Association for Behavior Analysis International

Social validity in behavior analytic service delivery is paramount. Recent trends in behavior analytic research and service delivery illustrate the intentions of researchers and practitioners to improve social validity of interventions (Ferguson et al., 2018). One sector of behavior analytic service delivery that has been particularly criticized is treatment of children with pediatric feeding disorders (Taylor & Taylor, 2022). Currently, the most empirically supported intervention is escape extinction or non-removal of the spoon (Peterson et al., 2018). This intervention has repeatedly shown rapid effectiveness in the published literature and is warranted for children who experience severe food refusal. Though escape extinction is a well-established behavioral treatment for feeding disorders, the intrusive nature of the procedure has led to questions and misconceptions related to social validity of interventions. The purpose of this symposium is to explore social validity related to various treatments and outcomes for pediatric feeding disorders.

Intermediate

Trauma-informed care necessitates that practitioners understand and consider how their clients feel during treatment. Escape extinction during pediatric feeding treatment may be warranted for some children. Although these procedures are highly effective, it is unclear if any undesired emotional response that occurs during extinction has lingering effects on how children feel during future meals (i.e., a child may be consuming their bites efficiently, but still feel unhappy). Thus, the current study aims to assess the two dimensions of emotion (Gay & Leijdekkers, 2013) for children with pediatric feeding disorders while they receive treatment. Specifically, researchers recorded child indices of happiness and unhappiness (Phipps et al., 2022) to assess emotional valence and measured physiological responses using a wrist-worn biosensor to assess emotional arousal for children with pediatric feeding disorders. The findings from this study reveal the potential emotional experiences of children during treatment and further the discussion on the feasibility of measuring private events to inform practice.

Most day-treatment feeding programs aim to promote substantial and rapid changes in oral intake (Sharp et al., 2020). As such, a child will likely experience a shift in the amount and type of food and liquid consumed, which may impact toileting patterns and continence. Prior research has not targeted or monitored continence throughout a feeding admission despite the importance of independent toileting skills and the relation between intake and urine and stool output (Santos et al., 2017). We also know that modifying an individual’s undergarments can produce changes in toileting continence (Greer et al., 2016). In the current study, a 5-year-old female with Williams-Beuren syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, and diaper dependency was admitted to a day-treatment feeding program. Therefore, we measured and compared in-toilet eliminations, self-initiations, and nutritional intake while she was in diapers relative to underwear. Overall, in-toilet eliminations and self-initiations remained stable and increased when she wore underwear. We discuss the benefits of a hybrid program in which important adaptive skills like feeding and toileting can be dually addressed and plan to retrospectively review food and liquid intake to determine whether these changes affected outcomes.

Children with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder may refuse to consume an adequate variety and/or volume of food to maintain expected growth and cognition (APA, 2013). They can consume food by mouth but may actively (e.g., turning head, hitting spoon) or passively (e.g., clenching mouth while sitting still) refuse to escape or avoid eating. Behavioral interventions like positive reinforcement and stimulus fading with escape prevention have been shown to increase consumption and decrease refusal in these children. However, sometimes these interventions are insufficient, especially in treating passive refusal. In these cases, physical guidance procedures may be utilized to prompt an open mouth to deposit food. Research indicates that these procedures are effective and rated as acceptable. However, additional research is warranted as these interventions may be conceptualized as punishment and should be used only if necessary (BACB, 2014). This study replicated an existing physical guidance procedure, the finger prompt (Rubio et al., 2020), and compared its efficacy and acceptability to that of a clinically utilized procedure, a spoon prompt, not yet empirically evaluated. This study further extended research by defining and measuring passive refusal as a dependent variable and assessing social validity among different stakeholders and time points.

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is the psychiatric diagnosis for feeding disorders, and requires the failure to achieve proper weight gain, presence of nutritional deficiencies, dependence on eternal or oral supplementation, and/or psychosocial factors such as increased stress in caregivers (DSM-5). The recognized standard of care for chronic and severe pediatric feeding problems is intensive multidisciplinary intervention including psychology, nutrition, medicine, and speech-language pathology/occupational therapy; the most common treatment component being behavioral intervention (Sharp et al., 2016). Recent evaluation of our intensive multidisciplinary program yields positive outcomes such as increases in acceptance and swallowing of new foods, reductions in problematic mealtime behaviors, a high percentage of goals met during the child’s admission, and high caregiver satisfaction across clinical presentations of ARFID (i.e., tube dependence/food refusal and severe food selectivity; Sharp et al., 2020; Volkert et al., 2021). This paper extends the analysis of outcomes for subtypes of ARFID by considering race and ethnicity. A closer examination of these outcomes may illuminate disparities and therefore assist in the identification of steps to enhance program outcomes.

Within the human service industry, often a diversity of professionals with various backgrounds, training, and credential come together to support individuals. This diversity can create more specialized treatment for the individuals they support but also may create difficulty when working to support individuals. Collaboration with all levels of professionals working with our clients and stakeholders is essential to ensure ethical and inclusive practices for all consumers of behavior analysis. The papers presented here represent a behavior analytic approach to measuring collaboration as it relates to ethical and inclusive practice. Included here are the results of an inclusive team collaboration model implemented in a special education school that includes direct instructional staff to increase staff and student performance, the results of a survey of behavior analysts and other professionals that collaborate with behavior analysts on collaboration and the use of soft skills, the results of surveys of students and faculty of behavior analysis on inclusive practices within their experiences in higher education as it relates to inclusivity and belonging, and the results of an ethical decision making model as it relates to both behavior analysts and registered behavior technicians.

Intermediate audience is required. Those who supervise or teach behavior analytic programs are recommended. Experience with supervision and collaboration of staff members across domains and at various levels of education would assist in comprehension of material presented.

There is a substantial body of research on the importance of providing frequent opportunities to respond (OTR) to increase learning outcomes for students. In special education classrooms with multiple treatment providers, treatment coordination to ensure that these opportunities are provided can be complex and challenging. This paper will discuss an intervention designed to increase the opportunities to respond for 3 students in an autism classroom in the context of a multiple-baseline design. An inclusive team model, involving weekly scheduled meetings with the direct instructional staff, the classroom teacher, clinical team members, and a lead BCBA-D interventionist was implemented. The results showed that collaborative goal setting, nondirective consultation, feedback, and reinforcement strategies implemented at the meetings were effective in increasing OTR to IEP programs. The positive role of team collaboration was reflected in acceptability surveys, where direct care staff rated the team discussions as the most helpful treatment component.

