Association for Behavior Analysis International

In recent years, behavior has been recognized as an essential piece in the constellation of components critical to the care of animals housed in zoos and aquariums. The science of learning has many applications in these settings, and behavior analysts have contributed to the advancement of evidence-based practices particularly in the areas of husbandry training, environmental enrichment, and animal welfare. In this presentation, I will describe some examples of the role of behavior in multiple aspects of animal care. Along the way, I will highlight some key questions for the application of behavior analysis in zoological settings, some examples of work that addresses these questions, and some areas in need of further development.

This presentation is appropriate for behavior analysts interested in the application of behavior principles to behavior management across settings, and particularly in zoos and aquariums.

Dr. Christy Alligood received an M.A. (2003) from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a Ph.D. (2007) from West Virginia University. She is also a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D). Dr. Alligood is a Lecturer at the University of Florida, where she teaches undergraduate courses in behavior analysis. In addition, since 2007 she has worked at Disney's Animal Kingdom® in Orlando, Florida. Much of her initial work focused on a multi-faceted conservation program for Key Largo woodrats, which received a Bean Award for Significant Achievement in Captive Breeding from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (2009) and a Federal Challenge Grant (2010) in collaboration with the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge for population monitoring work on Key Largo. Dr. Alligood now works with the Science Operations Team, where she focuses on using the science of behavior to enhance animal care. She is the secretary of the Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis and has recently served as At-Large Representative to the ABAI Executive Council, Coordinator of the ABAI Special Interest Groups Board, and co-coordinator of the ABAI Applied Animal Behavior Program Area.

The difference between curricula and pedagogy is highlighted best when we consider what we teach versus how we teach it. There exists an interaction between development and instruction such that instruction can only be effective if the educator considers the learner’s level of verbal development. The ways in which we teach must cater to the current verbal developmental cusps found within the learner’s repertoire. While the progression of instructional objectives targeted within a curriculum will change as the learner acquires the necessary prerequisite skills to move forward, attention should be placed on modifying the ways in which we teach those subsequent objectives. Research in the field of verbal behavior development has proven time and time again that the acquisition of skills can be accelerated if the method of teaching is consistent with the capabilities that the learner exhibits, i.e. the presence of verbal developmental cusps within their repertoire.

Educators, Practitioners, and Researchers

Historically, there has been a lack of awareness in Latin America regarding information about the real concept, validity, and benefits of applied behavior analysis not only for children with autism but also in the many facets of our lives. As such, Alcanzando, a not-for-profit organization was founded to address the need to change that reality in this region. For over a decade Dr. Chavez Askins has been successfully disseminating Applied Behavior Analysis in Peru, and other Latin American countries through evidence-based teaching, research, and the work of Alcanzando in general. This presentation will include not just the results regarding the implementation of services with children with autism, their families, and professionals interested in the field, but also in terms of the real and significant changes achieved working with the Peruvian government, and the gains towards awareness in Latin America in regards to Applied Behavior Analysis. Dr. Chavez Askins will share the progress made over the last 13 years, as well as address the barriers encountered, the solutions that were sought, and her vision for the future of our field in Latin America.

Professionals interested in disseminating awareness, as well as effectiveness of ABA at the international level, particularly in Spanish speaking countries.

Dr. Mapy Chavez Askins holds a Ph.D. from Teachers College Columbia University (New York) in Applied Behavior Analysis and the Education of Students with Behavioral Disorders.   She is currently the Founding Director of Alcanzando, a not for profit organization that works with children with autism and their families in Spanish-speaking countries.

Dr. Chavez Askins is a Peru´s first Qualified Behavior Analyst, a CABAS Board Certified Assistant Research Scientist, and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst at the Doctoral Level.  She is also a Board Certified Autism Professional, an Advanced Certified Autism Specialist, and a Board Certified Telepractice Specialist.

Dr. Chavez Askins has spent the last 20 years studying, working and conducting research in the autism field, focusing mainly in the use of applied behavior analysis in the education of children with autism.  For over a decade she has been successfully disseminating awareness and knowledge about Applied Behavior Analysis in Latin America through research, teaching, and through Alcanzando, the foundation she started.

