given to the children in these case studies include: Cancer, Diabetes, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Moderate Mental Retardation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Motor Stereotypy, Depression, Psychosis, Learning Disability, School Phobia with Panic Attacks and Social Anxiety Disorder. In each of the case studies discussed, these children either: were able to be receive necessary medical treatments that were previously refused, had one or more of their diagnostic labels removed or were able to be served in a typical setting after previously being removed due to their behavioral, social and emotional difficulties.

A rich body of literature now exists supporting the efficacy of implementing Precision Teaching methodologies within intervention practices for students with autism and related developmental disabilities. This symposium will highlight current and on-going research which uses Precision Teaching to document progress within specific educational programs

The four papers in this symposium discuss refinements in preference assessments for participants with developmental disabilities and autism. Articles present recent research regarding the impact of access to stimuli during systematic preference assessments on preference and reinforcer assessment results. The first paper compared preference and reinforcer assessments across two conditions (a vocal only condition and a vocal plus tangible condition). Reinforcer assessments indicated that the verbal plus tangible assessment more accurately identified reinforcers than the verbal assessment. In the second study, tangible, pictorial with access, and pictorial without access paired-stimulus preference assessments were conducted with 5 individuals with developmental disabilities. Although the tangible and pictorial with access assessments generated similar preference hierarchies, the pictorial without access assessment generated different preference hierarchies for some participants. The third paper investigated the effect of frequency of access during preference assessments on subsequent reinforcer assessments. Results suggested that the limited number of stimulus pairings in a typical paired-stimulus assessment might lead to inconsistent results in subsequent reinforcer assessments. The fourth presentation studied the effects of duration of access to the stimuli used in preference assessments on the outcome of reinforcer assessments; results suggested that duration measures were better predictors of preference than selection measures.

This symposium will present empirical research studies examining procedures for encouraging students with autism to make varied choices of reinforcers. A general methodology has been developed and evaluated across three age groups and in different settings for students with autism. Generalization of the effectiveness of the procedures is examined and discussed.

This symposium will address how an understanding of verbal behavior can contribute to a behavior analytic account of gambling.

In the past few years there has been growing interest in what some investigators have come to call Theory of Mind. Catalyzed by work with Chimpanzees by David Premack and his colleagues, it has been postulated that certain animals, particularly humans, develop a model for what another may be thinking. This model is used in turn to guide how the organism responds in various social situations. In essence, an individual generates a theory concerning the mind of another, and uses that theory to help maximize his or her own social effectiveness. Where such ability is lacking, social effectiveness is said to diminish. Recently, it has been suggested that such diminished capacity may be at the root of Autism. This presentation explores some of the data, both behavioral and from brain imaging studies, which are used to support some of the theory of mind hypotheses. Further, it suggests a behavioral alternative based on Skinners (1957) analysis of Verbal Behavior, with particular emphasis on autoclitic responses, and the steps behavior analysts might take to further explore this interesting area of animal and human research.

Although a common mechanism for disseminating research findings is the conference presentation, the standard for determining quality in scientific communication is publication in a peer-reviewed journal. However, traditional thesis and dissertation requirements, and the way in which these requirements are met, typically fail to produce research competence that survives the peer-review process. My presentation will focus on strategies for acquiring general research skills, formulating research questions, generating publishable data, and learning the ins and outs of the peer-review process.

The success behavior analysts have had in treating individuals with autism has had a substantial impact on our membership and has led to a much wider profile for our discipline. However, many challenges and obstacles face us that we have either not met or that we choose to ignore. Though agencies, such as the National Institute of Mental Health, acknowledge ABA as an empirically based effective intervention, they also state that there is no single best treatment option for children with autism. Prominent members of the autism community often criticize ABA as; not addressing social functioning, failing to establish dramatic play skills, incapable of establishing a theory of mind, and of creating children with robotic responding that lacks spontaneity. Other more practical critiques state that it is unclear what the effective components of ABA are, how many hours of service delivery are necessary to achieve gains, and what setting ABA services should be delivered in. The main purpose of this presentation is to describe what is necessary for ABA to address these criticisms. Among the recommended courses of action we will describe the importance of local, regional, and national advocacy and public relations.

Organizations are complicated entities: They incorporate constant, countless dynamic interconnections among behavioral contingencies of many individuals, and yet each configuration of interconnections is unique and temporary. In this context, linear approaches are insufficient to account for and manage organizational change. This presentation will address the complex, transient dynamics within organizations and propose methodological considerations for successful organizational change.

Among the criticisms of B. F. Skinners analysis of verbal behavior is Noam Chomskys claim that it had nothing useful to say about productivity, the generation of novel grammatical utterances. Yet the behavior analytic armamentarium includes a variety of sources of novel behavior, including shaping, fading, adduction, the direct reinforcement of novelty, and the emergence of novel instances of higher order classes. This presentation will consider the implications of such sources for the development of productive verbal behavior and will address Chomskian arguments such as the argument from the poverty of the stimulus. In so doing, it will examine semantic as well as syntactic novelty, as when verbal behavior allows the creation of novel entities such as angels and demons.This address is dedicated to Eliot Shimoff

This symposium, part of a three-symposia series celebrating Ogden Lindsley, will present an historical analysis of the important life events that shaped Ogdens repertoire and led to the development of one of his most important contributionsthe Standard Celeration Chart (SCC). Starting their analyses with Ogdens early work and moving through major contributions that punctuate Precision Teachings history to date, the authors of the symposiums papers will tell the story of the SCC and the man behind it.

The symposium will highlight the application of functional analyses methodology in a variety of school settings. The session will begin with a review of current literature on functional behavioral assessments that include experimental analyses conducted in public schools. The review will present collective data from 42 empirical studies. Population characteristics, educational placement, functional behavior assessment methodologies and outcomes, and treatment selection and outcomes will be presented. The literature review will be followed by two data-based presentations. The presentations will present multiple data sets depicting traditional and innovative functional analyses conditions conducted in school settings for a variety of problem behaviors. Additionally, outcomes from functional analyses based interventions will be presented. The presentations address analyses and interventions responsive to the dynamic environment of public school settings. A synthesis of the presentations and general comments regarding the current state of analysis and treatment of problem behavior in schools settings will conclude the symposium.

The papers in this symposium examine positive behavior support procedures that emphasize identifying and manipulating contextual or antecedent variables related to problem behaviors in individuals with developmental disabilities. Variables examined include staff and supervisor training, the role of choice making, setting events and discriminative stimuli, and the inclusion of direct support staff in the development and implementation of positive behavior support plans. The effects of these different strategies are examined and discussed in terms of changes in the trends of problem behaviors, changes in staff behavior, and changes in the acceptability of behavior support plans.

Three recent studies on functional analysis and function-based interventions will be presented. In the first study, a brief functional analysis was conducted to identify a treatment for tantrums associated with transitions in typically developing preschool children. The second study describes a functional analysis and treatment for food refusal maintained by multiple sources of reinforcement. The third study describes a functional analysis of feeding problems and evaluates a novel negative reinforcement-based intervention.