Scientifically established, effective treatments for autism are based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. With the increasingly high prevalence of autism and growing demand for effective behavioral interventions, now, more than 70% of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) certificants work in professional areas specific to autism. However, given the complex symptomatology and dynamic interaction of the deficits associated with autism, treatment from an array of professionals, each representing different disciplines and specialties within medicine, education, and allied health is typically warranted. Therefore, to best meet the various needs of individuals on the autism spectrum, behavior analysts will often be required to work collaboratively with professionals from other disciplines and must acquire the skills to do so effectively. To learn more about these collaborative relationships and identify opportunities for further education and training, we surveyed behavior analysts and professionals from other disciplines including speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, educators, administrators, and psychologists. Overall, participants agreed that continued collaboration was useful although the results indicate challenges in collaboration and disparities in reported perceptions and experiences. These findings, as well as ideas for fostering better collaboration will be reviewed.

Recent events have confirmed the need for behavior analysis to attend to issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in service provision and in higher education. This leads to a call to action to increase cultural responsiveness and cultural humility in training opportunities for students of behavior analysis and practicing behavior analysts. In order to ensure that training opportunities for students and staff appropriately address these issues in the field, surveys were developed and deployed across an ABA department of higher education to assess the effects of various initiatives taken by the department to increase inclusivity and belonging. The surveys identified areas of growth for the department and serve as ongoing assessments for inclusivity and belonging within the department and the higher education institution as a whole.

Organizations may commit to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, but getting from a simple commitment to real actions takes work. This panel consisting of behavior analysis state chapter leaders will explore what it takes to truly commit to actions rooted in increasing diversity, expanding inclusion, and fostering equity beyond a simple addition to their mission statement. Based on your questions, our chair, who serves as the Diversity Equity & Inclusion Coordinator for District ABA, will lead us through a conversation with chapter leaders from Arizona, South Carolina and Virginia, that will explore steps taken, successes achieved, road bumps encountered, strategies considered, future plans, and what behavior analytic principles helped guide their way. If you have considered diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, do not miss this opportunity to learn from others who have already started creating organizations rooted in values and committed actions to create diverse and inclusive communities that create paths of equity in our field.

Behavior analysts with at least 1-2 year of experience and who are in, or moving into, leadership positions within their organizations.

In 2021, ABAI President Carol Pilgrim issued a call to action for Behaviour Analysts to examine discourse on ABA and DEI to assist us in finding solutions to current social issues. In this symposium, we are pleased to present three studies using different approaches to analyze discourse relating to ABA. The first study examined the sentiments expressed about ABA on Twitter related to the hashtags #ABA, #BehaviorAnalysis, and #appliedbehaviouranalysis. The second study examined the sentiments and themes expressed in TikTok videos related to the hashtags #ABA, #ABA Therapy, #AppliedbehaviorAnalysis and compared these across speaker groups including autistic adults, families, non-ABA professionals, and ABA Professionals. The third study analysed the abstracts of DEI related presentations at ABAI over a four-year period and reports on themes and trends over time. These studies offer opportunities to reflect on the content of the discourse surrounding ABA and to consider recommendations on ways behaviour analysts might influence that discourse within and outside of our field.

Behaviour Analysts interested in learning more about the nature of discourse surrounding ABA on social media, how it has changed over time, and how our inside (ABAI) efforts with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion have evolved, and must continue to evolve to change the narrative inside and outside our community. Researchers and graduate students interested in the use of different qualitative methods to examine discourse.

Discourse surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have become part of an expanding and evermore present narrative about how to improve practices within Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). As suggested by Dr. Carol Pilgrim, in her 47th ABAI Presidential address, “wouldn’t it seem good to know the nature of this discourse, and be able to follow its development”? This project aimed to describe the changing discourse and the development of DEI at the ABAI Annual Convention since the inception of the DEI subcommittee in 2019. A descriptive analysis provided an overview of the events labelled as DEI, by identifying the frequency of presentation types, domains, and program areas. A summative content analysis was conducted on abstracts labelled as DEI (N = 488) and explored the areas of diversity (e.g., age, gender, disability, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality) and dimensions of diversity (e.g., recognizing discrimination and diversity, and cultural humility), equity (e.g., systematically addressing barriers and individualized accommodations), and inclusion (e.g., cultural competence and creating space). This presentation will provide an overview of the current state of practices and gaps between ABA and the movement toward more inclusive, equitable, and diverse practices.

Applied behavior analysis has been demonstrated as effective for addressing a wide variety of socially significant issues across many populations and contexts. Yet many marginalized populations continue to be underserved and understudied. This symposium will cover a range of methods in which behavior analytic methodology may be used in the assessment and treatment of justice-involved youth. The first presentation will describe recent prevention and intervention strategies for juvenile sex trafficking (JST) within the child welfare system. The second presentation will describe a contingency management system used within a juvenile residential treatment facility to improve staff-implemented strategies for improving behavior within the facility. The final presentation uses conditional probabilities to evaluate periods of increased likelihood of challenging behavior displayed by adolescents within a juvenile residential treatment facility. Implications and future directions within juvenile justice will be discussed.

Participants should be licensed, certified, or are completing coursework to fulfill BCBA eligibility requirements.

Treatment of problematic behavior often begins with functional assessment. However, in many contexts, not all components of functional assessment are possible. That is, components of functional assessment (e.g., functional analysis) may not be feasible ethically or logistically in contexts where problematic behavior is infrequent, presents substantial risk to staff members, or both. In these contexts, behavior analysts may use indirect assessment alone to identify environmental conditions that give rise to problem behavior. Such assessments may inform treatment plans, even when the function of the behavior is unclear. The present study is a descriptive assessment of behavioral data collected by dormitory staff at a juvenile residential treatment facility. We used conditional probabilities and statistical analyses to identify setting events (e.g., days of week, time of day) that predict likelihood of problematic behavior. The findings allow clinicians and administrators within the facility allocate resources strategically to prevent and respond to problematic behavior effectively. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

This paper will provide an initial framework for the behavior analysis of organizational justice as operant classes of behavior. Its purpose is to provide tools to expand current research and offer insight. The three universal goals of science are description, prediction, and control. Though it has been studied intently for 40 years, the research has provided a comprehensive description of Organizational Justice. Yet, the evidence for explaining the phenomena and mechanisms to control variables remain largely unidentified. This paper will deconstruct Organizational Justice from its current findings to its basic definition of fairness. We will then offer a conceptualization of the behavior processes involved, define target behaviors, and offer possible methods of analysis and critical areas of study to help further research into the topic.