Her research studies include the development of vocal language in children with autism, language acquisition, social skills instruction, the development of perspective talking skills, the quality of teacher instruction, and the education of parents and professionals. Results from her research studies have been published in numerous journals, as well as presented at conferences throughout the world, among them: the Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, the International Society for Autism Research, and the Mexican Congress of Behavior Analysis.

In an earlier paper (European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 2015, 16, 147-162), I argued that the grounds on which Watson rejected introspection as the means to understand consciousness were correct, that cognitive psychology rejected behaviourism for other reasons, and that the developments in monitoring brain activity have led to a very unsuccessful search for the neural basis of consciousness. In contrast, there is much evidence that behaviour does not necessarily require conscious awareness, but nevertheless philosophers and cognitivists seek to show that qualia exist and do have a causal role. Behaviour analysis can address some problems of the cognitive approach, beginning with an account of self-awareness. However, the behaviour-analytic account of consciousness requires experimental analysis. Where we have been most successful in applied behaviour analysis, we have learnt three major lessons: (1) Behaviour classes need to be refined and defined; (2) antecedents can be hard to specify, but must be identified for behaviour analysis; (3) Consequences are critical, but may be unexpected. While experimental studies from other areas of behaviour analysis are sparse, researchers in relational frame theory have examined the concept of self conceptually and through experimental studies of perspective taking. Some of their contributions to the behavioural study of consciousness will be reviewed. Finally, the similarities between the behaviour-analytic account of consciousness and those of other non-cognitive ones, including ecological psychology, will be pointed out.

Julian Leslie obtained a doctorate from Oxford University in 1974 and since has been in academic posts in Northern Ireland and a full professor since 1986. He published textbooks on behaviour analysis between 1979 and 2002 and these remain in print. Publications have been in fields including, experimental analysis of behaviour, applied behaviour analysis, psychopharmacology, behavioural neuroscience, experimental psychology, and applied psychology, and he has supervised PhD students in all these areas. Since 2015, he has spoken and published a series of papers on conceptual issues in behaviour analysis including behavioural accounts of consciousness and the metaphysical basis of behaviour analysis. He is a Fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and in 2020 received  the SABA Award for International Dissemination of Behavior Analysis.

A movement cycle is a repeatable unit of behavior. It specifies a starting position and a series of behavior-environment interactions that continue until the organism is back at the starting point and can begin the movement cycle again. The concept of the movement cycle was developed and refined by Ogden Lindsley, although he attributed the original idea to B. F. Skinner. Movement cycles were fundamental during the early development of precision teaching. They appeared on the Standard Celeration Chart and were used to define units of behavior. Although the concept of the movement cycle is central to the description of behavior, it has largely been forgotten by modern behavior analysts. In this talk, we will trace the historical roots of the concept of the movement cycle. Then, we will explore why movement cycles are still relevant from a theoretical perspective and how they can help you better understand the nature of reinforcement. Thinking in terms of movement cycles will give you a new perspective when defining units of behavior for measurement, planning out your teaching steps, and setting your criteria for reinforcement.

This presentation will be of interest to basic and applied researchers interested in mechanisms of behavior change and to practitioners who work in a variety of applied settings.

Jesús Rosales-Ruiz is an associate professor at the University of North Texas in the Department of Behavior Analysis. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1995, under the mentorship of two pioneers in the field of behavior analysis, Donald M. Baer and Ogden R. Lindsley. Jesús is one of the few scientists in the world studying animal training from both the theoretical and applied perspectives. He, along with his students, has greatly contributed to the understanding of the science and practice of animal training. Jesús also studies the antecedent control of behavior, generalization, behavioral cusps, fluency-based teaching, treatment of autism, teaching of academic behavior, rule-governed behavior and contingency-shaped behavior. He has served on several editorial boards, including the Journal of Precision Teaching, the European Journal of Behavior Analysis, and the International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy. He has also served as a reviewer for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Behavioral Processes, and PLOS ONE. Jesús is a fellow of the Eastern Psychological Association, a trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and a member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International.

