Association for Behavior Analysis International

This symposium will cover several aspects of measuring behavioral outcomes when individuals have been prescribed psychotropic medication. While the focus is on individuals with developmental disabilities, this information could be used with a wide range of individuals with a variety of diagnoses. The presentations will focus on methods for collecting data via several different analog (e.g., functional analysis) and assessment procedures that can inform decision making about whether the psychotropic medication is having the intended effect. The goal is to provide practitioners with assessments that they are able to implement in a variety of settings.

graduate students, faculty, clinical providers, educators, administrators, researchers

Psychotropic medications are commonly prescribed in a polypharmacy fashion to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who engage in problem behavior to treat and reduce behavior; however, the impact these medications (and subsequent changes in medication) have on the behavior they are intended to treat are not well understood. A study was conducted to evaluate the extent to which changes in psychotropic medication regimens altered functional relations between problem behavior and the environment for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This presentation will provide data for two of the participants whose behaviors (i.e., aggression, self-injurious behavior, stereotypy, and presence of adverse side effects) were monitored over several months (7 and 23 month) via direct observation and functional analyses. The results of this study revealed that changes in medication were associated with changes in assessment results. These findings suggest continued surveillance of behavior function when using psychotropic medication to address problem behavior (Funding: NICHD grant #: 1R15HD072497-01).

Staff turnover negatively affects the quality of interventions that clinicians provide to individuals diagnosed with autism. The turnover rate for Behavior Interventionists providing applied behavior analysis (ABA) services to individuals with autism is exceptionally high, and a significant percentage are voluntary resignations. A frontline Behavior Interventionist’s job duties are typically characterized by variables that have been correlated with high turnover rates in other industries. One such variable is consistency of work. This panel will present retention rates across a representative sample of US clinics that provide behavioral interventions to individuals with autism. The presenters will provide results of a study that evaluated the role of consistency of work as represented by parent and staff session cancellations on staff turnover. Finally, strategies in the areas of work/pay stability, leadership, and new-hire turnover that have helped increase retention will be presented. Based on the retention status within the organization, next steps will be discussed.

Board Certified Behavior Analysts, service providers, and academic faculty.

Critical, or higher-order thinking, is the hallmark of higher education. It is important to go beyond training in education, and develop a more complex behavioral repertoire. In this symposium, the presenters will be discussing their work on the use of interteaching, and combining interteaching with equivalence based instruction (EBI). It will be argued that either of these approaches alone produce better teaching outcomes, and that some topics lend themselves to additional methods such as using EBI to teach more complex topics. These approaches are efficient, and can be modified for use in face-to-face, and online, courses. Finally, using either or both in combination with programmed instruction will be discussed.

Any student, professor, or individuals who train professionals.

Interteaching is an active learning strategy based upon Personalized System of Instruction. Pairs or groups discuss a series of questions based upon the readings and other course materials. While there is a rich body of literature supporting interteaching, only two articles are available that look at the implementation of interteaching in an online environment. Given that online courses are often asynchronous, many discussions occur without the instructor present to provide feedback. The current study will examine whether the presence of an instructor during online synchronous meetings of small groups affects the participation and quality of discussion in these groups. Two 8-week online courses were examined. For 4/8 synchronous sessions scheduled, the instructor will log in and provide approximately 20 minutes of guidance and feedback to the students. Percentage of intervals on task, as defined as discussing the interteaching assignment or related topics (i.e., excluding other assignments, personal discussion, instructor requirements, or general course information) will be measured for each student.

We have initiated, replicated, and extended a programmatic line of behavior-analytic research to facilitate and establish early social skills in infants at-risk of developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Infant social engagement responses including vocalizations, echoics, joint attention, and social referencing are considered critical developmental milestones that serve as fundamental prerequisites for early communication and social skills (Pelaez, 2009). Treatment based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has been consistently regarded as the most efficacious treatment for symptoms of ASD, and as such, has been similarly shown to be effective in teaching emerging social skills to infants at risk of ASD. Specifically, the first presenter will briefly identify the early behavioral indicators of at-risk infants, and overview the application of a brief ABA-based parent treatment model for promoting early infant vocalizations and emerging echoic response. The second presenter will examine the acquisition of joint attention and social referencing repertoires via an operant-learning paradigm arrangement among infants at-risk of ASD and Fragile X syndrome. The discussant will comment on these ongoing programs of research on early social skills in at-risk infant populations using ABA, and explore future directions and implications of this research.