Although behavior analysis has contributed substantially to the understanding and study of learning in humans, cultural influences and issues of inequity are understudied. With major organizations within our behavior analytic discipline turning focus to implementing practices which seek to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the empirical study of interventions promoting inclusive practices becomes imperative. The current symposium contains research on empirically evaluating interventions to promote DEI. Several talks comprised of research on increasing knowledge and fluency of DEI terminology using a SAFMEDS procedure, understanding stereotype threat on performance, as well as interventions (e.g., self-monitoring, task clarification) for increasing inclusive practices for transgender and gender non-conforming populations will be covered. Although the research presented will discuss applications to specific marginalized populations, extensions will be made to applications beyond the participants included in the present research. Finally, discussion of current and future directions related to clinical ethics, inclusive of DEI practices, will occur.

all people

Promoting diversity and inclusion can impact a variety of different groups. Many organizations rely on various training methods to help ensure diversity in the workplace. However, little research has compared the effects of different training approaches on increasing recall of specific cultural terms. Thus, the present study employed an adapted alternating treatment design to explore the effectiveness of two different training approaches. A SAFMEDS training model was compared to a traditionally-applied computer-based instruction, to determine which is more efficient at promoting cultural fluency. The number of correct definitions for diversity terms across various demographic categories served as the dependent variable. Participants mastered a higher number of diversity terms when trained with SAFMEDS, compared to the computer-based instruction procedure. During maintenance sessions, participants exhibited sustained performance. SAFMEDS may be ideal for improving precision when training terms to be used in conversations about diversity, and culturally-related topics. These skills will aid in building more culturally-relevant social skills that include more complex responses.

Proper pronoun use towards Transgender and Gender Non-conforming (TGNC) populations have been associated with a significant reduction in suicide attempts, yet only about 20% reported having their pronouns respected by all or most people (The Trevor Project, 2020). The present study sought to increase proper pronoun usage in two graduate student participants in a simulated work task. The initial intervention was a general inclusionary statement (referred to as subtle cue) and was followed by usage of behavioral self-monitoring (BSM) of proper pronoun usage. Results show the general inclusionary statement to be ineffective in increasing usage of proper pronouns but found BSM to be effective in changing behavior immediately and for a sustained effect. The implications for the present study are the need to pinpoint specific inclusive behaviors to target for behavior-change, and how BSM may be one approach to increasing inclusive behaviors.

This symposium is intended to advance efforts by behavior analysts to increase the prevalence of communities that nurture the wellbeing of all their residents. The symposium will present four papers that are intended to illustrate the progress that is possible if we invest in community interventions, particularly in communities of greatest disadvantage. The first paper argues that community interventions can be the critical building block for evolving more nurturing societies. It outlines what a comprehensive approach to assisting communities in addressing their most pressing problems can look like. The second paper will focus on approaches to youth violence prevention and will discuss use of the socioecological model to inform community intervention across levels to affect not only violence prevention, but also structural determinants influencing violence including racism. The third paper describes that things that can be done to reduce tobacco use in communities. The fourth focuses on how communities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our discussant will consider how this work can contribute to evolving a more nurturing society.

Basic

Justice, equity, diversity, inclusion (JEDI) and related issues have started to receive more attention in behavior analysis circles, including publications in behavior analysis journals about diversity and representation, antiracism, and cultural competence. To date, behavior analysis publications have been focused in two areas: cataloging demographic information from author bylines or the parts of Method sections that describe participants, and JEDI-oriented guidelines, frameworks and recommendations for clinical practice. Basic behavior analysis research is not immune from discriminatory practices, and basic behavioral scientists are not exempt from doing the work needed to ensure that behavior analysis is open to anyone. On the contrary, this kind of justice is one of three basic principles outlined in the Belmont Report for the protection of human subjects of research and one of five general principles in the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Code. Presentations will explore how JEDI principles can be meaningfully implemented in research involving student researchers and with animal research subjects, interrogate broader obligations to prospective behavioral scientists, and consider intersections between JEDI principles and culture responsiveness.

Students, Researchers, BCBAs

Dr. Shrinidhi Subramaniam is an Associate Professor in Psychology at California State University, Stanislaus and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Dr. Subramaniam received her PhD in Psychology from West Virginia University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She teaches courses in applied behavior analysis, research methods, ethics, and addiction treatment, and mentors graduate students in their thesis research. Dr. Subramaniam’s research applies behavior analytic principles to solve problems like addiction, unemployment, and poverty in her community. Currently, she is the co-PI for Wellness WORKs!, a holistic health education program for CalWORKs participants in San Joaquin County. In addition to this work, she has published over 20 manuscripts and chapters across broad research interests. These publications include clinical studies evaluating the effectiveness of behavioral interventions like incentives and education, and basic and translational studies exploring processes underlying human decision making such as choice and temporal learning. Dr. Subramaniam is an Associate Editor for The Psychological Record, is on the editorial board for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and serves as the Board Secretary of the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior. She was the Association for Behavior Analysis, International’s 2022 recipient of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Early Career Impact Award.

Operant behavior is strengthened or weakened by consequences that vary in terms of magnitude, quality, and variability. An individual’s history of reinforcement and punishment are therefore important in predicting behavior, and this includes choices people make in each moment of time. When people choose between immediate and long-term consequences, important factors include time constraints, training history, and magnitude and probability of threat versus avoidance of threat/aversive outcome. Within the criminal justice system, there are interlocking behavioral contingencies working at the meta level that involve the interplay between groups of people undergoing a variety of these factors. The factors shape the individual and collective behavior of citizens, police officers/law enforcement, lawyers, judges, etc. In this presentation, we will focus on a model of how the interlocking behavioral contingencies intersect, and why behavioral skills training is important.