Alarming epidemics in the medical profession include burnout of highly trained personnel and medical errors that are products of team dynamic related phenomena (stress, implicit biases inhibiting cooperation etc.). Equally alarming is the growing evidence of health outcome disparities resulting from bias in the healthcare settings. Medical schools are developing curricular elements that increase resiliency, self-compassion, cooperation, and empathy towards patients to combat these effects. The panelists will provide an overview of the long term interdisciplinary collaboration between University of Nevada, Reno Medical School (UNR Med) and Performance System Technologies (PST) Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, that has resulted in the developed assessment and training procedures for identifying and mitigating bias in physicians in training. The discussion will also include ways this interdisciplinary program may serve as an effective model for addressing bias in a variety of organizations.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Neda Etezadi-Amoli, M.D. is the Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Director of Medical Student Career Advising at University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. She helped develop the OB/GYN Clerkship for the medical school and has served as Clerkship Director. Neda joined the Implicit Bias Research Group in 2016 and has been working with Dr. Houmanfar and her team to develop implicit bias training for the third-year medical students in clinical rotations. Dr. Etezadi-Amoli is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and completed her residency training at the University of Texas, Southwestern, where she stayed on as faculty for two years, working with residents and medical students. She is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and completed the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics Scholars and Leaders program. Her interests include innovating medical education and interprofessional education and teamwork.

Ramona Houmanfar is Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Behavior Analysis Program at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). Dr. Houmanfar and members of her Performance System Technologies Lab at UNR co-founded the interdisciplinary cross campus partnership with Dr. Piasecki in 2012 to facilitate advancement of leadership objectives at UNR Med and promote graduate training in interdisciplinary science. Dr. Houmanfar’s established record of publication, and expertise in behavioral systems analysis and cultural behavior analysis have guided the interdisciplinary partnership with UNRMed and research associated with implicit bias, cooperation, situational awareness, decision making, and value based governance.   

Negar “Nicole” Jacobs is a Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.  She received her PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2003 and completed her internship at the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System.  After internship, she worked in the Addictive Disorders Treatment Program at the VA for 5 years, before leaving to pursue her true passion of teaching at UNR Med in 2007.  Dr. Jacobs has served as the Behavioral Science Coordinator for first-year medical students and is currently a Block Director for the Practice of Medicine in Year 1.  In 2016, she was promoted to a leadership position in the Dean’s Office, leading the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and became Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion in 2017. 

Dr. Jacobs’ research centers around the assessment of implicit bias and the development of practices to mitigate bias in medical students and faculty search and admissions committee members.  Dr. Jacobs’ Implicit Bias Research Group employs the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) with students and faculty, and has developed online and in person trainings to mitigate bias using Acceptance and Commitment Training.  She is currently collecting data to assess the impact of these trainings on students and faculty.  In the role of Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, Dr. Jacobs oversees institutional diversity and inclusion efforts, including working with the Assistant Dean for Admissions, Outreach and Inclusion to increase the diversity of medical students, working with the Associate Dean of GME to increase the diversity of residents and fellows, and spearheading efforts to increase the diversity of faculty at UNR Med.  She is also responsible for the diversity curriculum for medical students and works with clerkship and residency directors to develop additional content related to diversity.  She partners with all department Chairs and Unit leaders to advance initiatives related to diversity and inclusion in all areas of UNR Med, and has worked with central leadership to make strategic recruitment of faculty one of the main components of UNR Med’s next Strategic Plan.  She is also working with the Office of Faculty to develop a leadership training program aimed at URM faculty in order to increase retention and advancement. 

Melissa Piasecki, M.D. is Executive Associate Dean and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. As a senior member of the medical school leadership team, she co-founded an interdisciplinary cross campus partnership with Dr. Houmanfar in 2012 to advance the missions of the medical school through the application of Behavior Scientific principles. Dr. Piasecki received her M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. She completed psychiatry residency training at the University of Vermont and a Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship  at the University of Hawaii. Melissa is board certified in general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. Her interests include forensic psychiatry, education, neurobiology of substance abuse disorders, and the science of behavior change.

