Association for Behavior Analysis International

On the surface, many industrial organizations have what look like good safety records; logging months, often years without accidents. But in many cases those accident-free streaks are based, at least to some extent, on luck. In most cases unsafe behaviors still exist at all levels of many organizations, therefore creating exposure. Until organizations adopt behavioral strategies to ensure the consistency of safe practices, they will continue to gamble with safety. This tutorial will review the critical role of leader behavior in safety improvement. The role of leaders has historically been poorly defined and is most typically described in vague terms such as �making safety a priority�, or �creating a safety culture�. In addition, few contingencies exist for leaders to engage in the high-impact behaviors that will lead to improvement. This tutorial will provide a behavior analysis of six common safety leadership practices that are ineffective. Examples of more effective leader behaviors will be presented along with a discussion of creating contingencies to support those behaviors.

This tutorial is suitable for introductory level and above. The tutorial will be presented in much the same way it would be presented to organizational leaders so audience members will see how behavior analysis is presented and used in applied settings.

Children and adults with disabilities may be exposed to various safety threats in their lifetimes. These include the threat of abduction, sexual abuse, firearm injury, poisoning, and pedestrian injuries to name a few. This presentation will discuss best practices in assessment and training of safety skills for the various safety threats faced by individuals with disabilities. Topics covered in this tutorial will include strategies for valid and reliable assessment of safety skills with an emphasis on the use of naturalistic or in situ assessments; the selection of target behavior and stimuli needed for successful training; the successful use of behavioral skills training procedures and variations for the acquisition of safety skills; and strategies for promoting generalization and maintenance of the safety skills to the environments and circumstances where the safety skills are needed. Finally, issues of cost, efficiency, and accessibility of training will be discussed.

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• Describe the safety threats faced by individuals with disabilities and the safety skills needed to respond safely to these threats 
• Describe the strategies for assessing safety skills
• Describe behavioral skills training and in situ training for teaching safety skills
• Describe strategies for promoting generalization of safety skills