Functional communication training is a widely used treatment for challenging behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As more students with ASD are being served in educational settings, it is essential to understand and evaluate the evidence base of FCT in educational contexts. Fortunately, the number of systematic reviews of FCT has increased in recent years. Research is now needed to synthesize these findings to inform future research and evaluate the evidence base for this practice as a whole. This evaluation should focus on how FCT has been applied in educational contexts, under what conditions, for whom and by whom, and with what outcomes. This mega-review synthesized five reviews of FCT for children with ASD in educational settings. Data on participant characteristics, educational setting variables, FCT components and implementation, and outcomes and conclusions from each review are synthesized and discussed. Methodological rigor of each review was evaluated using A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews Revised (AMSTAR 2). This is the first mega-review to evaluate FCT in educational settings for children with ASD. The state of evidence for FCT in educational settings will be presented with implications for research and practice will be presented.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of behavioral intervention package of an adult with autism and severe behavioral problems. The subject of this study was an autistic adult with low verbal ability, and displayed a high rate of self-injury (i.e., slapping his face, scratching neck, bumping head), hitting others and destroying objects during his high school period. After being referred to the behavioral training center of university in central Taiwan, the functional behavioral assessment was conducted and the behavioral intervention strategies were developed based on the underlying function, including the adjustment of antecedent stimulus, teaching functional equivalence behaviors to replace problem behaviors, combining with mand training for establish his communication ability. A variety of activities were trained to help the adult to regulate his high arousal emotion. The activities included folding paper, throwing ball, throwing sandbags, poking fun, pinching a ball, drumming, etc. The results showed improvement in reduction of problem behaviors and positive increases of adaptive behaviors. The findings of the study support the need of functional behavioral assessment (including functional analysis) prior to intervention, and the behavioral intervention package did show positive improvement and highly beneficial to the subjects. The social validity data also displayed favor outcome for this research.

Reddit, the sixth most used internet site in the world, is a public anonymous user-generated social media discussion platform. The present data exploration sought to use machine learning methodology to define and identify converging and diverging patterns and insights into autism-related discussions on Reddit across three different categories of subreddits: individuals who self-identify as being on the autism spectrum, parents of individuals on the autism spectrum, and behavior therapists. Using the R package RedditExtractoR (Rivera, 2022), we extracted comments from these communities. We trimmed our data set to only consider the past five years (i.e., 2017-2022). Next, basic preprocessing (i.e., removing stopwords, numbers, html tags, and bot account comments) and advanced preprocessing (i.e., lemmatization), were initialized. Our extraction resulted in 57 subreddits and 46,914 comments from autism spectrum subreddit members, 46 subreddits and 27,838 comments from parent subreddit members, and six subreddits with 3,163 comments from behavior therapist subreddit members. Analyses revealed some overlap, but mostly differences, between these three subreddit community categories. Further analysis of these discussions has the ability to highlight areas of overlap and dissonance, with regard to both content and sentiment, across these communities on the topic of autism, which may identify avenues for future exploration of targeted research questions.

Applied Behaviour Analysis is most recognized in its application to children with autism. However, ABA provides behavioural supports to several other populations. Behaviour Analysts are tasked with building capacity, providing education, and championing advocacy efforts with populations who would benefit accessing much needed behavioural interventions. With the number of Board-Certified Behaviour Analysts seeing a 7,317% increase from 2001-2021, the duty lies within the growing profession to ensure that the application of the science of behaviour analysis is effectively disseminated, particularly amongst gerontological populations. A literature review was conducted to determine the current presence, gaps, and needs when considering the practice of behaviour analysis within gerontological supports, specifically amongst seniors with dementia. Behaviour analysis is scarcely present within this realm of support, with much literature and research indicating that gaps can continue to be filled with the growing practice of the science. Behaviour analysts can contribute to the holistic, person-centred approach to care when supporting seniors with a diagnosis of dementia. Through this literature review, current applications were examined, along with considerations around the presence of other allied clinicians within gerontological supports to determine how behaviour analysts can continue to be recognized as crucial members of this network of support.

Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders (ASD/NDD) are prone to challenging behavior that can escalate into behavioral crises potentially requiring the involvement of first responders to deescalate the situation. Research indicates that 20% of individuals with ASD/DD have an encounter with police officers by their late 20s as compared to 10.8% of similarly aged neurotypical individuals. Families of individuals with ASD/DD who engage in challenging behavior already experience numerous burdens, consequently these families need to be able to rely on emergency services when needed. In study 1, we examined whether caregivers reported differential use of first responder services based on their child’s demographic characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, etc.). In study 2, we conducted a thematic analysis of outputs from focus groups conducted with caregivers who sought assistance with managing their child’s behaviors during a crisis and also conducted interviews with first responders whom had a history of responding to a family with a child with ASD/DD. We will present study findings, discuss clinical implications, and present areas of future research.

Children with intellectual disabilities can display deficits in intellectual functioning (e.g., academics, problem solving), adaptive functioning (e.g., social skills, communication), and emotional regulation (Ting & Weiss, 2017). Although displayed differently across children, those with intellectual disabilities may communicate by engaging in challenging behavior or may display behaviors more indicative of a mental health diagnosis (e.g., anxiety, depression) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These deficits can significantly affect both the child and family’s quality of life and overall well-being (Gadow, DeVincent, & Scheider, 2008). To support the child and their family, developing co-regulation skills is imperative. The purpose of this case study was to compare the use of extinction with differential reinforcement to the teaching strategy known as “Cool Versus Not Cool” to see its effects on the frequency of aggression. The results of this study showed aggression decreased in intensity and remained decreased across increased number of days with the addition of the “Cool Versus Not Cool” procedure compared to the use of extinction with differential reinforcement. This study demonstrated the need to take an interdisciplinary approach when developing or implementing behavior support plans.

Behaviour support plans (BSPs) provide intervention details within an objective structure. The rationale for a BSP may be well understood; however, quality evaluation is less established and limited in terms of standardized or validated measures. The Behaviour Intervention Plan Quality Evaluation, Version II (BIP-QEII; Browning et al., 2013) is one measure used within the Australian context. The BIP-QEII offers a broad determination of BSP quality according to requirements of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) but omits some features of a nonlinear, multielement framework. The current study presents an evaluation of BSPs (n = 265) using the BIP-QEII from a NDIS-registered positive behaviour support organisation. As an organisational practice, BSPs are submitted for scoring; then feedback is provided for required edits. Results show an average score of 17/24, with a majority of BSPs meeting criertia for “good” or “superior” plans (n = 145). Additionally, results suggest improvements in measure domains that better support multielement, progressive and contextual behavioural intervention. Results of the BIP-QEII evaluation and proposed edits for a BSP measure will be discussed. Enhanced evaluation of BSPs using a multielement framework could improve service delivery of behaviour support across settings and contexts with universal, best practice consumer considerations.