Behavior analysts are expected to lead treatment teams by training and supporting staff. However, many behavior analysts were not formally trained for such leadership positions. In this talk, I will address some of the common barriers supervisors face in their leadership roles and provide practical tips for efficient, effective leadership and supervision of staff.

Board certified behavior analysts

For years, the field of psychiatric genetics has focused on disease diagnoses; however, “our genes don’t seem to have read the DSM.”Instead, we have been encouraged to study basic dimensions of functioning (aka Research Domain Criteria, intermediate phenotypes or endophenotypes) using non-disease phenotypes in large population-based cohorts. Using this approach, we have now piled on hundreds of novel genetic loci associated with multiple complex phenotypes, which have been further utilized to elucidate the genetic basis of psychiatric diseases. The purpose of this talk is to review the use of non-disease phenotypes to elucidate and decompose psychiatric diseases. Impulsivity, which has been defined as “actions which are poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky or inappropriate to the situation, and that often result is undesirable consequences” (Daruna and Barnes 1993) is an endophenotype for a constellation of psychiatric diseases, including ADHD and substance use disorders (SUD). Dr. Sanchez-Roigewill present a series of studies to dissect the genetics of several forms of impulsive personality traits. This work will reveal strong genetic correlations between multiple measures of impulsivity and risk tolerance, and both ADHD and smoking and other SUD-related traits. Another examples of success come from the genetics of other non-disease phenotypes, namely the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, as proxies for alcohol use disorders. Dr. Sanchez-Roige will present a multivariate genome-wide association study of AUDIT phenotypes. This approach will uncover novel genetic effects which might have been obscured in traditional GWAS. This work will also demonstrate how a non-clinical phenotype, such as AUDIT, which has demonstrated to share a common genetic basis with alcohol use disorders but can be measured in much larger sample sizes, could serve as a complementary alternative to traditional ascertainment strategies for genetic studies. Lastly, Dr. Sanchez-Roige will close the talk by presenting a novel strategy to examine the multivariate genetic architecture of complex traits and diseases from the Externalizing Consortium – a collaborative effort that capitalizes on several large-scale GWAS with the goals of (a) estimating genetic correlations across externalizing phenotypes, which are associated with a constellation of co-morbid disorders and behaviors that are characterized by deficits in impulsive action, (b) identifying genes involved in a shared underlying liability to externalizing psychopathology versus genes that are unique to specific outcomes, and (c) increasing the predictive ability of polygenic scores for externalizing phenotypes and psychiatric, health and social outcomes.

Members interested in the biology (genetics, neuroscience, behavior) of psychiatric disorders, particularly substance use disorders, and related phenotypes, such as impulsivity.

Behavior analysts have been conducting research at the crossroads of drugs and behavior for over 70 years. They pioneered the idea that drug taking is behavior that is sensitive to its consequences. Their work has had an indelible influence on the substance abuse treatment research community, and has had a profound effect on US drug policy. Their work to develop interventions to promote drug abstinence began in the 1960s, and featured many exquisite demonstrations of precise control of drug taking by contingencies of reinforcement. In the 1990s Higgins and colleagues published a series of studies on voucher-based reinforcement therapy for cocaine use that sparked an explosion of research activity in contingency management as a substance abuse intervention. Since then, many contingency management researchers have dedicated substantial parts of their careers to the transfer of this behavioral technology to real-world practice. This work has been slow and difficult. The preponderance of these efforts have led to meetings in which administrators of one sort or another explain to the behavioral scientists all the many reasons why the most effective psychosocial treatment for substance use disorders ever devised just isn’t practical, and how they won’t be going forward with implementing any such intervention. But things are starting to change. The last decade has been filled with a host of great successes and promising developments. Barriers still remain, and access is still limited, but real contingency management services are finally available everywhere in the USA. This presentation will include an overview of the history of the development of contingency management intervention, discuss barriers to implementation, highlight recent successes, and ultimately focus on how mobile technology has been (and will continue to be) a crucial element in the dissemination of a life-saving intervention developed by behavior analysts.