Undergraduate; Graduate; Practitioners; Parents

Infants who have not yet received any diagnoses often display markers, deficits, and behavioral indicators, that make them “at-risk” of a later ASD diagnosis. Among the hallmark diagnostic criteria of ASD are limitations and impairments in language and communication. Interventions to promote and encourage vocalizations in infants at risk of ASD as early as possible are of utmost priority. The present investigation compares the use of three different operant reinforcers to promote vocalizations, echoic approximations, and echoics with topographical correspondence in three infants at-risk of ASD. The results reliably confirmed findings from similar research (Bendixen & Pelaez, 2010; Pelaez, Virues, & Gewirtz, 2011a and 2011b) that contingent reinforcement procedures are more effective than non-contingent reinforcement procedures. Specifically, the vocal imitation condition reliably produced higher rates and accuracy of all three targeted responses: a) vocalizations, b) echoic approximations, and c) echoics with one-to-one correspondence. Implications of the present study highlight the important role of systematically and contingently arranging the social consequences delivered by the caregiver to promote the vocal behavior of an infant at-risk. Future research and application are discussed in the context of ASD prevention, optimal infant-caregiver environmental arrangements, misplaced contingencies, and the establishment of caregivers as social reinforcers.

Is there only one Applied Behavior Analysis around the world? Challenges for certification- the brazilian experience in debate. BACB has been certifying behavior analysts all over the world, bringing up quality to professionals working in Service Delivery domain, as well as criteria to define what is a behavior analyst and minimum knowledge necessary to be an applied behavior analyst. Nevertheless, there are crucial differences among academic cultures in different countries in formation of behavior analysts, depending on undergraduate and graduate laws of each one. Brazil has been considered one of the largest group of Behavior Analysis (BA) outside USA and has been receiving awards for its longstanding achievements in Experimental Analysis of Behavior. The graduate bylaws, as well as rules and evaluation systems in BA at graduate level are worldwide based and rigorous. Undergraduate laws and systems of evaluation, on the other hand, are weaker, with multiple differences inside the big country of Brazil. Because if this, it is not possible to homogenize systems of certification in BA in Brazil. Considering this context, a group of brazilian researchers and clinicians proposed a national certification system for behavior analysts and a discussion with BACB representatives is proposed here in order to keep the unit of the field, as well as to keep opened possibilities of new initiatives, due to cultural differences.

This symposium brings together three studies by authors from different research groups to discuss how behavior analysis can contribute to interventions dealing with economic behavior and everyday life matters. The first presentation proposes a functional interpretation of strategies known as nudges, that is, strategies derived from the field of behavioral economics for policymaking in different sectors (such as public health, education and energy efficiency). The second presentation will describe an intervention that aims to promote ethical behavior in bank employees in the United Kingdom, based on an approach focused on antecedent and consequent factors. The third presentation will describe an intervention based on procedures of functional analysis and fading out for the reduction of smoke consumption. Thus, the symposium attempts to gather research from the theoretical domain (the first presentation) to the applied one (second and third presentations) that discuss possibilities for behavior analysts to design effective interventions in different contexts, from individual to social.

Introduced as an innovative way to design public policy, "libertarian paternalism" is a proposition derived from behavioral economics whose main goal would be to interfere with choice behavior without coercive methods. A key concept for such perspective is "choice architecture", which aludes to different sets of contextual arrangements designed to redirect choice in a way that although a defined course of action is favored, all alternative paths are kept available and easy to reach. "Default-option", "salience" and "social norms" are commonly adopted strategies (i.e. "nudges"), but that is not clear what exactly group them all together. Relying on previously developed research, the aim of this conceptual study is to provide a functional interpretation of nudging strategies as described by their original proponents. The presentation will show how nudging strategies may me interpreted as a matter of manipulating response cost, stimulus control and establishing operations, as well as that there seems to be no clear connection between them except for their presumed noncoercive nature. Thus, the presentation will also introduce a question yet unsolved, that is, whether or not the meaning of coercion is the same for behavioral economists and behavior analysts.