Children with developmental disabilities often mouth nonedible items; this is problematic as it can increase risk for illness or ingestion. Function-based assessments and intervention are considered to be the gold standard method to treat this type of problem behavior (Dunlap & Fox, 2011); this includes the implementation of a functional analysis to identify the maintaining consequences of problem behavior and then developing an effective intervention based on those results (Ledford et al., 2018). Differential reinforcement of discarding nonedible items has proven effective in decreasing pica (Schmidt et al., 2017); however, it is unknown whether this intervention would be similarly effective for decreasing mouthing. Therefore, the current study sought to extend research on discarding of unsafe items with a child with a history of severe mouthing that had resulted in ingestion of cloth material. A functional analysis was conducted to identify the variables maintaining mouthing, results of which suggested it was maintained by automatic reinforcement. He was then taught a clean-up response to appropriately put away unsafe mouthing items when he was alone, and competing stimuli were available to compete with mouthing. Results showed these procedures to be an effective intervention in reducing mouthing.

Punishment, the contingent addition or removal of a stimulus which decelerates a target behavior(s), is pervasive within society. Although punishment is pervasive, limited research has been conducted on how it is used within clinical applications of behavior analysis. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a systematic literature review of punishment. We searched ERIC and PSYCINFO using the search terms “punisher” and “punishment”. We then narrowed down the sample to articles that were published in behavior-analytic friendly journals. For our final analysis, we included articles which demonstrated applications of punishment with human participants targeting socially significant behaviors. We analyzed data on multiple variables such as participant demographics, specific punishment procedures, the information surrounding their usage, and their findings. Additionally, we collected data focused on ethical and best practice considerations related to punishment, such as concurrent implementation of extinction and reinforcement interventions. Implications for clinical practice and research are discussed.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the leading cause of motor impairment in children. Problem behaviors, including disruption, aggression and stereotypy are commonly observed in children diagnosed with CP. Applied research aimed to reduce or eliminate problem behaviors in this population is scarce. This study describes the assessment and treatment of problem behaviors for three children with CP. For one participant, the targeted behaviors were scratching and biting, which were maintained by access to tangibles and escape from physical contact. A functional communication training (FCT) procedure was effective to eliminate problem behaviors and to establish an alternate response. For the second participant, a FCT procedure was effective to eliminate spitting, which was maintained by peer and teacher attention. For the third participant, the targeted behavior was hand mouthing, which was maintained by automatic reinforcement. A response interruption and redirection (RIRD) procedure resulted in low levels of hand mouthing when compared to baseline. Results show the generality of the FCT and RIRD procedures to decrease problem behaviors in children with CP. The results will be discussed in terms of the positive impact that behavioral interventions had for the children, their families and care providers.

For adults with diagnoses that require attendance in a day program (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, brain injury), participation in physical activity can have several benefits including increasing social skills, on-task behavior, and reducing maladaptive behaviors (e.g., Elliot et al., 1994; Kunzi, 2015). There are several studies evaluating procedures for increasing engagement in physical activities for children; however, few studies have assessed these procedures with adults (Eun-Young et al., 2021). Strategies for increasing engagement in physical activity for this population are warranted. The purpose of this study was to compare engagement during video-based yoga, a physical activity involving several body movements, across two different presentation modalities (i.e., virtual reality (VR) and television screen). Participants included four adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or brain injury. Utilizing an alternating treatment design, we measured engagement in yoga across both presentation modalities. Results indicate that all participants consistently engaged in the yoga activity during more intervals when yoga was presented using VR compared to a television screen.

Preference assessments are often used by clinicians to identify potential reinforcers for behavioral interventions. However, some stimuli may be particularly difficult to assess due to their unique properties. For example, clinicians may find it difficult to assess forms of attention as they cannot be easily arranged into common preference assessment modalities, such as paired stimulus or multiple stimulus assessments. We used a concurrent operant arrangement to evaluate various forms of attention that could function as a reinforcer for an autistic child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who exhibited severe aggression. Eight forms of attention were assessed based on anecdotal reports and direct observations. The forms of attention assessed were reprimands, praise, ignore, item removal, immediate physical guidance, two-step prompting, physical attention, and play. The session room was divided into three sections. Theses sections included a neutral zone where no attention was delivered and two zones where different forms of attention were assessed. Through the concurrent operant arrangement, we found the most preferred forms of attention were item removal, play, and immediate physical guidance. We observed the lowest levels of aggression with item removal, play, and praise. Our findings support the use of concurrent operant arrangements to assess preferred forms of attention.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate a effect of behavioral consultation aimed at staff training and behavioral support was conducted with kindergarten teachers at six private kindergartens. Eleven teachers were included in the study (aged 27-53 years, mean length of service 11.2 years). A total of 24 children with neurodevelopmental disorders (ND-Child) were in the teachers' charge. Consultations were provided via telehealth technology. The frequency was once every three months for four hours. The independent variable, consultation, consisted of three parts: 1) analysis of the ND-Child's behavior, 2) evaluation of the teachers' support skills, and 3) advice on how to behavioral support to the ND-Child. The dependent variables were A) the content of the functional analysis in the interviews about child-teacher contingency, II) Kindergarten teacher stress index and III) the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition(Vineland-II) scores of each ND-Child. Results showed that the teachers' functional analysis improved after three consultations using tele-health. In addition, the scores of Kindergarten Teacher Stress Index improved. Furthermore, each ND-Child's score on the Vineland-II (Communication domain and Socialization domain) improved significantly. These results suggest that tele-health consultations may improve teachers' support skills.

Functional communication training (FCT) involves introducing reinforcements for appropriate or desired communicative responses in lieu of existing challenging behavior(s). Identified as an evidence-based practice, FCT can be applied across multiple populations of students (e.g., autism, intellectual disabilities). Despite the laudable successes and extensive research support, FCT can be impractical or ineffective in schools, clinics or home settings if utilized with students who are from culturally, linguistically, or economically diverse backgrounds, and these cultural considerations are not included through all intervention stages. There is an identified need to develop an awareness and provide culturally responsive practices across the field of education. Participants will learn the impact of culture on behaviors in the home, school, and clinical settings, including implications for the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts. We present ethical obligations for culturally responsive practices, as well as framework, strategies and four detailed steps for implementing culturally responsive functional communication training when addressing challenging behaviors.