Academics and practitioners with an interest in substance abuse treatment, remote/telehealth behavior intervention, or novel applications of behavior analysis.

Dr. DeFulio’s experiences in behavior analysis include provision of in-home services to children with autism, translational research on the development of reading skills in developmentally disabled adults, and conducting basic research on conditioned reinforcement in pigeons. Over the last 14 years, Dr. DeFulio’s research has principally focused on behavioral interventions for promoting drug abstinence and medication adherence. His most recent work involves delivering these interventions remotely, and includes collaboration with DynamiCare Health, Inc., a Boston startup that is dedicated to provision of contingency management services on a national scale. Dr. DeFulio has been the principal investigator on four NIH research grants and a co-investigator on many others. His most recent NIH grant project involves a smartphone-based approach to promoting entry into medication-assistant treatment in out-of-treatment opioid users. He was the 2014 recipient of the APA’s B.F. Skinner Young Researcher Award, and has served on the board of editors for JABA, JEAB and Perspectives on Behavior Science. He is also a former president of the Four Corners Association for Behavior Analysis. In June of 2015 he joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Western Michigan University, an internationally recognized institution for training and research related to Behavior Analysis, where he teaches a variety of behavior analysis graduate classes and mentors undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students.

Sociologists describe the racialization of social contexts (Du Bois, 1903) as a process by which human relationships to self and others, geographic locations, and social institutions are rigidly organized such that they produce and reproduce unjust social hierarchies. Skinner (1956) proposed a way of assisting social scientists to break “social contexts” into manipulable events, such as conditions of deprivation and aversive stimulation, reinforcers, and stimuli that evoke behavior that has produced reinforcers in the past. Haynes (2016) has similarly criticized the use of reified terms like “social context” and suggested a more complex analysis of verbal categorizations that reproduce social stratification. To date, few social scientists have made use of Skinner’s pragmatic toolset. Likewise, remarkably few behavior analysts produce scholarly, empirical, or social service outcomes in the area of social justice. In this panel, scholars from the perspectives of behavior analysis and sociology will discuss tools they might lend one another and potentials for future pragmatic and academic collaboration.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Corteneé Boulard is a behavior technician who is pursuing her Master of Arts degree in Professional Behavior Analysis from Florida Institute of Technology. Following the completion of this degree, she plans to obtain her certification as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She currently holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Missouri State University. Corteneé has been in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) for four years, and has loved every bit of it. She has worked with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in both the home and clinic-based settings and volunteered in Cape Coast as well as Accra, Ghana to apply ABA internationally. What she has gathered from her international experience is that the need for dissemination of ABA is great. Not only is she passionate about dissemination of ABA internationally, but she has a growing desire to disseminate ABA to at-risk youth within her community. Corteneé currently serves as a mentor (and “big sister”) to many youth in her community and has a passion for utilizing the science of behavior towards helping them reach successful outcomes.

Vanessa Bethea-Miller is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and PA Licensed Behavior Specialist. Vanessa is the founder of Bethea-Miller Behavioral Consulting and Shaping Tomorrow Child Care Services, an ABA-based daycare and preschool, and the co-founder of the ABA Task Force. She is also the author of “I Know What I Want to Be,” a sweet children's book about a young girl exploring different careers in science before deciding she wants to be a Behavior Analyst. Vanessa is pursuing her doctorate of philosophy in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and currently holds a Master of Arts in Applied Psychology with a concentration in ABA, a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice, and an Associate's degree in Business Administration. Vanessa has dedicated her time to working with children and adults with Autism and/or Developmental Disabilities, with or without a co-occurring mental illness. She is passionate about providing quality and effective ABA services to this population as well as children in need of behavior supports. In addition to this, Vanessa provides coaching and mentoring to other individuals starting their own ABA practices. Vanessa also teaches courses in behavior analysis at the college level. She has presented internationally on various topics such as the application of ABA to the juvenile justice population, implicit racial bias, etc. Lastly, Vanessa has utilized components of school-wide positive behavior support with an emphasis on behavior analysis and applied them to a juvenile detention center during a practicum experience.