Association for Behavior Analysis International

A variety of career paths exist for individuals with conferred master?s or doctoral degrees in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and related disciplines who currently possess or are in pursuit of Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) certification. These paths can lead to practicing in a variety of settings, including clinical environments (e.g. hospitals, outpatient clinics), schools, daycares, consulting firms, and homes. Additionally, although children with developmental and intellectual disabilities are generally the focus of such services, this skill set can be applied to a variety of populations to increase appropriate behavior and decrease inappropriate behavior, teach new skills, and improve an individual?s quality of life. Career paths ranging from practicing in a clinical setting with children with pediatric feeding disorders, pursing a Ph.D. degree in ABA, and practicing in a school setting will be discussed by the panelists. Following this, opportunities to ask questions and further discuss career options will be provided.

Mathematical principles of reinforcement is theory with three main tenets: motivation, association, and constraint (Killeen & Sitomer, 2004). Reinforcers create a heightened state of arousal in which organisms are more likely to emit behaviors, those behaviors that precede and predict reinforcers are coupled to the reinforcers and more likely to occur in the future, and the overall limit on behavioral output constrains the amount of aroused behavior and previously coupled behavior. Mathematical principles of reinforcement provides an account of behavior that is different than the typical strengthening or value based accounts of reinforcement. This panel will discuss the basics of mathematical principles of reinforcement, research implications of the theory, and where to take the theory next.

At this event, OBM-interested students will hear about challenges (and successes) faced by women in OBM who are either in academia and/or are practitioners.

Problem solving and decision making encompass one of the most important practices in service delivery for behavior analysts. Different options exist for engaging in this process such as Standard Celeration Charts and Equal Interval Graphs. Most service providers use one type of graphing method within their service delivery but this may be because of a lack of training or exposure to other graphing options. The purpose of this panel is to expose students and practitioners to each type of graphing method so they can make informed decisions regarding which method is more appropriate for the services they provide. Panelists will answer questions about the graphing methods they use to engage in effective problem solving and decision making, how they train others to use these graphing methods, and the benefits and disadvantages of these graphing methods. One panelist will focus on the use of the Standard Celeration Chart, one will focus on the use of Equal Interval Graphs, and one will focus on the feasibility of both types of graphs from a practitioner perspective.

Providing services for individuals with behavioral deficits can be complex, with many problem behaviors having been reinforced intermittently throughout their entire lives. Time has shown that these services have proven to be quite effective at dealing with those problem behaviors, increasing in their effectiveness the more time these individuals spend receiving them. Parent training is an integral, and often disregarded, part of the process. Most of the time these individuals receiving services will be around their families more than those giving the services; therefore, making sure everyone is on the same page is vital to the treatment of these behavioral deficits. When the parents of these individuals have been properly trained, they can bring many of the treatments their loved ones are receiving into their home life and the increased support and exposure to the treatment reinforces it effectiveness. This panel will discuss the benefits of parent training in addition to showing why it is a necessity to truly effective behavioral therapy: as well as, discuss ways in which parent training can be effectively conducted.

After graduation, doctoral-level behavior analysts typically emerge in either an academic or a clinical career. This panel will focus on identifying pros and cons, as well as discussing competencies and experiences that can make one a successful candidate for each. The discussion will be grounded in the experiences accrued by our panelists, who are prominent behavior analysts with expertise in both academic and clinical settings.

Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior remains largely a theoretical endeavor. However, recent research in the areas of stimulus equivalence, relational frame theory, the naming hypothesis and joint control suggest that derived relational responding (i.e., the emergence of complex and untrained stimulus-stimulus relations) may be a viable explanation for the acquisition and maintenance of verbal behaviors. This panel will discuss Skinner's verbal behavior in the context of this research. Of particular import will be the degree to which each of these lines of research can account for the emergence of untrained and novel verbal behaviors. Additionally, the panel will discuss how stimuli that were documented to be under a specific form of stimulus control in one context (e.g., echoic or tact control) can come under the control of other forms of stimulus control (e.g., mand or intraverbal control) in another in the absence of direct training. Finally, the panel will discuss the role of the listener in the emergence of derived relational verbal behaviors, an area that may be viewed as under-investigated by verbal behavior researchers.