Students often complain about the amount of time it takes to do all the assigned tasks in different academic areas, both in high school and college. Increasing the amount of time spent studying, what is usually called "concentration," could help students make studying more efficient and effective. Self-management has been shown to be a useful approach to improving on-task behavior and, consequently, academic engagement of students with disabilities. This procedure involves teaching the individual various behaviors, such as self-assessment, self-correction, goal-setting, self-registration, and self-monitoring. There is a gap in the literature investigating the usefulness of self-monitoring for adolescents and adults in the typical population. In this study, a self-management procedure is applied to help a college student increase on-task behavior while studying. A changing criteria design was used to assess internal validity. The total study time increased from an average of 10 minutes to 190 minutes.

The purpose of this study was to compare the differential effects of mobile assistive technology (AT) loaded with visual activity schedules (VAS; pictures alone) compared to video activity schedules (VidAS; pictures linked to video models) to promote vocational independence and decreased reliance on adult supports for adolescents and adults with intellectual disability, with and without autism. Seven single-case multitreatment designs were used to assess differential effects between the two interventions when participants completed various vocational tasks. All participants were able to perform some of the task steps independently with both VAS and VidAS but demonstrated a greater increase in independence with self-instruction using VidAS than when only given VAS. Results suggest that incorporating VidAS into mobile AT can increase independence while decreasing reliance on additional adult support, suggesting that this could be a reasonable accommodation in school, work, and community settings.

This poster presents the result of a behavioral intervention aimed at improving reading and writing skills in students at a public school in Brazil. Thirty elementary school students (3rd to 5th grade) were exposed to the teaching procedures. The intervention used two of the four programmed units of a computerized teaching program previously developed by de Souza et al. (2009). These two units taught 27 of the 51 stimulus-stimulus relations from the complete program. The main tasks were conditional discrimination trials aimed to establish conditional relations between dictated words, pictures, and printed words. Furthermore, some trials were designed to establish conditional relations between written and dictated syllables. Two tasks, not directly taught, were used to assess the students’ repertoire, using a pre-test x post-test format: a) textual behavior and b) writing under dictation (Constructed Response Matching-to-Sample). The tests presented the words used in training plus a sample of novel words (to assess recombinative generalization). The comparison of the average percentage of correct responses in pre and post-test for each grade indicates an improvement in the reading and writing skills. Applications on a larger scale are recommended.

Functional communication training (FCT) is a well-established, evidence-based practice used to address challenging behavior among individuals across settings, ages, and disability categories. However, the research is limited on the implementation of FCT in inclusive school settings for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The purpose of this review was to summarize FCT intervention studies implemented in inclusive K-12 school settings for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We synthesized studies to summarize study characteristics, quality, and intervention effectiveness. Our findings suggest that FCT was most often implemented as part of a multi-component intervention package and delivered by educational team members. Further, the quality of most studies was either acceptable or strong. The overall effect size estimate for primary dependent measures as measured by Tau-U ranged from moderate to strong. We present implications for practice specific to educational teams that support the behavioral needs of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in inclusive settings and offer avenues for future research.

Gamification of education continues to experience a growth in applications and use. In the field of Behavior Analysis, gamification, specifically video gamification, of behavior analytic interventions remains an understudied but auspicious area of growth. Morford et al. (2014) outlined the intersection between behavior analysis and game design, noting the use of behavior analytic principles that appear in game design and operationally defining characteristics of game-playing. In addition, they provided a call to action wherein behavior analysts should study and pursue avenues of integrating behavior analysis into game design. The purpose of this poster is to demonstrate early stages of introducing simple behavioral interventions to change behavior into video games. Creation of games has come from a partnership of a service providing agency, StepOne Neurodiversity Services, and an established transformational game production company, Simcoach Games. This poster describes the efforts of the behavior analyst to disseminate applied behavior analysis to the Simcoach Games team and working with game design experts to produce prototype video games to be deployed as tools in a clinic and special education setting. In addition, future research on these video games in vivo settings is described.

Dr. Beaulieu earned her BS in Psychology from Florida State, her MS in Applied Behavior Analysis from Florida Institute of Technology, and her PhD in Behavior Analysis from Western New England University. She received training as a Clinical Specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Beaulieu is currently a District Behavior Analyst for Newton Public Schools in Massachusetts. She was previously an Associate Professor at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). Prior to her appointment at FIT, she founded and directed the Master's in Applied Behavior Analysis program at Regis College in Weston, MA where she earned tenure in 2017. She also held a faculty appointment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell's MS in Autism Spectrum Disorders program from 2011-2013. Dr. Beaulieu has been a practitioner and researcher in behavior analysis for 20 years across a variety of settings including public schools, clients' homes, residential psychiatric hospitals, and group homes with individuals diagnosed with and without disabilities. She has also consulted internationally with BCBAs on conducting functional analyses, improving cooperation with young children, and improving sleep.  Her research has been recognized by the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy, and in 2021 she received the Applied Behavior Analysis Award for Scholarly Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and. She currently serves on the editorial board for the journal Behavioral Interventions and has previously served on the editorial board for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.

Dr. Corina Jimenez-Gomez (she/her/ella) is an Assistant Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the University of Florida. She earned a Licensure in Psychology at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, and a doctoral degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis from Utah State University. She completed post-doctoral training at the University of Michigan and was a Research Fellow at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. She has held faculty positions at the Florida Institute of Technology and Auburn University. In addition, she served as clinical supervisor at The Scott Center for Autism Treatment at Florida Tech and was the Director of the Center for Autism Research, Treatment, and Training (CARTT) at Auburn University. Dr. Jimenez-Gomez is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst at the doctoral level, whose professional interests include translational and applied behavioral research in the areas of choice and reinforcement processes, the use of technology in ABA settings, caregiver and staff coaching, and cultural responsiveness in Behavior Analysis. Dr. Jimenez-Gomez has served as a reviewer for various scientific journals and is currently on the editorial board of the Perspectives on Behavior Science and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and is Associate Editor for Behavior Analysis in Practice. She is also the mom of two amazing humans and an elderly Labrador, and is married to a fellow behavioral scientist.