Self-reported surveys, collected from UK bank employees for three years (2016-2018) show stability in how employees identify (un)ethical behaviors in their workplace. Identifying and manipulating ethical behaviors that already exist in the working routine of bankers is a more feasible goal than trying to shape completely new behaviors in this population. Bank employees have to constantly allocate their time and effort among different, concurrent, tasks. As in any concurrent schedule, this allocation is controlled by the contingencies in place, including monetary and social reinforcement. Interventions to increase ethical behaviors should increase the preference for “ethical” tasks. This, however, requires a functional analysis of Ethical Behaviors, their antecedents and consequences. For antecedents, ethical judgements depend on the social group(s) the subject belongs to and what they consider “good” or “bad”. Consequences depend on the visibility and significance of the impact caused on others. In preparation for future interventions, this exploratory study searches for empirical/descriptive evidence on “who” bank employees identify as the parties impacted by their actions and the kind of "good" or "bad" social feedback/judgement they receive. Increasing employee’s preference for ethical tasks (instead of other tasks) require increasing the sources and/or magnitude of the positive social reinforcement produced by these actions.

Smoking is a behavioral pattern that negatively affects the smoker’s health. Consequently, the effectiveness of programs to reduce smoking became the focus of scientific investigation. The present study investigated the effect of a behavioral analytic program, conducted individually on the frequency of smoking and CO levels. The experimental design was multicomponent. Participants were eight smokers with CO level equal or above 11 ppm. The study was comprised of five phases. On Phase 1, the frequency of smoking and CO levels were recorded. On Phase 2, functional analysis of smoking took place. On Phase 3, participants were instructed to gradually increase the interval between cigarettes. In Phase 4, participants were instructed to use behavioral-analytical strategies for the reduction of smoking. Phase 5 was the return to Phase 1`s conditions. Follow up measures were recorded three and six months after the conclusion of the study. For all participants, smoking rate and the CO level were reduced by at least 60 percent. Strategies for maintaining therapeutic gains are presented in the discussion.

This symposium includes three presentations on recent advances in behavior analytic approaches to training. The first presentation evaluated the effectiveness of using video-based instruction to train parents to implement guided compliance and a token economy. The results indicated that all parents learned the guided compliance protocol and correctly implemented a token economy following the introduction of training. The second presentation sought to train teachers to implement behavioral interventions for students with autism spectrum disorder within a modular intervention framework. The results indicated that the modular approach was feasible and preliminarily efficacious. The third presentation evaluated the effectiveness of a training package to teach individuals to arrange safe sleep environments for infants—an important consideration that may reduce sudden infant death syndrome. The results indicated that all participants made unsafe errors during baseline, arranged correct environments following training, and demonstrated generalized responding.

The target audience is behavior analysts and school psychologists.

Noncompliance can be a concern for some children with autism and can affect their interactions with their parents. A token economy may be an effective and easily transportable strategy for parents to provide reinforcement to their children for compliance with directions. The results of this study (a) systematically replicated Spiegel, Kisamore, Vladescu, and Karsten (2016) by training parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to implement guided compliance and (b) evaluated the effects of video-based instruction to train parents of children with autism to implement a token economy to reinforce compliance and to decrease the need for the presence of a trainer by incorporating a self-scoring checklist. Participants learned to correctly implement a token economy and evaluated their own performance via video recordings. These results provide clinicians with a means of teaching parents of children with ASD to implement a token economy and decrease the need for the presence of a trainer by incorporating a self-scoring checklist. Interobserver agreement data were collected data for 35% of all sessions and mean agreement was above 97% for all participants.

Conceptualizing translational research from a transactional perspective, in which scientific and clinical information flows in multiple directions, leads to more relevant basic and applied research and interventions that are more effective. In this symposium, we will present a series of translational investigations that have involved collaborations between basic and applied researchers to improve our understanding of, and ability to treat severe problem behavior. These investigations include studies involving human and nonhuman species and applications of behavioral momentum theory and the generalized matching law to increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and durability of function-based treatment of destructive behavior in individuals with autism and related disorders. Our discussant will integrate and discuss the applied and theoretical implications of these studies and provide directions for future research.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of positive reinforcement on academic behavior that was historically related to problem behavior maintained by negative reinforcement. Sam was a 12-year-old boy with autism. Problem behavior and academic performance in math were evaluated across three conditions (baseline, contingent positive reinforcement, and bonus positive reinforcement) within a reversal design. IOA was assessed across 31% of sessions and averaged 98%. Results showed behavioral persistence with academic performance (number of problems attempted; Figure 1, top panel). As Sam received greater amounts of positive reinforcement (for answering bonus questions) he completed more math problems across sessions during subsequent baseline extinction sessions but also continued to show problem behavior (Figure 1, bottom panel). Thus, even though persistence of appropriate academic behavior in the absence of treatment following contingent positive reinforcement was achieved, problem behavior also showed persistence. We will discuss these results within a conceptual model linking neuroscience, behavior analysis, and behavioral momentum theory to promote the long-term maintenance of appropriate academic behavior.

