Association for Behavior Analysis International

Organizational behavior management principles and procedures are often employed as one-time applications in business, industry, and organizational settings. We have had the unique experience of working with the same organization continuously for the past 15-yrs on complex issues of improving the quality of service delivery to mental health patients in a large state hospital in Northeast Florida. The projects began as demonstration projects, but, as gains were demonstrated, the administration began to take them more seriously. Over time we gained the confidence of the executive committee–seven years ago Performance Management became officially recognized as the guiding philosophy of change for the organization. Over the 15-year period we have completed hundreds of quality improvement projects with a large number of them recognized by independent non-governmental agencies for their excellence. In this tutorial, I will present an overview of the work that we have completed and try to offer some insights into our apparently successful strategies for long-term consulting using OBM.

Since 1970 until the present, the presenter and his colleagues at Virginia Tech have diligently and systematically addressed real-world and large-scale problems with principles and methods from applied behavior analysis. Throughout the 1970s they targeted the problem of environmental protection, while also working with teachers to make classrooms more learning centered. And in 1974, Scott Geller and colleagues focused on prison management, and developed the largest programmatic application of the three-term contingency for inmates at two maximum-security facilities. Learning Objectives The participant will be able to list 5 lessons the presenter has learned in 30 years of applying behavior analysis for large-scale problems. The participant will be able to define 5 creative applications of the three-term contingency for improving behavior in community settings. The participant will be able to describe how behavior analysis can be applied to such large-scale problems as environmental protection, transportation safety, prison management, and occupational health and safety.

Currently, applied behavior analysis has focused almost exclusively on problems defined by caretakers as well as being circumscribed by methodological guidelines and by exclusive concern with contingency-management variables. An expanded scope of this field is suggested that enlarges the scope of learning variables beyond contingency management and revised the methodological constraints. These changes would greatly expand the application of this field to include the large number of self-referred problems which have otherwise been preempted by other treatment modalities. The field would still retain its distinctive character as a science-based learning treatment model.