BCBAs (researchers and practitioners)

The field of behavior analysis has rightfully received troubling criticism since its application, particularly around the use of aversives for exerting stimulus control, instructional and otherwise. The practices in question emerge from analyzing the functions of discrete units of behavior, that do not capture the various context-behavior relations at any given moment that may be salient to an individual’s repertoire. However, some behavior analytic perspectives converge to focus on complex, nonlinear, and dynamic functional relations that can be characterized as aversive or appetitive to some degree. The present symposium will demonstrate the analysis of some socially significant practices necessary in the field of behavior analysis to mitigate harm. The first paper will introduce appetitive functional relations and their implementation in behavior analytic practice. The second paper will demonstrate the application of appetitive learning via an implementation of the enhanced choice model (Rajaraman, 2020). The third paper will provide an analysis of masking behaviors utilizing Goldiamond’s nonlinear contingency analysis (Layng et al., 2021). The final paper will discuss the development of a repertoire of cultural humility (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998) that embodies appetitive learning.

The audience must be familiar with basic behavior analytic concepts and principles. The audience must be able to understand behavior analytic terminology utilized in the talks.

The applications of applied behavior analysis for the intervention of people with developmental disabilities have received recognition across the United States of America and Canada. Nonetheless, many other countries across the globe still have limited availability in terms of country-specific research, the presence of advanced education, and access to specialized services. This situation is even more prevalent in developing countries where financial barriers and public health policies might impede the dissemination of behavior analysis as a science and evidence-based intervention. This symposium will provide an overview of behavior analytic research, education, and service delivery in developing countries worldwide. First, Carlos Santos will present a literature review of applied studies conducted with participants with autism in Brazil. Next, Meral Koldas will provide an overview of the dissemination efforts in education and service delivery in Turkiye. In the third presentation, Dr. Zhichun Zhou Ostlund will describe the service delivery model in China and discuss the cultural barriers commonly encountered by practitioners. Finally, Dr. Daniella Pizzella will review the applications of behavior interventions in South Africa and Sub-Saharan schools. Dr. Caio Miguel will serve as the discussant for this symposium.

The audience should understand research methods, credentialing requirements, and behavior interventions in different contexts.

The vast majority of research providing empirical support for the effectiveness of interventions based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) for people with autism has been conducted in the United States and Canada. The lack of diverse representation in ABA-based research can compromise the external validity of outcomes and the extent to which these intervention procedures are culturally sensitive to and equally effective for communities of diverse cultural backgrounds. Brazil is a country with a long tradition in the study of behavior analysis and basic research and currently has a large demand countrywide for behavior analytic interventions for children with autism. This literature review aimed to identify and analyze ABA-based research for people with autism in Brazil. We conducted a search in international and national databases using English and Portuguese keywords. We conducted reference and citation checks to identify additional articles that might not have appeared in the original search. Studies identified and included in the review were published in Brazilian and foreign peer-reviewed journals. We will present the findings in terms of journal language, participants' demographics, target behaviors and procedures, outcomes, and study quality. The implications for service delivery and policy change will be discussed.

The Republic of Turkiye has a unique geographic position as a transcontinental country in Asia and Europe on the Balkan Peninsula. About 6.9% of the total population in Turkiye, ages 3 years and older, have some type of disability, including autism (TUIK, 2021). Policies related to the intervention for individuals with disabilities typically involve meeting that population’s free health care in state hospitals and basic educational needs, such as 2-hour one-to-one therapeutic intervention weekly at rehabilitation centers. Evidence-based interventions based on applied behaviour analysis (ABA; Leaf et al., 2021) for children with disabilities are an emerging field in Turkiye. Currently, there are both institutional and clinical efforts to disseminate ABA-based technologies in agencies and schools across the country. However, considering the total number of individuals with developmental disabilities, including autism, the dissemination of ABA-based interventions nationwide is far behind the ideal level. This presentation will discuss the historical development of behavior analysis in Turkiye from an educational and service-delivery perspective.

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has been recognized as an evidence-based practice for people with autism and related developmental disabilities nationally and internationally. As a result, behavior analytic services and credentials have rapidly increased in the USA, and behavior analytic techniques have been translated from English to at least twelve languages, including Chinese. This presentation will delve into the practice of ABA in China, one of the non-English speaking countries. We will provide an overview of (a) the current number of ABA training programs and agencies offering ABA services in the country; and (b) the cost and duration of obtaining a Chinese version of behavior analyst credentials (undergraduate and graduate level). We then will look into the quality of ABA services and the ethical implications of ABA practice in China in general. We will end the presentation with a question: While we can translate the techniques and strategies of ABA to the Chinese language, can we truly implement the practice of ABA in the current social and cultural context in China?

Understanding factors that influence safety-related decisions can help us assess needs, identify barriers, specify targets, and improve measurements for interventions. Research methods from behavioral economics have been used to better understand a range of socially significant, health-related decisions associated with substance use, sex, medical treatment, suicide, and more. Recently, behavioral economic methods have been extended to additional domains, such as safety-related decisions of drivers and workers. A fundamental behavioral economic principle known as discounting describes a decrease in the subjective value of some outcome (e.g., health or money) as a function of an increase of some other parameter (e.g., time or probability). This symposium presents four applications of discounting to decisions concerning (1) seeking mental health services, (2) securing personal information, (3) texting while driving, and (4) implementing a safety solution in the workplace. Each of these studies contributes to our better understanding of behavioral economic principles that underly decision making with the goal of informing interventions that promote healthier and safer choices.

Recent social discounting studies have shown that individuals share less personal information as social distances between a person and the individual they can share with increases. However, personal information is not a tangible commodity like money that can be easily divided between individuals. That is, you still have possession of all of your personal information, even if you share it with another person. Thus, the economic utility (i.e., value) is questionable for personal information as a sharable commodity. One way to validate personal information as a sharable commodity is to ask how much an individual would pay to protect different types of personal information, and determine whether the amount they were willing to pay was inversely related to how willing they were to share that type of personal information. The current study tested this by asking participants to complete a social discounting for personal information task and an economic demand task asking about how much they would be willing to pay to protect different types of personal information. The results showed that there was an inverse relationship between sharing during the social discounting task and the economic demand task. That is, participants’ willingness to pay to protect their financial information (Figure 1) and willingness to share a certain type of personal information were inversely related (i.e., pay less to protect health information, but share more). These results help to validate personal information as a sharable commodity with value for individuals.