Resistance to change or insistence on sameness is a problematic behavior exhibited by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in which the child has extreme emotional outbursts in response to change. Restricted diet variety is one common form of resistance to change that children with ASD exhibit. For example, Schreck, Williams, and Smith found that children with ASD ate about half the dairy items, fruits, proteins, and vegetables children without ASD ate, and the remainder of their diet often included processed junk foods that were low in nutritional content and high in fat and sugar. In the current study, we implemented an intervention for change-resistant feeding behavior based conceptually, but not mathematically, on the generalized matching law with 5 young children with ASD and a restricted diet variety. During the intervention, the researcher gave the participant a choice between (a) a change-resistant food and an alternative food when consuming either produced no programmed consequence during the free-choice condition, (b) a change-resistant food and an alternative food when consuming the change-resistant food produced no programmed consequence and consuming the alternative food produced a preferred item during the asymmetrical-choice condition, and (c) choosing and consuming the alternative food independently and receiving the preferred item or being guided to choose and consume the alternative food during the single-choice condition. Most participants began consuming the first alternative food exposed to the intervention at high, stable levels during the single-choice condition and continued to consume the alternative food during a reversal to the asymmetrical-choice condition. Consumption of other alternative foods increased when the researcher implemented the asymmetrical-choice condition before exposure to the single-choice condition. The generalized matching law provided a conceptual model for arranging contingencies during our intervention to (a) decrease the relative value and frequency of consumption of the change-resistant food, (b) increase the relative value and frequency of the alternative food, and (c) increase the preference for the alternative food for some children (e.g., the child preferred to eat green beans over hot dog).

ABA renewal occurs when behavior learned in one context (e.g., home; A) and treated in a separate context (e.g., clinic; B) reemerges when the original context is reintroduced (A). Basic-laboratory assessments of renewal may inform clinical efforts to maintain reduction of severe problem behavior when clients transition between contexts. The contextual changes arranged during standard renewal procedures, however, may not align with those that clients experience during outpatient therapy. In this presentation, we first describe a human-laboratory translation in which we compared levels of recurrence using the standard ABA renewal procedure and a modified nonsequential ACA procedure, which was modeled from the typical course of outpatient treatment for problem behavior. Second, we compared renewal of rats’ lever pressing following a standard ABA renewal procedure (i.e., baseline in Context A, extinction in Context B, renewal test in Context A) and a non-sequential renewal assessment wherein treatment consisted of frequent alternation between Context A (associated with reinforcement for lever pressing) and Context B (associated with extinction). Across both studies, responding renewed to a greater extent in the non-sequential condition. These findings will be discussed within the framework of treatment for severe problem behavior, particularly related to implications for clinical research and practic

Reinforcement is fundamental to the analysis of behavior. Indeed, reinforcement plays a key role in most theoretical and philosophical work in behavior analysis, basic research in the experimental analysis of behavior, and in the application of behavioral principles towards socially significant behavior change. While the basics of reinforcement processes are well known to behavior analysts, researchers have continued to study reinforcement over the years, including the exploration of various details pertinent to different theories of reinforcement. The present symposium involves two presentations on the topic of reinforcement. The first presentation focuses on recent research related to various theories of reinforcement in the experimental analysis of behavior, including that pertaining to momentum, conditioned reinforcement, and response strength. After providing an overview of recent work in the area, questions about reinforcement as we know it are raised, setting the stage for the second presentation. The second presentation provides an alternative conceptualization of reinforcement. Problems with common ways of speaking about reinforcement in behavior analysis are highlighted, and an analysis of reinforcement as a setting factor is provided. The symposium concludes with a discussant commenting on various themes reviewed during the presentations.

Master's and doctoral level behavior analysts interested in learning more about reinforcement theory and alternative conceptualizations of reinforcement processes.