This competition is designed to encourage, promote, and reward behavior analytic scholarship on topics and issues in DEI, both in the field of behavior analysis and more broadly. Students (graduate or undergraduate) and post-graduate professionals who have completed empirical or conceptual papers relevant to DEI that are informed, at least in part, by a behavior-analytic perspective were invited to submit.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

The world saw a spike in available technology during the global pandemic of 2020 and schools led the charge to provide continued access to education from beyond the classroom walls. Teachers learned new ways of fostering engagement and students learned all kinds of new skills. Professionals found new ways of working together as colleagues who used to be down the hall - and found new colleagues across the country and the globe while battling unfathomable personal and societal adversity. The mantra of lifelong learning was on full display in education! Leveraging this increased openness and comfort with collaborating in virtual spaces, this diverse panel of colleagues and friends continues to work together remotely to serve communities with a wide range of social and ethnic backgrounds. These school-based BCBAs will share their experiences consulting with schools as they answer your questions. Join them to explore how they have met organizational and individual needs by expanding their use of virtual school-based consulting.

This session is appropriate for professionals who interface directly with the highly applied school setting. Basic understandings of behavior analysis and varied applications of principles will be assumed as part of this conversation.

A core concept within Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR), which describes the ability of verbally sophisticated humans to learn and respond in terms of relations among stimuli based on arbitrary cues applied to those stimuli, as opposed to being based on their formal, physical properties. Through conceptual analysis, this paper will argue the human capacity for AARR underlies many instances of how individuals justify the mistreatment of and lack of compassion toward a variety of living beings, both human and non-human. This phenomenon will first be demonstrated for the audience by incorporating their participation in absurd examples meant to clearly highlight the verbal processes of interest. From there, more subtle and nuanced examples drawn from contemporary culture will be considered, in order to draw attention to the seemingly “true” or “real” nature of our justifications for violence and lack of compassion toward others, while exposing them for the linguistic illusions they actually are. The implications for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts as well as potential remedies pointed up by the analysis will be discussed.

This panel will discuss ethical and cultural considerations when providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services to Latinx families in Mexico and the United States. The United States is diversifying at a fast rate. According to the 2021 Census data, 18.9% of the United States population are Hispanic, and Mexican account for over 60% of the Hispanic subgroup. Mexico is the third-largest country in Latin America and has the second-largest economy. In Mexico, a lack of medical and educational services is common, especially for families of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Panelists will share about the creation of a professional organization to disseminate the science of behavior analysis across Mexico and about the first behavior analytic organization in the United States formed to specifically address diversity of behavior analysts in the field of ABA. Results from a study that examined early intervention needs in the Mexican population and compared these needs to those in the Latinx Spanish-speaking population in the United States will also be discussed. Panelists will discuss their experiences, challenges, and lessons learned when providing ABA services to Latinx families. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and share their own experiences during this interactive panel session.

Audience members should minimally have the competencies and pre-requisite skills for a Board Certified Behavior Analyst as defined by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board 5th Edition Tasklist.

Ensuring quality of behavior analytic services internationally is crucial for the maintenance and development of the professional field, and thus for the wellbeing of all individuals served. This symposium will highlight various aspects of the current situation in Europe, where there is a lack of professional recognition of behavior analysts, and practice is often unregulated. A collaborative project between universities in six European countries will be presented, followed by specific examples from the Czech Republic and Italy. Challenges and efforts to support behavior analysts within the European context will be described.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students or any other individuals who are interested in an international, European perspective of the development of qualifications, training and credentials for behavior analysts.

Prior to 2016 applied behavior analysis (ABA) was relatively unknown in the Czech Republic. However, the region’s ABA community has grown exponentially over the last six years. This growth may be attributed to the work of families and professionals linked to the region’s autistic community. Unfortunately, this progress has not been without challenges. Along the way, there have been numerous vocal opponents in the fields of medicine, psychology, and other health professions that serve those with autism. Despite pushback from professionals fearful of losing their stake in the world of autism services, the headstrong ABA community has managed to: establish ABA professional organizations, hold ABA conferences, train various professionals in ABA, and pass laws surrounding the profession and its practice. This presentation shares the efforts of the region in developing professional qualifications and training, hoping that the experiences and actionable points here can help similar nations.

While the certification and credentialing system has a perfectly reasonable legal profile in US and Canada, it has not in other countries, Italy and other European countries among them. Educational pathways and accreditation to each state professional system can vary and take different form according to each National Qualification Framework . For example, in Italy practicing ABA intervention is within the scope of the profession of licensed psychologist or other healthcare personnel (speech therapist, neurodevelopmental technicians, etc.) when practiced within the Italian National Health Service or in centers subsidized by it. ABA interventions, if practiced in this scheme by other professionals, violate the law. In other terms, a credentialing system founded on rules and context of one country cannot be implemented in others. Based on the assumptions that behavioral principles are general, but professional and educational practices are context based, we will discuss the benefit of an international effort to offer a cross-country common platform based on: a. As broad as possible definition of BA professional competencies b. Acknowledge each country to act within the context of their university and professional systems. c. Assist those countries who, because of contingent needs, are not able to implement b.

Autism is prevalent in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, with 1 in 44 children aged 8 years or older receiving an autism diagnosis, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. However, minority groups are less likely than their white counterparts to be diagnosed with autism or as having speech delays. There are also disparities in the age that some minority children are diagnosed with autism, as well as the reported quality of care received. Studies found inequalities specific to autism diagnosis and treatment due to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status that limit accessibility of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income families (Lauer, 2013; Magaña, et al. 2012; Smith et al., 2020). The panel discussion will start with an overview of disparities in access to healthcare, funding, and access to services and three organizations will discuss initiatives aimed at reducing disparities in service access. The panelists will then answer questions discussing organizational resources for building a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) department, staff and client resources aimed at increasing service access, and recruitment strategies aimed at increasing the diversity of service providers.

BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, and Professional Psychologists should have experience in implementing programs in their own organizations, engaging with their communities, and using measurement tools to indicate organizational outcomes.

The field of Applied Behavior Analysis has been undergoing a shift towards increasing diversity, multiculturalism, and cultural humility in the past few years. A collective call to action was sent in 2019 in a special issue of Behavior Analysis in Practice, calling for increased diversity and representation within the field, from the institutional level down to practitioners and researchers. Articles, discussions, and reports have been published on increased attention to cultural humility towards clients and stakeholders, as well as practitioners. Little attention has been provided, however, to the diversity of Behavior Analysis Certification Board supervisees. Disability of supervisees has not yet been addressed in the field, and as practitioners and supervisors, it is critical to have the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to train and shape the behavior of supervisees with disabilities. The present paper reviews the literature, research, and best practices from the field of psychology; recommendations and examples of tools are provided to create a disability-affirming environment in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis.