Association for Behavior Analysis International

Misophonia is an understudied but relatively common learned respondent behavior condition, the impact of which ranges from annoying to debilitating. Misophonia is known as a condition where commonly occurring innocuous stimuli (e.g. chewing sound, specific voice) elicit anger and accompanying physiological responses which function as motivating operations for overt aggression, escape, and avoidance. Although there are many common misophonic stimuli, each person has a unique set of trigger stimuli. Misophonia has similarities with general sensory sensitivity which is common with autism, but is distinctly different. Misophonia was first identified and named by audiologists and has been considered a hearing disorder. Recently misophonia has come to be viewed as an anger disorder and the focus of psychologists and neuroscientists, however our research indicates the core of misophonia is a Pavlovian conditioned muscle reflex, so it may be more appropriate to view misophonia as a conditioned behavioral disorder. Once a misophonic respondent behavior develops, it generally strengthens with repeated exposure to the trigger stimulus and persists indefinitely unless there is an intervention to reduce the respondent behavior. One intervention that has been effective for misophonia is counterconditioning of trigger stimuli by paring a continuous positive stimulus with an intermittent trigger.

basic

Misophonia is a disorder in which specific innocuous stimuli trigger negative emotional and physiological responses. Reactions can range from annoyance to fight-or-flight. Commonly occurring triggers are oral and nasal sounds, but can be any stimulus. This study reports a successful intervention of a male high school student diagnosed with the primary educational classification of intellectual disability, a secondary classification of autism spectrum disorder, and speech and language impairment. Prior to intervention, the student was frequently triggered by vocal stimuli of one student, and he was continually removed from class due to aggressive and perseverative episodes towards that student. Pre-intervention rate of perseverative behavior was 12.3 times per hour. The intervention consisted of 10-30 minute counterconditioning sessions in a public education setting for three recorded trigger stimuli. Counterconditioning was accomplished by pairing continuous preferred stimuli (e.g., video or music) while the trigger played intermittently using the Misophonia Trigger Tamer app on an iPad. Staff observed overt behavior which indicated physiological responses after the trigger played and increased or decreased volume to maintain a minimal response. The intervention successfully reduced the misophonic respondent behavior, and the aggressive behavior extinguished. Preliminary post intervention rate of perseverative behavior is 0 times per hour.

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at increased risk for abuse, violence, and human trafficking. According to the Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA), trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion for commercial sex, or if the individual is under 18 years. Labor trafficking includes involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Individuals with disabilities may be targeted as they may be more isolated, be more easily manipulated and groomed or not be able to communicate what is occurring. Sometimes there are signs of abuse such as an increase in certain behaviors, difficulty at school, home or therapy and new behaviors not present prior. Considering that some children with disabilities are nonverbal they may not be able to communicate any abuse that may be occurring. It is vital to teach healthy and unhealthy relationships, appropriate and inappropriate touch, how to communicate an occurrence and who they should confide in. More research should be conducted with individuals with disabilities for identification, screening, and prevention. All clinics should include mandatory training for human trafficking and abuse prevention and identification. Collaboration with therapists and families is vital to increase training and reporting to reduce the rates of human trafficking in this population.

BCBAs, RBTs, anyone developing treatment plans and/or working with youth or those who may be at risk for abuse

Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often engage in challenging behaviors that require intensive intervention. Due to the lack of services for adults with ASD, their caregivers are often responsible for providing behavioral support. However, caregivers, including grandparents, often lack adequate training and have limited access to ongoing support from professionals that prevents them from providing high-quality behavioral intervention. Telehealth is a mechanism that can potentially increase access to effective intervention for adults with ASD and training for their caregivers. However, most telehealth research has been conducted with young children and their parents. There is limited research to support the use of telehealth as a mechanism for improving service delivery for adults and their caregivers. This study explored the effects of grandparent-implemented interventions on the challenging behavior of an adult male with ASD. Research staff used individualized telehealth training and coaching to teach a grandparent to implement two function-based behavioral interventions. Data were collected on the grandparent’s implementation fidelity of both interventions and on the challenging behavior of the adult with ASD. Results showed that both interventions resulted in low to moderate levels of challenging behavior and that telehealth training and coaching resulted in high levels of implementation fidelity.

Research supports parent-implemented, behavior-analytic sleep interventions to address sleep problems in children with autism spectrum disorder (Jin et al., 2013; Linnehan et al., 2021). Further, some research exists to support distance models of parent education and sleep intervention (Corkum et al, 2016). However, few studies directly assess parents’ ability to accurately implement sleep interventions (i.e., treatment fidelity). This limits our understanding of whether parents are implementing sleep interventions as designed and draws into question whether child behavior changes can be attributed to the interventions. As parents are typically the primary mediators of behavioural sleep interventions––and intervention success depends on the accurate implementation of the procedures and the consistency with which those procedures are implemented in the natural environment––this is a significant gap in the literature. The purpose of this concurrent multiple baseline design across participants study was to evaluate whether parents could accurately implement their child’s behavior-analytic sleep intervention. Four parent-child dyads were recruited. Behavioral skills training and nightly coaching support were provided to parents using a telehealth approach. Nightly coaching support was systematically faded. Results demonstrate that treatment fidelity increased for all participants. Interobserver agreement was above 80%. Clinical implications and future research recommendations will be discussed.

The roots of relational frame theory (RFT) can be traced back to an early conference paper on rule-governed behaviour in 1984. The seminal book-length treatment of RFT is now itself 20 years old. In that time the account has introduced many new terms, concepts and methods that would be unfamiliar to traditional behavior analysis. The current symposium presents four papers that involve critically reappraising this (RFT) work in an effort to determine its value, while also identifying ways in which to move forward. We argue that progress will likely involve being genuinely open to identifying potential weaknesses in analytic strategies, limitations in key concepts, and in a willingness to engage genuinely with alternative approaches to the study of human language and cognition within behavior analysis. Specifically, the four papers will consider (1) recent developments in the analysis of data from an RFT methodology, known as the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP); (2) the limited utility of the concepts of pliance, tracking and augmenting within RFT; (3) the use of a new framework in applied behavior analyses of language and cognition; and (4) the potential benefits of drawing on both RFT and Verbal Behavior Development Theory (VBDT) in the experimental analysis of human language and cognition.

A basic background in behaviour analysis is assumed.

Pliance, tracking and augmenting were defined as functionally distinct categories of rule-governed behavior in 1982. Since this time, however, the terms have rarely been used as the basis for conducting systematic experimental-analytic research, despite their theoretical centrality to the study of rule-governed behavior. 40 years later, it seems useful to reflect upon their place within the literature on the experimental analysis of human behavior, and relational frame theory in particular. In the current talk we evaluate their place within the literature and argue that they should be considered middle-level terms, which lack the relative precision of technical terms within the literature on relational frame theory (RFT). We explore the potential utility of conceptualizing rules as involving increasingly complex derived relational networks and focusing on various dimensions that impact such networks. Finally, we briefly consider a new program of research that has begun to take this approach in the context of up-dating RFT.

Demonstrating awareness of oneself and the states of others is argued to involve a highly complex behavior referred to as perspective taking. Before abstracting or inferring another person's perspective, one depends on a sufficient previously trained relational repertoire. The objective of the current study was to draw on the fundamental units of AARR, specifically with respect to deictic repertoires, using the MDML framework and explore a set of tasks to evaluate and train perspective-taking (PT). A set of non-arbitrary and arbitrary tasks were used to investigate relational repertoires at four levels of relational development (1-mutual entailment, 2-relational framing, 3-relational networking, 4-relating relations) for various generalised patterns of responding (coordination, difference, opposition, comparison, and hierarchy). Data from two children of similar developmental age (one with typical development and one with autism) were collected. The typical development child presented the expected level in abstract relations and showed success in the PT test. The child with autism initially failed the PT test but after an MDML-based intervention showed development in his relational repertoire and finally succeeded in the PT test. This study adds potentially valuable information about the minimal units required for deictic relational responding.

Conceptual developments in RFT, which have provided a general framework (Hyper Dimensional Multi-Level framework) and a dynamical unit of analysis (Relating, Orienting, and Evoking, ROE) have served to highlight clear points of contact and overlap between the analysis of naming and different levels and dimensions of derived relating, in general. Previous studies on naming have presented the object and its name simultaneously during both training and testing, and thus the training component may establish a transformation of function (ToF) directly between the object and the name. The aim of the current study was to test the emergence of speaker naming and entailed ToF with a non-simultaneous presentation technique and evaluate the effectiveness of Multiple Exemplar Training (MET) if deficits are observed. Five typically-developing toddlers participated in the study, and initially, none of the participants exhibited correct naming responses. Three participants received MET, which led to improvements in speaker naming for all. Of these, one needed additional training with simultaneous stimulus presentation trials. The remaining two participants were tested repeatedly, without MET, and did not show any consistent improvements in naming. The applications of the HDML framework to assess the strength of the levels/dimensions of naming are discussed.

Caregiver-mediated early interventions have demonstrated positive child and family outcomes for young children with, or at high likelihood of having, autism (Zwaigenbaum et al., 2015; Burrell & Borrego, 2012). Additionally, there is consensus that effective early intervention includes a caregiver component, including input in the development of treatment goals and priorities, identifying support for the family, and learning specific strategies to support their child’s development. However, many intervention providers working with children with autism and their families have limited training in how to partner with parents or how to coach them in the use of evidence-based intervention strategies. Recent research has identified key elements for caregiver coaching and engagement (e.g., Pellecchia et al., 2020). This presentation will examine the literature on effective coaching strategies and provide methods to increase caregiver partnership in the intervention process. The use of telehealth to deliver coaching will be examined.

Discrete trial teaching (DTT) is one of the most widely implemented interventions for children with autism and at the same time one of the most maligned. It can be an incredibly powerful tool and is an acknowledged key component in intensive early intervention for children with autism. But it is also the intervention that everyone loves to hate: “It is too rigid and formulaic…Behavior change does not generalize to real-world contexts…It is overly contrived and unnatural…It does not have curb appeal.” But we have to consider whether all these purported shortcomings are inherent in the DDT model or are they by-products of rigidly formulated or incompletely implemented translations of the model. This talk will propose a broader conceptualization of DTT that allows for flexible application along a number of relevant continua according to the readiness of the learner. It will be argued that while the structure that is commonly viewed as a defining characteristic of DTT and arguably a major contributor to its effectiveness can and should be varied according to the needs of the student. In other words, we should aim to provide the just right amount of structure. This flexible but systematic approach has been referred to as progressive (e.g. Leaf et al., 2016). Within this progressive model all elements of DTT are fair game for rethinking what we do and why we do it. Willingness to contrive learning opportunities and space them closely together could actually be an advantage, not a shortcoming of DTT. The research behind this model will be described and the areas where more research is needed will be highlighted.

Instructional program developers and interventionists

The evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics (ETBD) is a complexity theory, which means that it is stated in the form of simple low-level rules, the repeated operation of which generates high level outcomes that can be compared to data. The low-level rules of the theory implement Darwinian processes of selection, reproduction, and mutation. This tutorial is an introduction to the ETBD, and will illustrate how the theory is used to animate artificial organisms that behave freely, and continuously, in any desired experimental environment. Extensive research has shown that the behavior of artificial organisms animated by the theory successfully reproduces the behavior of live organisms, in qualitative and quantitative detail, in a wide variety of experimental environments, including concurrent ratio schedules with equal and unequal ratios in the components, and concurrent interval schedules with and without punishment superimposed on one or both alternatives. An overview and summary of the research testing the ETBD will be provided. The material interpretation of the theory as an instance of supervenient realism will also be discussed. Finally, possible future directions will be considered with an eye toward identifying the most valuable path or paths for future development.

Behavior analysts interested in the basic science; individuals interested in computational theories of behavior or machine learning; individuals interested in modeling clinically significant human behavior

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way insurance-funded intervention has been implemented for many learners with autism including modifications in treatment modality, intensity of treatment, and overall access to intervention. The pandemic provided rare treatment conditions for many learners and therefore necessitates ongoing investigation of the outcomes associated with these conditions. Examples of such conditions include learners receiving direct behavior technician intervention via telehealth and school aged children receiving comprehensive treatment programs given increased availability. The current paper provides a refined analysis of individual learner outcome data for a set of learners for whom barriers to accessing treatment were overcome. Specifically, outcome data for a sample of different learners receiving ABA insurance-funded treatment during the pandemic will be presented and discussed in relation to learner specific variables. An analysis of skill acquisition data in relation to variables such as age, modality of intervention, proportion of recommended treatment hours received, standardized assessment results, and treatment goals met will be presented across multiple participants. Results are discussed in terms of factors correlating with improved outcomes, removing common barriers to treatment, and providing support for insurance funded ABA treatment under these conditions. The need for additional outcome analyses and future research are discussed.

1. Bullying in schools is a severe problem with implications for safety, mental health, and education. Schools around the world are implementing anti-bullying programs to address bullying. There are many different types of interventions available and in use, and it isn't easy to know which programs are most effective. Some programs are more efficacious than others, but what constitutes success is that the intervention must address the needs of the whole school, including students, teachers, and parents. Additionally, such programs must be implemented continuously and with fidelity. This paper will review the literature on anti-bullying programs to offer insight into what programs and program components are most effective in reducing bullying and victimization among students. A PRISMA model literature review will be presented on the existing literature. Initial searches yielded 351 articles; with additional requirements, the final analysis included 39 papers. Data will be shown on the extent to which these studies included competency assessment, generalization assessment, and social validity measures.

Attendees at the MA or Ph.D. level with interest in behavioral economics of substance use

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate student.

In 1959 Noam Chomsky published a famously scathing review of Skinner’s 1957 book, Verbal Behavior. For the next 30 or so years, invoking the role of the child’s language environment in explaining acquisition was viewed positively only in limited clinical and restricted educational contexts, while the majority of legitimate child language researchers focused on children’s acquisition of rules and abstract patterns remote from their actual verbal behavior. However, the role of the child’s language environment was never fully ignored as a research topic, and in the last 30 years has regained legitimacy as an explanation for individual and group differences in rate and course of acquisition. Although some might take this as an affirmation of the claims in Verbal Behavior, child language researchers would vehemently reject that interpretation, noting, for example, the central role that must be attributed to infants’ innate social-pragmatic categories and their general cognitive capacities, which far transcend the learning mechanisms Skinner posited. This talk will summarize the findings supporting a role for variation in the child’s language environment in explaining aspects of language development, and argue that the polarizing dispute between Skinner and Chomsky retarded progress toward understanding how children’s innate socio-pragmatic skills and linguistic input interact to support language development.

Applied behavior analysis principles have been used to improve numerous behavior problems in schools. However, most of these interventions have been focused on the individual student. This symposium will focus on applying applied behavior analysis at the district, school, and classroom levels to improve student functioning. The first session reviews the implementation of MTSS/PBIS at the district and school level, applied behavior analysis at the systems level with treatment integrity. As a result of this implementation, improvements were seen in prosocial outcomes, including increased attendance, improved mental health scores, increased and on-task behavior of students in the classroom, reduction in office discipline referrals. The second session focuses on implementing high leveraged applied behavior analysis classroom practices to improve academic engagement. Academic engagement is highly correlated to academic achievement. These practices include high rates of both praise to error correction teacher-students interactions, student opportunities to respond, and teacher active supervision practices and how this was scaled up across a district. Implementing an empirical classroom observation system in a small, diverse, high-needs city in Massachusetts will be reviewed. Improved student outcomes were also observed in increased academic engagement and reduced reactive discipline practices.

Intermediate, Competencies of using applied behavior analytical skills in schools.

One of the critical drivers of school-based systems change initiatives, particularly in the successful adoption of MTSS, is the buy-in and support of the district and school leadership. For example, McCart et al. (2015), in their review of several fidelity instruments related to MTSS, PBIS, and RTI, found that the common elements of a school leadership role were (a) administrator support with a clear vision to drive implementation forward; (b) decisions about resource allocation including staff responsibilities and professional development; and (f) ongoing monitoring and overall MTSS effectiveness with data. This presentation highlights the effectiveness of applied behavior analytic interventions and training procedures including Behavior Skills Training (BST) & Pyramidal Approach, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Data-Based Decision Making (DBDM), facilitative, adaptive, and transformative leadership skills and evidence-based classroom practices as outlined in the Classroom Observation System (Putnam & Handler 2020) to improve prosocial functioning across a school district. The data shows improvements in prosocial outcomes including increased attendance, improved mental health scores and on-task behavior of students in the classroom, reduction in office discipline referrals (ODR’s), and improved fidelity.

Galileo’s “book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.” What are the mathematical sentences for reinforcement schedules? Good theories are based on principles, or axioms, so you know what they assume. Those in the Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement (MPR) are: Reinforcers: 1) excite, and 2) direct, responding, which 3) takes time. Baum’s and Catania’s theories have similar principles. I describe the data that motivate each principle, and the mathematics that animate those principles and their interactions. Each of the principle-models were specific enough to be tested, and to evolve into more precise, or more general ones. The first, for example, is A = ar, where A is activation, a motivation, and r rate of reinforcement. I describe two of the basic schedules to give a sense of the machinery; and then note its extension to adjunctive behaviors, contrast, progressive ratio schedules, and behavioral momentum theory. I show data that required refinement of the models. Finally I shall relate MPR to a recent general theory of time perception, and bridge that to Shahan and Gallistel’s information theoretic approach to reinforcement, sketching the blueprint of a grand theory of perception and action

All conference attendees curious about a principled approach to theory construction in the realm of reinforcement schedules.

This session, a follow-up to Peter Killeen’s tutorial on Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement, will offer examples of MPR’s application and thoughts about potential uses. Why consider applying MPR? It is a comprehensive theory of behavior that is derived from three elementary, common-sensical principles. The data required for model fitting, which come from a series of fixed-ratios or a progressive ratio schedule, are acquired quickly. The ability of its parameters to distinguish reinforcer efficacy, how reinforcers select recent behavior, and motor characteristics of behavior can yield insight into behavioral determinants. Chris Newland will describe its application in characterizing the actions of drugs and contaminants that act on the nervous system, John Michael Falligant will explore its potential applications to applied behavior analysis, and Brent Kaplan will describe how it might address issues in substance abuse.

Basic and translational investigators interested in applying MPR, board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Brent Kaplan received his Ph.D. in behavioral psychology at the University of Kansas and subsequently completed his postdoctoral training at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and a member of the Healthier Futures Laboratory. Brent’s research focuses on applying behavioral economic concepts and methodology to better understand alcohol and cigarette substance use and treatments. His interests also include developing and disseminating tools for analyzing and interpreting behavioral economic data. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and Perspectives on Behavior Science and currently serves on the executive committee for Division 28 Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse of the American Psychological Association.

There is a growing body of research on teaching individuals with autism to engage in social skills repertoires that involve observing others including helping others, observational learning, social referencing, and joint attention. The first paper in this session describes an approach to teaching a child with autism to offer help to others in natural contexts. A multiple probe design across helping scenarios was used to assess the effects of multiple exemplar training, an instructional matrix, and video modeling. The child learned to offer help in training contexts, and those skills generalized across settings. The second paper in this session describes approaches to assessing and teaching observational learning skills in a group instructional arrangement with three children with autism. A multiple probe design across participants and a multiple baseline within participants across motor, object-motor, and vocal modalities were used to assess the effects of consequence discrimination training and differential observing response training. Two out of three children showed significant improvements in observational learning in a group instructional arrangement. Findings from these studies have implications for teaching social skills repertoires to children with autism which could lead to greater inclusion of individuals with autism in learning environments and to other positive outcomes.

Intermediate

The purpose of the current study was to teach a child with autism to offer help and engage in appropriate helping responses in the presence of relevant stimuli using multiple exemplars, a matrix model, and video modeling. A concurrent multiple probe design was used across helping categories of cleaning, carrying items, and obtaining objects out of reach. A matrix was used to organize the relevant stimuli encountered in helping scenarios, such as fallen objects, vocalizations, and facial affect. Training targets were taught with video models depicting a known adult verbally offering an individual help and engaging in helping responses during situations where help was required (i.e., spilled water needs to be cleaned). The multiple exemplar matrix model and video modeling were effective in establishing a repertoire of helping across categories that generalized to novel settings and contexts. Interobserver agreement averaged 94% agreement across all trials with a range of 85% - 100%.

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder do not demonstrate observational learning (OL), a repertoire that aids in learning during group instruction. Few studies have evaluated strategies for teaching individuals to engage in OL, and none have evaluated the effects of such strategies on individuals’ learning during group instruction. In this study, OL during group instruction was evaluated using a within-participant multiple probe design across motor, object-motor, and vocal modalities and using a concurrent multiple probe design across participants. Interventions included consequence discrimination training and differential observing response training consisting of differential reinforcement and rule statements following errors. Training sessions were conducted with one student participant and one adult participant acting as a confederate student. Observation sessions were conducted with two or three student participants and one adult participant acting as a confederate student. Data were collected on primary dependent variables during test sessions conducted with each student participant shortly following observation sessions. Following training, participants demonstrated improvements in OL across modalities during test sessions. Interobserver agreement during training and probe sessions was above 90%.

Over 92,000 drug-related overdose deaths, the majority of which were due to opioids, were reported in the U.S. in 2020 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm). This increase in opioid-related overdose deaths occurred despite the availability of several effective treatment medications. Both positive and negative reinforcing effects of opioids may underlie the initiation of opioid use and development and maintenance of opioid use disorder (OUD). Some investigators suggest that the negative reinforcing effects of opioids become more prominent with repeated use. Evidence for this position will be presented using clinical data from a variety of sources. While both processes appear to be supported by the data, the relative contribution of positive and negative reinforcing effects in maintaining opioid use is unclear. Additional research should be conducted to directly address this issue because it has relevance for the development of more effective pharmacotherapeutic and behavioral treatment strategies for OUD.

Dr. Sandra Comer is Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. She received her BS at Vanderbilt University and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan for her research on the effects of drugs using preclinical models. Dr. Comer is Director of the Opioid Laboratory in the Division on Substance Use Disorders and her current research focus is on the clinical testing of medications for treating opioid use disorder, methods to maximize the use of naloxone by opioid users, and evaluations of the comparative abuse liability of prescribed pain medications. Dr. Comer served as President of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, the longest standing scholarly society in the U.S. devoted to research on substance use disorders, and currently is the Public Policy Officer for CPDD. Dr. Comer is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization and has over 160 publications on substance use disorders.

The racial differentiation of policing in America has been widely researched and documented (Walker et al., 2008; Wilson et al., 1982; Eck et al., 1987; Braga et al., 1999). While these discrepancies have been largely documented, few changes have been made to the policies, procedures and law governing police officers, leading to the continuation of racist acts displayed by police officers across the country. The reasons for this are plentiful and the issues are symptoms of the larger problems of individual and institutional racism that increases the likeliness any police officer will engage in violence against a person of color. This symposium describes how individual racism is learned and strengthened and a functional perspective of the historical development of policing in America followed by suggestions about how these systems can be redeveloped and improved.

This is appropriate for any level of behavior analyst or behavior analyst trainee who is interested in systems theory and how functional assessment can play a role in system and reinforcement of individual behavior.

While the racial differentiation of policing in America has been widely researched and documented (Walker & Katz, 2008; Wilson & Kelling, 1982; Eck & Spelman, 1987; Braga, et al., 1999), there have been few changes within the policies, procedures and laws governing police officers. This has resulted in the continuation of individual acts of racism of police officers across the country and has upheld the systemic racism that results in the discrepancies between Black people and White people. To fully understand and develop effective interventions that will change policing behaviors and the racism observed within the police force, one must first understand the historical development and functional variables that maintain policing in America.

Home-school partnerships are valuable and associated with improvements in students’ academic success. However, teachers often do not receive sufficient training to confidently collaborate with families. Furthermore, parents report feeling unsure of how to support learning at home and dissatisfaction with the special education process. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use distance behavioral skills training on special educator’s use of evidence-based parent training to teach parents how to support individualized education programs at home. A multiple probe design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Pre and post data were also collected on teacher practices and confidence with working with families. All participants demonstrated a significant increase in steps completed following the training. The teachers reported high levels of satisfaction with the training and improved confidence in working with parents. Future research should examine parent perceptions of teachers’ use of the skills taught.

All convention attendees are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Stimulus equivalence has been a lively research area for more than 50 years starting with the Sidman (1971) study. Since then, a huge number of experiments with variety of procedural variants have been published. The presentation will discuss some of the variables influencing the establishment of baseline conditional discriminations and the emergence of untrained relations during testing. Overall variables such as training structures, training and test protocols, and simultaneous vs. delay matching-to-sample, and details like concurrent vs serialized or sequential presentation of baseline trials and number of training trials will be discussed. Also, additional measurements in stimulus equivalence research as reaction time and sorting will be examined.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

This presentation describes the complex nature of human-animal interactions and captures the dynamic interconnection of five constructs, some established and some novel, to characterise safe, ethical and sustainable [best] practices in the management, handling and training of non-production animals. It interdigitates the Five Domains Model for animal welfare assessment, four possible operant mechanisms that interactions may follow, the three influences of attachment, arousal and affective state, and the two contrasting ethologies (human and animal), with a One Welfare approach. This 5-4-3-2-1 framework reveals that while arousal and affective state influence behavioural outcomes of operant conditioning, the trainer’s choice and application of the operant quadrants have a further and cumulative influence on attachment, arousal and affective state. The power of this approach is that, on one hand, it marries optimal interactions with the highly prized attribute of trust in animal–trainer dyads, which may be, at times at least, a manifestation of trainers as attachment figures. On the other hand, it reveals sources of disruption of human-animal and animal-human attachment that promote negative affective states which are incompatible with safe, ethical and sustainable practices. By bringing these constructs together, the 5-4-3-2-1 Framework aligns the Five Domains Model with the ultimate animal welfare aim of One Welfare. As such, it may also serve as a notional checklist for reflective practitioners who ascribe to the One Welfare approach and aim to achieve safe, ethical and sustainable animal management, handling, training and keeping practices.

A small proportion of patients with intellectual disabilities (IDs) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit extraordinarily dangerous self-injurious and assaultive behaviors that persist despite long-term multidisciplinary interventions. These uncontrolled behaviors result in physical and emotional trauma to the patients, care providers and family members. A graduated electronic decelerator (GED) is an aversive therapy device that has been shown to reduce the frequency of severe problem behaviors by 97%. Within a cohort of 173 patients, we have identified the four most common patterns of response: (1) on removal of GED, behaviors immediately return, and GED is reinstated; (2) GED is removed for periods of time (faded) and reinstated if and when behaviors return; (3) a low frequency of GED applications maintains very low rates of problem behaviors; and (4) GED is removed permanently after cessation of problem behaviors. GED is intended as a therapeutic option only for violent, treatment-resistant patients with ID and ASD.

The audience should be familiar with treatment options for severe problem behaviors.

Gun violence in the United States (U.S.) persists as a public health crisis. Over 40,000 individuals die from firearm-related injuries each year and another 60,000 are shot. Of these, nearly 8,000 are children. And gun violence specifically within K-12 schools continues. Indeed, recent data have underscored that over 250,000 children in the U.S. have been exposed to gun violence specifically in K-12 schools since the Columbine High School mass shooting tragedy in 1999, with Black children disproportionately impacted in comparison to their White peers. And rates of gun violence have increased precipitously since the onset of the Covid19 pandemic.

The impact of gun violence on children is particularly concerning as exposure to gun violence is considered an adverse childhood experience (ACE). ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur during childhood. An extensive body of research on exposure to ACEs has been linked to dozens of negative outcomes over the life course (poor mental health, increased risk for chronic disease, asthma, poor oral health, cancer, injury, suicide, premature mortality, and even decreased school success). They’re also highly prevalent: an estimated 30% of children report experiencing at least one ACE. Thus, preventing this kind of violence is of utmost importance. Despite this urgency, meaningful responses to the prevention of gun violence in K-12 schools over the past decade have been lacking and largely not informed by evidence.

In this presentation, I draw on existing research, novel data, and a child-centric framework to present a new model that reimagines what solutions to the persistence of gun violence in K-12 schools looks like. In pursuing this work, I seek to answer the following question: what if our collective response to school gun violence did not prepare our schools for the inevitability of the next school shooting, rather treated the eradication of gun violence in schools as a genuine possibility? Knowledge, support, prevention, policy, engagement, commitment, leadership, and consistency are guiding principles we can use to reimagine how our schools can be kept safe, while ensuring that our children thrive.

Researchers (e.g. in the behavioral sciences, public health, education, school psychology), school leadership (principals, superintendents), school health professionals, K-12 teachers

Dr. Sonali Rajan is an Associate Professor of Health Education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also holds a secondary faculty appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Rajan is a school violence prevention researcher, studying gun violence, school safety, and adverse childhood experiences. She holds faculty affiliations with the CDC-funded Columbia Center for Injury Science and Prevention, the Columbia Scientific Union for the Reduction of Gun Violence, and the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. She also co-produces Re(Search) for Solutions, a podcast hosted by the Media and Social Change Lab at Teachers College devoted to amplifying creative and evidence-based solutions to the persistence of gun violence. For over a decade, Dr. Rajan has conducted research in K-12 public schools across the U.S.  And for nearly 15 years, Dr. Rajan has collaborated closely with the non-profit organization Girls on the Run; she currently serves on their National Board of Directors. Dr. Rajan has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles in additional to multiple talks, book chapters, and other written pieces. Her work has also been featured in multiple national media outlets (including National Public Radio, the Hechinger Report, and CSPAN).

Neurodiversity is a concept that asserts that the idea of normal cognition is a false premise, based on the medical model of disability. Instead, neurodiversity, which was conceptualized by the neurodiverse individuals we serve, states that all humans are born with different cognitive strengths and skills and that difference in cognition is valuable and even important for human evolution and creativity. As applied to ABA, advocates in the neurodiversity movement have pushed for a more flexible, more compassionate, and less ablelist approach to ABA supports for autistic people. Some of the criticisms from the neurodiversity movement appear controversial to many in the ABA field and many behavior analysts have rejected the concerns and/or attempted to defend our field against neurodiversity. This panel discussion will engage in an honest, vulnerable, and frank discussion of the strengths and limitations of what we do in ABA and use the neurodiversity movement as an opportunity to discuss practical steps the ABA field can take to moving our field to a future of greater inclusivity, flexibility, and less ableism. The neurodiverse panel of presenters includes researchers, practitioners, family members, and advocates.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

This presentation will address the role of sensitivity to aversive drug effects in risk for unhealthy drug use. Considerable research has focused on drug use disorders as motivational disorders involving inherent or drug-induced reward pathway function. Human and animal research support a critical role for circuitry underlying sensitivity to rewarding and reinforcing drug effects in risk for continued use, neuroadaptation and relapse. However, less attention has been paid to the protective role of sensitivity to aversive drug effects. Dr. Phillips will present data proving that the trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) as an arbiter of the aversive effects of methamphetamine, which when experienced, reduce methamphetamine intake. More broadly, she will discuss the importance of considering drug avoiders in clinical studies of psychostimulant addiction, which could lead to the identification of a new class of therapeutics.

Tamara Phillips is Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Senior Research Career Scientist at the Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, and Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism-funded Portland Alcohol Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the State University of New York in Albany and completed Postdoctoral training at the Rutgers University Institute of Animal Behavior. She joined OHSU and the Portland VA in 1987, rising through the ranks to Professor in 1998. She has received several honors and awards, including teaching awards, research achievement and mentoring awards, and distinguished scientist and lectureship awards. She has served as the President of three different research societies: the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society; the Research Society on Alcoholism; and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. She currently serves as Vice-President on the Board of the non-profit local chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society. Mentoring has been one of her passions and she directed the Behavioral Neuroscience graduate program for many years. She has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and reviews and is funded by two NIH institutes and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Her research focusses on the genetic dissection of behavioral traits associated with risk for the development of alcohol and drug use disorders.

While ABA is considered an evidence-based approach for skill development and challenging behavior reduction with people with autism and broader developmental disabilities, many lack access to services due to a number of barriers (e.g., distance, cost, scheduling, lack of providers, and transportation). Further, families and professionals who deliver primary supports to people with ASD/DD often do not have training in ABA. Technological advances over recent years now present a wide range of options for disseminating ABA to people with ASD/DD, and delivering coaching on behavioral techniques to support systems. This selection of presentations will provide examples of how four different technological modalities (an app, bug-in-ear speaker system, virtual reality, and the videoconferencing) can be applied to disseminate ABA knowledge to difficult-to-reach populations. Preliminary data will be shared to demonstrate the effectiveness of each approach and to conclude we will discuss implications of use of technology for furthering the reach of ABA within the disability field.

A minimum of a masters degree in behavior analysis, psychology, education, technology, or a related degree.

We designed and implemented a parent coaching program that focused on procedures used to teach three types of spontaneous verbal request skills for children with autism in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two parent-child dyads from a southwestern city in China participated in the study. Using the telehealth service delivery model, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) in China provided coaching. During the coaching sessions, the parents received BCBA’s immediate prompt and feedback from a Bluetooth earpiece. In a randomized multiple-baseline across the behaviors design, we confirmed a functional relation between the parent coaching program and their frequency of correct teaching trials. Both children also emitted more spontaneous verbal requests during the intervention.

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience high rates of behavioral crises, which significantly increase their risk of emergency room or psychiatric hospital admissions. While psychiatric hospitals typically specialize in the assessment and treatment of severe mental illness and substance abuse, providers in these settings generally have little to no training on working with IDD populations. This project piloted an application of the Extensions of Community Health Outcomes (ECHO) model to disseminate behavioral knowledge to inpatient psychiatric care teams in state-funded hospitals across Virginia through a videoconferencing platform. Six providers participated in a pilot evaluation of this program and completed pre-post test measures of ABA knowledge, self-efficacy in managing challenging behavior, and program satisfaction. Results demonstrated a significant improvement in providers’ self-efficacy, knowledge of ABA, and high program satisfaction. The model design will be described, after which implications and considerations for future use of the ECHO model as a mode for disseminating behavioral knowledge and consultation will be discussed.

Speakers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have been disproportionately identified with communication deficits, a defining feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Traditional approaches to language assessment focus on the topography of a response, without regard for the context in which it was emitted. In contrast, the functional analysis of verbal behavior offers a rigorous and innovative approach to language assessment that subsumes the cultural and linguistic diversity of the speaker. Through multiple-exemplar training, we demonstrate verbal operant experimental (VOX) analyses across different children with autism from a variety of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. VOX analyses are used to identify specific functional language deficits, and differences in the strength of verbal operants are examined through non-parametric analyses. Moreover, the results can be used to develop an individualized treatment plan, using a most-to-least prompt hierarchy to shape a response topography specific to each unique verbal community. In this way, functional analyses of language are shown to be a verbal-community-centered approach to observing and measuring the verbal behavior of speakers from diverse backgrounds.

Practitioners (BCBAs, LSSPs, Educational Diagnosticians, etc) who work directly with children with autism from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Audience should be familiar with the concept of functional analysis and the verbal operants.

Functional analyses of language have been useful for measuring the strength of a speaker’s verbal repertoire, identifying verbal behavior deficits, and monitoring language development. An extension of the functional analysis methodology used to identify the variables that maintain challenging behavior, a verbal operant experimental (VOX) analysis is used to identify the variables that maintain a speaker’s verbal behavior. This presentation introduces the VOX analysis along with the procedures used to sample the speaker’s verbal repertoire. Using an English-speaking, three-year-old boy with autism as a case study, we demonstrate a pretreatment VOX analysis, describe how the results were used to develop an individualized intervention plan, and then show the results of a follow-up VOX analysis after six months of early intensive behavioral intervention. Whereas the pretreatment VOX results demonstrated examples of stimulus overselectivity, follow-up results show the development of more proportionate levels of stimulus control. Implications of VOX analyses for English-speakers with autism are discussed, and areas of future research are highlighted.

While all members of a verbal community speak a common language, not all speakers of a common language are members of the same verbal community. In addition to sharing a common language, members of a verbal community also share common reinforcing practices. Mere translation of an assessment into another language fails to address these critical issues of cultural and linguistic diversity. Consequently, topography-based language assessments provide an insufficient analysis of a speaker’s verbal behavior. Here we extend the research on functional analyses of verbal behavior to include speakers of a language other than English. Using a Spanish-speaking, five-year-old girl with autism as a case study, we demonstrate the use of a pretreatment VOX analysis conducted in the speaker’s native language, describe how the results were used to develop an individualized intervention plan, and then show the results of a follow-up VOX analysis after six months of referent-based verbal behavior instruction. Whereas the pretreatment VOX results demonstrated examples of stimulus overselectivity, follow-up results show the development of more proportionate levels of stimulus control. Implications of VOX analyses for Spanish-speakers with autism are discussed, and areas of future research are highlighted.

For speakers who belong to multiple verbal communities, functional analyses of verbal behavior allow for dynamic control of response topography. The simple practice of allowing the speaker the freedom to select the language of instruction minimizes cultural bias and hegemony. Here we extend the research on functional analyses of verbal behavior to include speakers of multiple languages. Using a multilingual, seven-year-old boy with autism as a case study, we demonstrate the use of a pretreatment VOX analysis, describe how the results were used to develop an individualized intervention plan, and then show the results of a follow-up VOX analysis after six months of behavior-analytic intervention. Notably, the follow-up VOX analysis was conducted in three different languages, and we compare the results of each. The results show a clear hierarchy of strength across English, Telugu, and Tamil, with overarching patterns across the three assessments. Implications of VOX analyses for multilingual-speakers with autism are discussed, and areas of future research are highlighted.

Within the context of cultural and linguistic diversity, speakers who use augmentative and alternative communication are often overlooked. The selection of augmentative/alternative communication (AAC) for non-vocal speakers with autism spectrum disorder has been described as more of an art than a science for the population of children with autism who do not develop functional speech. While the decision to use one AAC modality over another is largely subjective, what limited research exists primarily focuses on mand training. Here we extend the research on functional analyses of verbal behavior to include speakers who communicate with speech-generating devices. Using a non-vocal, five-year-old girl with autism as a case study, we demonstrate the use of a pretreatment VOX analysis conducted in which the speaker uses AAC, describe how the results were used to develop an individualized intervention plan, and then show the results of a follow-up VOX analysis after six months of early intensive behavioral intervention. Whereas the pretreatment VOX results demonstrated a functional mand repertoire, follow-up results show the development of more proportionate levels of stimulus control. Implications of VOX analyses for speakers with autism who use AAC are discussed, and areas of future research are highlighted.

Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs) utilize natural contingencies and behavioral strategies (Schreibman et al., 2015) and are effective at increasing skills in autistic children. A recent meta-analysis of early interventions for autistic children found that NDBIs outperform other behavioral interventions (Sandbank et al., 2020). Yet most ABA providers report limited training in NDBIs. This symposium describes applied research from 13 institutions on the use of NDBIs in community settings. The first presentation reports improvements in adaptive behavior, social skills, and autism symptoms for autistic children receiving NDBIs within an inclusive preschool setting. The second and third presentations present data on practitioner perspectives on NDBIs, with presentation 2 demonstrating how ABA provider perceptions of NDBIs change over time and with consultation, and presentation 3 illustrating preschool teachers’ experience with and perceptions of NDBIs. Finally, the fourth presentation demonstrates the parent coaching practices of NDBI-trained early intervention (EI) providers, noting barriers and facilitators to parent coaching in the EI system. Dr. Amy Matthews (discussant) will draw on her expertise in the implementation of NDBIs in community settings and will provide recommendations for provider training and scale-up implementation efforts, particularly in publicly funded service systems.

Behavior analysts and other practitioners interested in learning more about the implementation of Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs) in community settings

The importance of inclusive environments for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is well established, and positive outcomes have been reported for some preschool inclusion programs (e.g., Strain & Bovey, 2011). However, these studies report extensive training from researchers, and limited data are available on the effectiveness of community-based and self-sustaining preschool inclusion programs. Moreover, few studies have reported outcomes from the community-based delivery of naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBI) in group-based community care. This quasi-experimental study reports outcomes for 26 children, 3-5 years of age at entry and diagnosed with ASD, who were enrolled in a community-based inclusion preschool program delivering NDBI for at least 6 months. Paired sample t-test indicated statistically significant improvements from entry to exit on standardized measures of adaptive behavior (Figure 1), social skills (Figure 2), and autism symptoms (Figure 3). The majority of children were testing in the adequate or higher range across measures after an average of 18 months of intervention (SD=6.5 months). Implications for the effectiveness of inclusive settings for preschool-aged children, considerations in the delivery of NDBI in group inclusive settings, and future directions will be discussed.

Background: Little is known about how ABA provider perceptions of Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs) change over time. Consultation may also affect provider perceptions of these interventions. We investigated the effect of time and consultation on perceptions of Project ImPACT, an empirically supported NDBI. Methods: We fit 9 two-level multilevel models. We report preliminary analyses from 9 providers across 4 agencies in the Medicaid system (single case design). Providers delivered Project ImPACT during baseline (randomized to 3-6 weeks) and during the 12 weeks of consultation. Providers completed the Perceived Characteristics of Intervention Scale (PCIS) weekly. Results: Perceptions of Project ImPACT were moderately high (see Figure 1). See Table 1 for model parameters. There was an effect of time on trialability and task issues; regardless of whether providers were receiving consultation, each week, providers rated Project ImPACT as easier to try out and more helpful at improving the quality of their work. The effect of time on trialability varied depending on condition. The average rating of trialability was lower during baseline than during consultation and trialability ratings increased each week during baseline, but not during consultation. Though marginal, there was an effect of time on observability; each week, providers rated client improvements from ImPACT to be more observable. There was no effect of consultation. Conclusions: Increased use of NDBIs over time results in more favorable perceptions. Consultation does not appear to change providers’ perceptions. Implications for provider training will be discussed.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many behavior analysts who serve individuals with developmental disabilities had to transform their practice swiftly using telehealth in order to continue supporting their clients. In this international symposium, we invited practitioners from across the world who adapted their services to telehealth to share their experiences. Smita Awasthi will present a study that reports how Behavior Momentum India shifted their in-clinic services across their 10 clinics in India to in-home telehealth during the pandemic using smartphones. Guido D’Angelo will present a study conducted in Italy through their agency, Dalla Luna, in which telehealth supervision was provided to two therapists in conducting functional analysis and functional communication training. Kristín Guðmundsdóttir, from University of Akureyri, will present a study in which the authors developed and implemented a telehealth parent training protocol with 5 families in rural Iceland before the pandemic despite challenges such as low-speed internet access. Iris Heidsha Pons from Starbright Academy in Puerto Rico will share her experiences shifting to telehealth during the pandemic for a school and clinic that serves over 200 individuals. Presenters will share cultural variables they considered, barriers they faced, and will present recommendations for other professionals implementing behavior analysis through telehealth.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Telehealth services have been applied in the treatment of a variety of problems across geographies (Tsami et al., 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic provided such an opportunity to scale up the impact of behavior analysis for children with autism when in-clinic services stopped abruptly worldwide. This qualitative and quantitative case study details how Behavior Momentum India (BMI), an organisation with 10 clinics across India transitioned services from in clinic to telehealth using the ubiquitous smartphone. A cohort of 92 students diagnosed with autism participated in this study under a team of 51 therapists, 9 behavior supervisors, and a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Smartphones were used by 78% students and 82% therapists for direct 1:1 and parent-mediated sessions with 82 students. With 10 students, behavior supervisors provided parent training to continue interventions during lockdown. The critical transition decisions, logistics, and ethical challenges were identified using qualitative methods. All students continued to acquire targeted skills, while 52% of the students acquired more skills in telehealth compared to in clinic as per curriculum modification. A social validity survey provided high ratings on our organization’s initiative, and 72% parents reported that their familiarity and confidence with the science of applied behavior analysis had increased.

This paper presents the development and experimental evaluation of telehealth methods in behavioral caregiver training in rural Iceland pre COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons learned from the study will be described and considerations for professional training and practice in behavioral telehealth for families of children with autism will be discussed. The study was conducted with Icelandic families of preschool-aged children with autism that did not have access to evidence-based services. The experimental design was a multiple baseline across parent and child skills, replicated across 5 families. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for experimental and social validity purposes. Caregivers were taught to apply the TeachingDANCE (Ala‘i-Rosales, Cermak og Guðmundsdóttir, 2013) during play interaction with their children in order to teach their children social communication skills and enhance the quality of the relationship between the parent and child. The majority of the training was conducted through telecommunication methods. The results showed measurable progress for parents and children across all skill areas. Furthermore, the caregivers valued the increased access to evidence-based intervention and expertise, despite various challenges during the intervention. The results indicated that training via telecommunication is a viable approach for rural families with low-speed internet connection. Critical training components for higher and continuing education will be highlighted and recommendations for professional training and practice will be discussed in the context of the research as well as the lessons learned. These recommendations include considerations regarding technical skills, effective training procedures, ethical and cultural considerations, and challenges when conducting data-based behavioral consultation via telecommunication.

Kristín Guðmundsdóttir is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of Akureyri, Iceland. Kristín holds a Doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Iceland and a Master of Science degree in behavior analysis from the University of North Texas. She is also a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) since 2003. Kristín has served as the President of Icelandic ABA and has been an active participant in the shaping of behavior analysis in Iceland. Kristín has worked as a therapist and case manager in early behavior intervention for young children with autism and other developmental disabilities in Iceland and the US. She also has extensive experience teaching and consulting with children and caregivers in the Icelandic school system, specifically in rural parts of Iceland. Kristín’s current research focus includes behavior intervention for families of young children with autism and other developmental disabilities via telehealth. Specific emphasis is on caregiver training for rural families that have limited access to evidence-based services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the education, family, and social aspects of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in Puerto Rico. Starbright Academy serves 116 individuals from the ages of 2-21 years in our school program and 101 individuals with ASD and other related disorders in our clinical program (MO Therapy). The pandemic challenged us to transfer our educational and clinical system from face-to-face to a virtual one. Within 5 weeks of the initial “shut down” in 2020, Starbright had converted all of our in-person services to telehealth. We conducted academic and clinical programs through telemedicine for 76 children for 10 months. In this discussion I will share the lessons learned during this transition. Specifically, I will discuss how telemedicine has had a positive impact in educating all family members in ABA techniques, the significant improvements we have seen in the well-being of the family threw the application of telehealth in these homes, the development of independence skills and the generalization of other skills learned at school into the home setting. I will also share the obstacles that we faced in Puerto Rico for receiving ABA services, other challenges encountered during this transition to telehealth and provide recommendations for future providers.

Ableism involves stereotypes (biased verbal behavior) and discriminatory actions against disabled people. Ableism results from the assumption that there is a normative way of living that is superior and that being disabled reflects deficits in need of “fixing,” and are thus, inferior. The Practice Board of ABAI developed a “Beginner’s Guide to Dismantling Ableism in Your Practice” in recognition of the fact that ableism is ubiquitous in helping professions, and behavior analysis is no exception. Behavior analysts have a particularly heavy responsibility for dismantling ableism given the large number of contact hours they have with Autistic clients and the immediate and long-term problems resulting from this form of discrimination. This symposium will include the perspective of four behavior analysts contributing to the development of the “Beginner’s Guide” and will reflect their perspectives and barriers they have experienced as activists--including that of an Autistic, a doctoral student, a professor, and a Board Coordinator. The symposium will conclude with discussion from a neurodivergent behavior analyst who has not been involved in the development of the “Beginner’s Guide;” she will reflect on ways this and additional work is needed to actualize a paradigm shift in ABA.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Studying behavior analysis involves a love for the science as well as a drive to support others. With the growing awareness of ableism and applied behavior analysis (ABA) as abuse, students are faced with challenging information and are required to navigate through the controversy in the field. It is critically important to inform these future practitioners and leaders in the field what ableism is and how to actively dismantle it in their practice. Ableist beliefs are present in everyone due to our society’s continuous reinforcement whether in the media (i.e. infantilizing, dehumanization) or in or taught in educational settings. The Beginner’s Guide to Dismantling Ableism in Your Practice is an introduction to these issues and a way to listen to Autistic voices. Listening to Autistic voices is essential to dismantling ableism in ABA. Learning that you have discriminated and caused harm can be an overwhelming realization. Students must learn how to move forward and practice using true client centered care and make the changes in the field that the people we support so desperately need from us.

Applied behavior analysts possess deep knowledge and strong skills in teaching desired behavior and addressing interfering behavior of individuals with a wide variety of needs. However, at least two issues interfere with practitioners’ ability to engage effectively with the people they aim to support. First, individual practitioners bring their own beliefs, values, and attitudes to their practice, yet their beliefs, values, and attitudes will inevitably vary from those of the people they serve. Second, applied behavior analytic practitioners have historically approached their work in a very technocratic manner – as elite technical experts. Behavior analytic practitioners must attend to these two issues and adjust their approach if they wish to achieve their aim of providing effective supports. Actively working to dismantle ableism is one approach to addressing these two issues, and training programs bear responsibility to teach aspiring behavior analysts how to think, talk about, and treat the people they serve and support in anti-ableist ways. I will discuss infusing a training program with instruction and practice in the use of anti-ableist attitudes, language, and practice.

The Practice Board redefined our mission in 2020 as, “The mission of Task Force for Quality and Values-Based ABA is to recommend systemic changes to ABAI and leaders in the field of applied behavior analysis regarding how best to meet the needs of the people we serve. We maintain that anti-ableist, person-centered services that promote meaningful outcomes through socially valid and effective intervention is the means to achieving this mission. We further recommend reflection, honesty, and effective communication regarding the strengths and limitations of evidence regarding the utility and adverse side effects of all interventions applied by behavior analysts.” The Beginner’s Guide to Dismantling Ableism in Your Practice is consistent with that mission and collaborating on this work with Practice Board members learning from Autistics who are outside the field of ABA led to growth opportunities. For example, I had learned that White people need to do the heavy lifting for producing systems change with respect to social justice and race because they (we) had created the structures that produce marginalization. I incorrectly generalized this thinking to the development of The Beginner’s Guide by having only one Autistic person on the original group writing the document. However, this decision violated the trust of the Autistic community by not sufficiently addressing the need for representation. This presentation will focus on lessons learned and the need for self-reflection and reconsideration of our positions as we all consider how to dismantle ableism in our practice and field.

Equitable and inclusive learning environments are built on the choices of individuals. This session will explore the notions of power and empowerment that are made evident in our decisions, our designs, and our outcomes. With antiracism and Universal Design for Learning we can begin inviting every voice to powerful positions by honoring identity, culture, and learning needs.

Anyone interested in deepening and solidifying the partnership toward creating equitable learning environments.

A number of behavioral pathologies arise in part from aversive associations (e.g., anxiety disorders) and cue-drug reward associations. Enormous efforts have been made over several decades trying to identify procedures to decrease these behaviors, including extinction-like exposure therapy, counterconditioning, and related techniques. Most these treatments are initially of some effect, but relapse, with long retention intervals, change in context (i.e., renewal), and re-exposure to the initial affective experience, is frequently observed. Newer treatments such as presenting the target cue some minutes before starting a session of massed exposure/extinction trials (i.e., so-called disruption of reconsolidation) have proven no more effective in eliminating dysfunctional behaviors or preventing relapse when some initial benefit of treatment is observed. The observed recovery of the dysfunctional behaviors, in conjunction with experimental laboratory data concerning associative interference, suggest that irrevocably erasing memories is difficult if not impossible. Improved behavioral outcomes appear to reflect impaired retrieval of the problematic memories. Rather than seeking erasure of these associations, more realistically, we should be seeking to impede their retrieval, using conjointly as many different techniques as possible to impair subsequent retrieval (i.e., a “kitchen-sink” approach).

Behavior analysts, clinical psychologists, behavior analysis students, graduate students in clinical psychology programs

Alan and Claire will share Costain’s behavioural journey over the last 15 years. They will talk about the importance and challenges of keeping on the path and share how Costain has successfully managed to roll out and embed a truly sustainable behavioural safety programme, which has been designed to address the specific issues of a continually changing workforce, with multiple business sites and varying project durations. They will speak about the importance of the programme achieving Platinum Accreditation Status with the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and how one of the keys to success has been to ensure that the programme is and remains a leadership focused programme that looks at making things simple, getting the simple things right, and providing outreach to their supply chain and clients. Alan and Claire will share real examples of the tools they use, how they apply it to all aspects of Costain, including wellbeing, carbon, IT security, quality and change management, where they are going next, and how the programme has moved from behavioural safety to behavioural management and more importantly to behavioural leadership.

OBM researchers, practitioners, business owners, safety professionals. 

Claire Fryer is the Director of Behavioural Management and leads the team of Behavioural Management Team of consultants, practitioners, coaches, and advisers. She also leads the external consultancy, working closely with clients and specialises in the design and delivery of behaviourally sound programmes using accelerated learning techniques. She has over 20 years’ experience in the practical application of behavioural science and coaching principles to improve business and individual performance. Claire regularly presents at conferences, including Highways UK with Highways England Social Research and Behavioural Change Team, and in 2019 the UK Project Controls Expo, which focussed on leadership behaviours, exploring aspects such as the culture created during project revies and the impact of behaviour on programme delivery. She has played a key role in how the Costain behavioural programme has moved from Safety through to Management and through to Leadership. She has been an executive coach since 2004, blending traditional coaching techniques with applied behavioural science.

Scientists and practitioners working with non-human animals in applied settings.

Recipients of behavior analytic services have traditionally been viewed through a medical model lens that treats deficits. Alternatively, a social model of disability views societal barriers and systemic biases as limiting people with disabilities’ ability to thrive and meet their own needs/wants. Some disciplines have increasingly acknowledged this social conceptualization of disability and begun to adopt more equitable language and practices across research and practice. In both research and practice, behavior analysts have generally have not ascribed to a social model of disability, perhaps contributing to ongoing negative perceptions of applied behavior analysis (ABA) in some communities. This panel will begin with a brief overview of terms and concepts relevant to equity in behavior analysis and disability research. Our panel will then discuss these concepts as they relate to ethical research and practice in ABA. Namely, the panel will (1) discuss the importance of considering these concepts as diversity issues in practice, (2) identify indicators of ableism in ABA research and discourse, and (3) consider how subtle ableism may influence behavior analytic interventions. Last, the panel will discuss initial steps behavior analysts may take to challenge their own assumptions and support equity for people with disabilities in our field.

Trainees, direct-care therapists, and active certified behavior analysts at the masters or doctoral level. Individuals that provide/supervise clinical services, consume research, and/or contribute to the empirical literature may benefit from this session.

"Looked but failed to see" errors are a real-world problem with psychological roots. When someone hits a pedestrian in the crosswalk or misses a tumor in a mammogram, it is often clear that the critical stimulus was clearly visible. It may be clear that it was fixated by the eyes. Why, then, did the driver or the radiologist fail to respond appropriately? The answers are found in fundamental limits on human perception and cognition. We cannot simultaneously recognize every object in our field of view. As a result, we deploy attention from object to object or place to place, searching for what we need. This is true whether we are watching a movie or driving downtown. Fortunately, we do not need to search at random. Our attention is guided by the features of the targets we seek and by the structure of the scenes in which those targets are embedded. Unfortunately, our search engine does not work perfectly and so our eyes can be pointed at or near an item of interest and we can fail to recognize its presence. When those missed targets are such things as tumors or bombs, these errors are socially significant. The problem is worth understanding and, if possible, worth correcting. In this talk, I will illustrate some of the basic principles of human visual attention and I can promise that you will fail to see some things that you would think you should have seen.

Jeremy Wolfe is Professor of Ophthalmology and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. He is Director of the Visual Attention Lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Wolfe received an AB in Psychology in 1977 from Princeton and his PhD in Psychology in 1981 from MIT. His research focuses on visual search and visual attention with a particular interest in socially important search tasks in areas such as medical image perception (e.g. cancer screening), security (e.g. baggage screening), and intelligence. His lab has been funded since 1982 by NIH (NEI, NIMH, NCI), NSF, AFOSR (Air Force), ONR (Navy), ARO (Army), Homeland Security, and the Nat. Geospatial Agency as well as by IBM, Google, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, & GE. Wolfe taught Intro. Psychology and other courses for 25 years, mostly at MIT. Leadership: Past President or Chair: Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS), Psychonomic Soc, APA Division 3, Eastern Psychological Assoc, NAS Panel on Soldier Systems. Boards: Vision Sciences Society, APA Div 1, 6. Founding Editor-in-Chief of Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (CRPI). Past-Editor of Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. Wolfe also serves on the Oversight Committee of the North American Board of the Union for Reform Judaism. He was elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

This presentation will illuminate ways the field of psychology and student services can serve communities who live with the psychological effects of racism. Insights from liberation psychology, decolonial psychology, Black psychology, and womanist psychology will be presented. This 90-minute training is for beginner and advanced clinicians, educators, and administrators, as most training programs have not offered training in addressing racial trauma. The training will encompass both theory and practical application of anti-racism therapy, teaching, and student service. The training also touches on sustainability, self-care, and community-care as clinicians may be affected by vicarious trauma when working with students/clients in the aftermath or continued exposure to racial trauma. Topics discussed will include: • The need for anti-racism therapeutic practice as an ethical mandate given the prevalence of racism-related stress and trauma • The overlapping theoretical frameworks of liberation psychology, decolonial psychology, and anti-racism psychology • Anti-racism in assessment and treatment, as well as education and administration.

Clinicians, educators, and administrators, as most training programs have not offered training in addressing racial trauma.

Thema Bryant is a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University and director of the Culture and Trauma Research Lab.  She is a past president of the Society for the Psychology of Women and past psychology representative to the United Nations.  The California Psychological Association honored her as Scholar of the Year for her work in the cultural context of trauma recovery and the Institute of Violence, Abuse, and Trauma honored her for mentorship in the field of trauma psychology.  She published one of the first frameworks and models for the treatment of racial trauma and has provided trainings for associations, Universities, counseling centers, and non-profit organizations nationally and internationally.  The APA division of International Psychology honored her in 2020 for contributions to international psychology for her global work on women.  She also gave an invited address at the APA 2020 convention on racial trauma. 

Behavior analysts frequently encounter staff such as teachers, administrators, and youth counselors who deal with youth exhibiting challenging behaviors that may be related to the trauma these youth are experiencing. Moreover, the youth who are experiencing this trauma are often youth of color who may be retraumatized by the traditional means of dealing with challenging behavior. Unfortunately, behavior analysts may lack the skills for dealing with these challenging behaviors and the related trauma and thus are unable to assist staff in their efforts. A partnership developed among the leadership of Together Helping Reduce Youth Violence for Equity (ThrYve), a program for youth at the University of Kansas, a private provider of services to youth in schools, and a university professor and doctoral student at East Carolina University. The goal of this partnership was to provide information, training, and support to staff working with youth in the ThrYve program as well as other community programs. Presenters in this symposium will provide information about the ThrYve program, the structure and resources provided in the training that took place, effective strategies for dealing with traumatized youth and their challenging behaviors, and lessons learned about empowering staff to implement these strategies.

Participants can include BCBAs, teachers, school administrators, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, counselors, therapists, and social workers. Participants should be familiar with terms including verbal behavior, discriminative stimuli, establishing and abolishing operations, and positive and negative reinforcement, and have experience and examples dealing with those terms.

The consequences of youth violence are long-term, causing adverse health effects and negative impacts on life outcomes, including trauma. In Kansas City, Kansas (KCK), 28% of homicides in 2016 involved youth, 92% of victims were racial and ethnic minorities. Using the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Framework for Collaborative Action in Communities, this study examines Together Helping Reduce Youth Violence for Equity (ThrYve), a community-based intervention to address youth violence. ThrYve engages more than 40 community partners across 16 sectors through a Systems Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB coalition supports implementation of cross-sector, collaborative strategies by facilitating systems changes across socioecological levels to address factors that contribute to youth violence and prevent trauma. ThrYve supported the implementation of 87 system changes to address youth violence. As a result, the SAB facilitated more than 90 community action and community change activities. Implementation results demonstrate a marked increase in services and systems changes addressing factors impacting youth violence. The project provides social validity for addressing disparities in youth violence and trauma prevention by implementing and sustaining systems-level approaches. Factors that influenced collaboration will be explored including developing and using a strategic plan, data-informed decision-making, and building staff capacity to implement trauma-informed interventions.

Sensitive to Trauma Assessment and Relationship Training to Alter Negativity Underlying Behavior (START ANU Behavior) is a manualized training program especially designed to provide staff with the skills to support youth, many of whom are youth of color, who have experienced trauma and are exhibiting violent, aggressive, and other challenging behaviors. The START ANU Behavior program was provided online by three facilitators who conducted workshops over the course of four mornings. The first two mornings consisted of content and information sharing and the second two mornings involved modeling, role-play, feedback, and practice of specific strategies. These training days were followed by five online consultation sessions over several weeks. These consultation sessions were used to assist staff who were trying to implement new strategies with youth that they worked with. Staff were also provided with a training manual to use as a reference guide with written scenarios, sample behavioral intervention plans, and checklists providing steps for the various strategies.

Changing staff behavior has long been recognized as a difficult endeavor. Particularly when staff are being subjected to violent, aggressive, oppositional, and defiant behavior from youth, it is difficult to maintain a calm demeanor and provide therapeutic responses to their behaviors. Research has indicated that providing staff with didactic information alone does not change staff behavior. Behavior skills training has been demonstrated to be efficacious in training staff (Little &Tarbox, 2019). In our staff training program, staff were provided with two days (two-and-a- half hours each) of didactic information and then two days (two-and-a- half hours each) of modeling, role-play, and practice of the techniques that were taught. Follow-up was provided where staff received further practice and support of these techniques during five sessions over several months. Pre and post role-play videos, written scenarios, and surveys assessing opinions, attitudes, and beliefs were used to evaluate this training program. Much was learned about how to effectively facilitate change in staff who are on the front lines dealing with youth who have experienced trauma and are exhibiting challenging behavior.

Engaging learners is a difficult task. They are constantly confronted with distractions and demands on their time. So how can we create instruction that pulls learners into the content and helps them gain the knowledge required to be successful? How do we grab and hold a learner's attention? How do we motivate them to engage with the content we are teaching? There are techniques and factors that can be borrowed from games which are shown to influence the behavior of individuals. Incorporating these techniques and factors from games into learning is often called “gamification.” This decidedly unacademic presentation will model using those technique to engage and educate the learners. Attendees will discover firsthand how research-based practices and game-thinking are used to engage learners, increase learning, and lead to performance driven results.

Karl M. Kapp, Ed.D., is an award-winning professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA. where he teaches instructional game design, gamification classes and online learning design.  He is the Director of Bloomsburg’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and is recognized internationally as an expert in the application of games, game-thinking and gamification to learning.  Karl earned his doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

He is currently a senior researcher on a grant sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which involves the application of microlearning and gamification to help childcare workers identify child abuse. Karl has co-founder of Enterprise Game Stack, a company that has created a digital card game tool for instructional designers. He is also the creator of the popular web video series, “The Unauthorized, Unofficial History of Learning Game.”

Karl has authored or co-authored eight books including The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, its accompanying fieldbook and the widely popular, Play to Learn. His latest co-authored book with Robyn Defelice is Microlearning: Short and Sweet. Karl is author of ten LinkedIn Learning courses including Learning How to Increase Learner Engagement and has been a TEDx speaker. In 2019, he received the ATD Distinguished Contribution to Talent Development Award. The award is presented in recognition of an exceptional contribution that has had a sustained impact on field of the talent development.

Karl’s academic and practitioner work explores the research, theoretical foundations and practical application of gamification, game-thinking and activity-based learning to organizational performance issues. His goal is to help organizations create engaging learning experiences through intelligent, research-based application of instructional strategies and techniques. He shares his expertise and knowledge through consulting, workshops and one-on-one mentoring with start-up firms, Fortune 100 companies and various governmental agencies. Follow him on Twitter @kkapp or check out his website at www.karlkapp.com

In the summer of 2021, ABAI pulled together a team of professionals and created the Task Force for Quality and Values-Based ABA. This symposium begins with an overview of the Task Force and then brings together three members of the Task Force to discuss the topic of ableism and how that connects to the mission of the Task Force. This symposium discusses the importance of behavior analysts with different views about social justice--diversity, equity, and inclusion convening to discuss the topic of ableism so that we can all begin making substantive changes to the practice of ABA without sacrificing the technical precision that supports skill development in areas identified as important by Autistic clients. Each presenter will address how involvement with the Task Force has changed their views on ableism, their role in the field, or pivotal growth opportunities that have helped them evolve as behavior analysts. Reconsideration of the ways social validity should influence professional decision-making, an emphasis on compassionate care, the need to provide person-centered behavior analytic services, and the myriad ways behavior analysts should challenge their own assumptions as providers will be discussed.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

As an Autistic adult and member of the ABAI Task Force for Quality and Values-Based ABA, I have had the opportunity to bring a unique perspective to the Task Force’s work. My journey as a professional working in the field of ABA has dovetailed with my journey as a person on the autism spectrum understanding my own internalized ableism, and mention will be made of how each of these spheres work to inform the other. Emphasis will also be placed on the challenges faced as a member of the Task Force in overcoming the idea of my presence as an “other” in the group and the difficulties I experienced based on my own learning history. Engagement with and attitudes toward Autistic people influence the willingness of BCBAs to confront ableism and ultimately make changes to the culture of the field at large will be discussed. Examples of efforts that have been made to encourage dialogue between BCBAs and Autistic advocates will also be discussed, as well as the successes and limitations of these efforts.

As a person identifying as a behavior analyst for over 50 years, I have observed from a behavior analytic perspective many changes in my behavior, the scope and sophistication of behavior analysis, and in society in the United States during the time of that journey. Sometimes those changes are obvious and recognition of them unavoidable; at other times, they are noticed after comments by others or after times of personal reflection. Mention will be made of some relevant substantial changes in behavior analysis and in society at large as will changes in my personal perspective and practice as a behavior analyst during this 50-year journey. Particular emphasis will be given to changes in my personal and professional perspectives regarding persons said to have disabilities as well as persons whose behavior varies from what is commonly expected in society in the United States. One group of people regarding whom I have experienced and continue to experience changes in my perspective is the very homogeneous group of people identifying or identified as Autistic. As a member of the ABAI Task Force for Quality and Values-Based ABA, my thinking and behavior regarding the latter people, including regarding ableism, have changed and continue to change at an accelerated rate. Instances of the latter set of changes will be discussed.

Given the purpose of applied behavior analysis is to use our technology and principles to lead to socially meaningful improvements in quality of life, we should all be concerned with how ableism influences the way we interact with disabled people. According to the BACB, most behavior analysts serve Autistic clients, and Autistic clients often receive a large number of service hours. The Task Force for Quality and Values-Based ABA was convened, in large part, to identify and address some of the concerns raised about ableism in the practice of ABA. The need to coordinate and collaborate with others with whom you share differences of opinion have served as a growth opportunity for all Task Force members. But growth is always accompanied by some level of pain, and my role in the Task Force is no exception. For example, my effort to lead gave me insights into the differences between impact and intention that can cause pain based on the point of view of Autistics and neurotypical behavior analysts. Learning more about professional actions, I have historically taken that I have caused harm when I thought I was creating good, has also been painful. Balancing the need to regularly dedicate time to examine our own ableist thinking and actions with the self-care that is needed to maintain a long-term commitment to changing ableism in our practice, is challenging but critical for our success as a field.

In his 1988 chapter of a similar name, Don Baer described the then-current accomplishments of behavior-analytic approaches to public education. These included the ability to transform student and teacher behavior and refine curriculum; however rather than offer a laundry list of the ways behavior analysis has and could improve education, he instead reiterated the question he and Don Bushell asked seven years earlier: “Why hasn't behavior analysis done more?” Despite their incisive analysis of the school as an organization and the environment and cultural implications of change, almost 40 years later behavior analysts continue to lament a lack of widespread acceptance and use of behavior analysis in education. Perhaps our collective lamenting is misplaced. Perhaps behavior analysis is more pervasive in schools than we recognize. Perhaps we could do more by analyzing a network of contingencies--not just of education systems but of our own approaches. By fusing contingency analyses, education, and technologies (tools and processes), the current and future opportunities for behavior analysts are limitless.

Behavior Analysts, educators, psychologists, school personnel, students

Professional development resources for educators that are highly reliable, valid and practical for routine educational practices are warranted. Evidence-based resources are particularly needed for teachers and paraprofessionals who work in high-poverty schools as they experience higher rates of stress and turnover, as well as rates for classroom disruptive behaviors approximately three times higher than national averages. Dr. Reddy presents the development of new assessments and coaching models designed to support teacher and paraprofessional instructional and behavior management practices that maximize student learning and behavior. Specifically, she will describe the theory, reliability and validity of the Classroom Strategies Assessment System, a multi-method teacher assessment designed to measure empirically-supported instructional and behavior management practices. Dr. Reddy presents the theory and evidence of new data-driven coaching models, Classroom Strategies Coaching for Teachers and Behavior Support Coaching for Paraprofessionals supported by four randomized controlled trials conducted in diverse school settings.

Linda A. Reddy, Ph.D., is a Professor of School Psychology and Assistant to the Dean for Research and Innovations at Rutgers University who is passionate about helping schools maximize educator effectiveness and student success. She received her PhD in School Psychology from the University of Arizona and has published over 140 peer-reviewed publications and six books on coaching, school/classroom assessment, teacher effectiveness, disruptive behaviors, and educational technology. Her work has received awards and has been funded (over 60 million dollars) by the US of Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Office of Special Education Programs, Office of Innovation and Improvement through Teacher Quality Programs, and private foundations. Dr. Reddy is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and inducted member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology. Dr. Reddy has held numerous national leadership roles (e.g., President of APA Division 16 School Psychology, member of APA Board of Professional Affairs, APA Council Representative, APA Task Force for Violence Againist Teachers). She is a licensed psychologist and nationally certified school psychologist. Most importantly, she is a proud mother of twin daughters, avid runner, hiker and alpine skier who lives in New Jersey.

Although not as tasty, ableism is as American as apple pie and is rooted in majority culture identities. Ableism is defined as a pervasive system that oppresses people with differing abilities while privileging people who are labeled as able-bodied. Majority culture refers to the ways in which those in power used the concept of race to create whiteness and a hierarchy of racialized value in order to disconnect and divide white people from Blacks, Indigenous, and other people of color, as well as define who is normal or abnormal (Tema Okun, 2021). The practice of applied behavior analysis inherently operates to perpetuate three main dimensions of ableism and privilege in that we operate to make those with the differing abilities account for their differences, treat them as being less than, and we measure our success on the extent to which the targeted behaviors fall in the “normal range.” The presentation will discuss the Ethical Code for Behavior Analysts, the imperfections of ethical guidelines, and the need for ethical and cultural competencies. Specifically, using examples of real-world behavior plans, publications, and the Ethical Code for Behavior Analysts, I will identify examples of ableism and bias attitudes and provide support for the need for development of ethical and cultural competencies for behavior analysts.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Automatically maintained self-injurious behavior is associated with more severe injuries relative to socially maintained self-injurious behavior (SIB). Assessing, treating, and conducting research on severe SIB poses many practical and ethical challenges; chief among them is minimizing risk. Protective procedures often used include mechanical devices that limit the occurrence of the behavior, protective equipment that protect areas of the body from injury, response blocking to prevent the completion of the response, and abbreviated sessions to limit exposure to situations in which the behavior is occurring. We describe a principled approach to guide the application of these and other tactics that balance the need to allow the occurrence of SIB to the extent that it can be assessed and treatments can be evaluated, while also minimizing risks of injury. The general principles include 1) matching the protective procedures based on the form of and injuries produced by SIB, 2) selecting the optimal combination of procedures, starting with the combination most likely to prevent injury, then 3) carefully reducing the use of procedures so that the optimal level of protection that is minimally restrictive is identified. Outcomes of the application of this approach will be discussed.

The identification of treatment-resistant subtypes of automatically maintained self-injurious behavior (ASIB) created an imperative to develop more efficacious interventions. Increased understanding of the mechanisms involved in the maintenance of these behaviors, and the development of new technologies provide a conceptual and empirical basis for developing an intervention targeting these treatment-resistant subtypes. Combination treatment is based on the same principle of reinforcer competition as the current standard of care treatment, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) with competing stimuli, but also employs novel methods to greatly increase the amount and vary the sources of competing reinforcement to target both self-injury and self-restraint. Combination treatment includes three phases: 1) Pre-Treatment Assessments to identify competing stimuli, competing tasks, and self-control equipment to reduce self-injury and self-restraint; 2) Intensive Training to strengthen skills needed to fully access available competing reinforcement, and replace debilitating self-restraint with self-control; and 3) Combination Treatment where competing stimuli, competing tasks, and alternative self-control equipment are combined to maximize their effects. The conceptual and empirical basis for this treatment are discussed, and preliminary findings from a randomized crossover design comparing the efficacy of Combination Treatment to NCR with competing stimuli are summarized.

Problem behavior can be treated with applied behavior analysis (ABA) or psychotropic medication, and each carries its own advantages and disadvantages. ABA is resource intensive, requires technically trained personnel, and the benefits may develop slowly but it has none of the side effects associated with psychotropic medications, their benefits are cumulative and often outlive the treatment period. Psychotropic medication’s effects appear quickly, their benefits can be striking, and are thought to be less expensive than ABA interventions. Finally, the educational and practicum training required for the two domains are nearly non-overlapping, so often only one approach is used or both are used with varying degrees of cooperation among practitioners, with impacts on families and clients. The two papers in this symposium examine treatment in this context. Chris Newland compares the costs of ABA with and without psychotropic medications and examines when ABA reduces the future use of psychotropic medication. Jennifer Zarcone discusses communicating with medical providers and families, and the ethical dilemmas presented when balancing their approaches with the therapeutic goals. The discussant, Maria Valdovinos, will examine these topics in the context of recent studies of joint treatment by psychotropic and behavioral interventions.

The target audience includes behavior analysts interested in psychopharmacology in applied settings, the use of psychotropic medications, and ethical and practical issues that arise when working with medical personnel. School staff and families will also benefit. Audience members should have a basic understanding of behavior analytic principles, how to read and interpret complex graphs, an appreciation of interdisciplinary service delivery, and at least an elementary understanding of psychotropic medications that are used.

We evaluated whether applied behavior analysis (ABA) services for children and youth in foster care reduces the future use of psychotropic medication and yields cost savings. Foster children 2 to 18 years old and their caregivers received ABA services to target specific problem behaviors and to train caregivers in behavior management. Most children were on psychotropic medication but those in the “Prevention Group” had no such history. An “ABA-Matched” group was matched on demographic variables and the severity of problem behavior. The costs of delivering services and medication was compared using these groups. A third group, called the “Medicaid-Matched” group was matched against the ABA-Matched group from a database of children receiving psychotropics through Medicaid. This last matching was based on demographics, medications prescribed on entering Medicaid, and the number of months receiving Medicaid-supported psychotropics. Costs for the older ABA-Matched children (> 12YO) were more than 10X the costs of age-matched prevention children, but costs for younger children (< 5YO) were similar. About half of the Prevention-Group children received no psychotropics in a three-year follow-up and the others received fewer than the ABA-Matched children. Thus, ABA services before commencing psychotropics prevented or greatly reduced the use of psychotropics over a three-year follow-up.

This presentation will focus on some of the ethical issues we face as behavior analysts when collaborating with families and medical providers to measure the effects of psychotropic medication. There are barriers to effective communication for many clinicians and some advice on how to negotiate those barriers will be discussed. In addition, a brief review of common measures (both indirect and based on direct observation) that can be used to assess the effects of medication on challenging behavior will be discussed. For example, we conducted an academic analog assessment with a 10-year-old with autism to assess the effect of an attention deficit disorder medication on off task and problem behavior on an impatient hospital unit. The figure shows that atomoxetine (Straterra) was highly effective in reducing problem and off task behavior. Additionally, we will discuss how we can help behavior analysts become more knowledgeable about behavioral pharmacology and medication effects during their graduate programs as well as via continuing education opportunities.

Systems may be formal or a result of self-organized selection of behaviors. We often talk about for instance a school system referring to the formal, planned and intentionally organized teaching and support services. A system may, however, as well arise without any formal structure, planning or intentionality. OBM, or the science of how to facilitate optimal contingencies for behaviors that serves the goals of the company, have to deal with both formal and informal functions, structures, and processes. These structures, whether visualized by an organization chart or a snapshot of network interactions, must also take culture into consideration. This presentation will show how the transmission of cultural practices over time influence both formal and informal systems.

Everyone interested in how organizations work, whether businesses or public sector.

As the school-age population continues to diversify, it is now more important than ever that we provide services with a social justice focus that recognizes and values individuals’ unique identities and dismantles systems of oppression and marginalization. With a particular focus on school-based intervention, we will discuss a social justice approach to service delivery. Implications for integrating an ecological-behavioral framework with a social justice approach informed by critical race theory, intersectionality, and dis/ability critical race studies will be discussed. We will discuss the adaptation of evidence-based interventions to fit various contexts, as well as the development of novel interventions built specifically for minoritized populations. We will also examine peer-mediated interventions as a promising suite of culturally relevant strategies.

Rapid advances in intelligent agent technology and artificial intelligence technology present new challenges and new opportunities for neurodiverse individuals, their caregivers, and the professionals who work with them. The COVID-19 pandemic became a strong motivating operation for integrating these technologies into work with neurodiverse individuals and their caregivers. This symposium shares groundbreaking new work on applications of intelligent agent technology and artificial intelligence technology with neurodiverse individuals from pre-K to adulthood. Drawn from research conducted by a NIH and NSF funded network of academic and private sector researchers across several states, four illustrative examples show how these digital technologies have been incorporated into work with neurodiverse individuals. One presentation shows how an intelligent agent platform can enable families to access expert guidance in implementing home-based behavioral treatment for children with ASD. A second demonstrates how a similar platform can be used to instruct school age children with ASD. The third presentation evaluates how an intelligent agent based tool increases caregiver treatment fidelity when teaching children basic living skills. The final presentation discusses design considerations for developing a platform that will enable neurodiverse adults to work as data annotators in the IT industry. Although all presentations will review data, there is an equal focus on issues of usability, acceptability and reaction from caregivers and employees using the intelligent agent technology. The overarching theme for this symposium is that forward-thinking applied behavior analysts can help create and leverage innovative technologies to assist the neurodiverse individuals, their families, and the professionals who work with them succeed.

Advanced: prerequisite skill/competency would include experience in supervising work with children with ASD and/or the work of neurodiverse employees; some basic educated lay person familiarity with AI, experience with efforts to improve program fidelity

Caregiver involvement is an integral component of behavioral interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to ensure generalization and maintenance of skills. Coaching and supporting caregivers in the implementation of behavioral interventions often requires closely working with behavior analysts, which can be resource intensive and may not be feasible in some settings (e.g., rural communities). Further, ensuring sustained treatment fidelity may require additional monitoring and re-coaching. An intelligent agent platform that coaches and guides caregivers in the implementation of behavioral interventions may be useful for minimizing resources required to support caregivers and may aid in maintaining high, long-term treatment fidelity. Caregivers of children with ASD receiving services at a university-based clinic were recruited to deliver behavioral interventions in the home under the direction of written instructions or an intelligent agent platform. Treatment implementation fidelity, percentage of correct responses by the child, and acceptability of each support system served as the main dependent measures. Caregiver acceptability of the intelligent agent technology is discussed.

Intelligent agent technology can help improve procedural fidelity and maintain high levels of performance by ABA therapists and the clients that they serve. However, this nascent technology has only very recently been introduced to ABA therapy. Much remains to be learned about intelligent agent technology and its effects on ABA therapists, including social validity and acceptability This study evaluated the use of an intelligent agent and data collection system for ABA therapist use while teaching handwashing to three school aged children with a diagnosis of autism. Using a multiple baseline design data were collected on therapists’ fidelity of implementation, as well as child acquisition of handwashing. Data were collected until the child participants mastered the ability to independently demonstrate washing hands. Following this, therapists were given the option to either continue with the app or use a traditional paper based protocol and data collection method for the purposes of handwashing instruction as a test of acceptability. The results of therapist reactions, as well as implications for digital technology and intelligent agent use will be discussed.

Behavior Analysis provides effective interventions for individuals with ASD and other developmental disabilities. However, the shortage of qualified and trained professionals to implement such interventions has been an ongoing problem nationally and internationally over the past decades. This study evaluated the effect of an innovative intelligent agent technology (GAINS) as a new tool for the caregivers of children with ASD to teach them important life skills such as dressing, feeding, hand washing, or packing a snack. Children with ASD (ages between 3-8) who receive services from a regional behavioral health organization and their caregivers participated. A single subjects design across participant dyads was used to evaluate independent completion of the task analyzed target life skill of the child and treatment fidelity data of caregivers following the cues from the intelligent agent technology. Both behavioral data and participant reaction and satisfaction with the intelligent agent technology were assessed. Recommendations for designing intelligent agent technology for use with this population are discussed.

Peer relations serve many important functions in children’s development. Social reciprocity or reciprocal peer interactions occur when children engage in social interactions with one another or when their actions support each other in their relationships. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, reciprocity of social exchange is missing and is manifest as a lack of both social responses and initiations to other people. Over the years, various behavioral strategies have been developed to promote social interactions between children with ASD and their peers for a successful integration in inclusion settings. Video modelling, as one of them, is not only an effective and evidence-based method for developing many social and play skills, but it can also be a practical and efficient tool that is well-suited to the school environment. In this presentation, pertinent video modeling methodologies will be explored and specific suggestions on the effective use of video modeling will be provided.

Graduate students; RBTs; board certified behavior analysts (BCBA); board certified assistant behavior analysts (BCaBA); psychologists; therapists and special educators working in a variety of applied and experimental settings as well as educational and social science settings who are interested in the promotion of social and play skills in children with ASD.

Health behavior promotion in childhood has been dominated by knowledge-centered paradigms. However, research shows that beliefs about what is healthy have a stronger influence on behavior than factual knowledge. Motivation and self-regulation frameworks highlight the agent role of the individual in controlling the personal, behavioral, and environmental influences that impact one’s behavior. Although individuals may be influenced and regulated by external factors and agents, exclusively relying on external regulation does not allow the individual to develop adaptive competences and skills, such as choosing a healthy snack. The aim of this presentation is to describe how healthy habits in childhood can be promoted, including diet and sleep, through the modelling of self-regulation skills via story-tools/narrative-based programs.

Anyone interested in motivation and self-regulation, and health behavior promotion

In early 2020, schools across the entire world transitioned from traditional school settings to crisis teaching in virtual spaces due to the global pandemic, coronavirus or COVID-19. During this time, equity gaps in digital resources and access to education became increasingly apparent as socioeconomic status and geographical location strongly influenced whether families were able to support remote access to learning opportunities. Yet, students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) tend to experience higher rates of peer victimization, struggle to obtain and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, and battle more mental health problems than other special education students. Students who had already been identified as having splintered skills or gaps in their learning history did not have access to interventions provided in the traditional classroom at the same time that all students were expected to engage in much higher forms of executive functioning skills than previously expected. This panel of school-based consultants will share their own experiences working in the schools throughout the pandemic in terms of challenges, steps for addressing challenges, and resources necessary for doing so.

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.

Previous research has demonstrated that children with ASD exhibit less sleep in a 24-hour period than their typically developing peers (Goodlin-Jones, 2008), and increases in problem behavior are associated with sleep deprivation (Goldman et al., 2011). However, there are few studies that evaluate this putative relation using direct measurement of both behavior and sleep. The general aim of this study is to extend the research on sleep and its relation to problem behavior. Using wearable and non-wearable sleep trackers, we collected data on various measures of sleep and compared them to in-clinic daytime problem behavior. Additionally, we conducted structured descriptive assessments (Anderson & Long, 2002) across days to evaluate if changes in sleep change how different establishing operations affect behavior. We will discuss how the social validity of well-established sleep treatments (e.g, Jin et al., 2013) would be greater if the effect of improved sleep on daytime behavior was directly evaluated.

Hagopian et al. (2015) delineated subtypes of self-injurious behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement partially based on occurrence of self-injury in the play condition (i.e., subtype one). They also analyzed treatment data with respect to subtypes and found that subtype one is less resistant to treatment than subtypes two and three. For one child with autism with oral-motor self-injury, we conducted a functional analysis and a more fine-grained analysis of engagement in the play condition. The functional analysis indicated that oral-motor self-injury was maintained by automatic reinforcement. However, oral-motor self-injurious behavior was reduced in the play condition. We used this information to conduct a component analysis of the play condition, and we found that combinations of stimuli reduced engagement in self-injurious behavior, with little differentiation across multiple stimuli used in this condition. We then conducted a competing stimulus assessment, both with items used in the play condition and with novel items, and found single stimuli were insufficient for reducing self-injury.

Rumination, repeated regurgitation of ingested food, can be a difficult problem to assess and treat. Early research focused on punishment of rumination (e.g., Becker et al., 1978 ) whereas more recent research has focused on the food quantity (e.g., Kenzer & Wallace, 2007). However, there is limited research on the influence of food type on rumination. We analyzed effects of several dimensions of food, including food type and food category, in addition to total quantity and total calories, on rumination with an adult with intellectual disability. Initially, we equated calories across food types, which involved different quantities of food based on food type. We observed that rumination was lower when our participant consumed larger quantities of food. Subsequent analyses suggested a more dynamic interaction between food type and food quantity – at least two foods with different quantities produced low levels of rumination. We will discuss how an analysis of parameters of food could advance effective treatment of rumination.

Selected writings of B. F. Skinner will be shown to have several, sometimes quite striking, similarities with current psychological research. This includes research supporting Skinner’s position that the environment can alter human behavior outside conscious awareness and research by Daniel Wegner and Emily Pronin supporting Skinner’s warnings that introspection is a common, but flawed, habit in folk psychology. In addition, Skinner’s writings will be shown to be compatible with the critical psychiatry movement and (perhaps surprisingly) some shared worldviews between B. F. Skinner and Noam Chomsky will be outlined.

Behavior analysts, psychologists, graduate students

All interested in behavior analysis, experimental analysis, the self, rule-governed behavior, relational frame theory, and clinical behavior analysis

Six decades of research on human decision making has revealed how sensitive our choices are to the ways in which options are framed. A key insight from this line of scholarship, which is typically referred to as behavioral economics, is that the influence of nudges – or intentional framings of options so as to make certain choices more likely – is greatest when people lack deep-seated or well-ordered preferences among the options. Most of us know, for example, whether we prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream, or at least the situations in which we prefer one or the other, and so are unlikely to be nudged to choose differently. But unlike ice cream selections, seriously patients’ (and their family members’) choices about end-of-life care are made infrequently, and typically without receiving feedback about how choosing one way versus another makes us feel. For these reasons and perhaps others, research over the past decade has shown that these high-stakes, seemingly preference-sensitive decisions are in fact quite strongly influenced by the ways in which options are framed. This talk will begin by differentiating among behavior change strategies that differ in their likely effectiveness and threats to autonomous choice, and will then explore how behavioral economic concepts are being used by the speaker and others in efforts to improve the quality of serious illness care in the U.S. Examples from ongoing and recently completed randomized trials will be presented, and the ethics of consciously “nudging” certain end-of-life decisions will be considered.

Structural racism is one of the most pervasive and impactful social paradigms in American life, and often works in tandem with systems of inequality to drive social factors that adversely affect child health. Understanding the influence of racism on these unjust systems can aid individuals in narrowing health disparities. First, individuals should acknowledge a shared definition of racism as a “system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks… that unfairly disadvantages some… unfairly advantages others, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.” Next, an identification of these systemic inequities should be made, with throughlines drawn connecting social adversity with poor health outcomes. Finally, intentional and evidence-based strategies should be employed to counteract these adverse influences in both health care and society, and these interventions studied to gauge efficacy and direct resources.

Healthcare providers

Behavior analysis students, practitioners, and researchers.

For over a decade, CABAS was implemented in Italy by several learning centers that aimed to test the effects of education as a social innovation tool. We found that this model can provide schools and health services with an evidence-based system to design interventions that are both effective and efficient. Also, it greatly contributed to maintaining treatment integrity for children and adults with autism spectrum disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic. During these challenging times of economic and health crisis across the world, consequences for failing to design early and efficient ABA treatments were being highlighted by researchers. In addition, all countries in terms of reaching the “sustainable development goals” (SDGs) for fighting educational poverty, can do so only by providing people with a disability with individualized proper interventions. CABAS was able to offer help with identifying criteria for effective behavioral interventions, with particular attention to highly critical groups, such as people with autism. Luckily, the science of teaching provides researchers all over the world with a system to measure education. A growing number of research findings show that CABAS is among the most cost-effective educational model in the world. Moreover, its implementation across all age groups and for both special and general education, suggest that it is a cross-cultural, flexible tool for different contexts. Therefore, in Italy, we implemented it as a tactic within social, health and school services, for individuals with and without disability, from 18 months to adulthood. We found that the implementation of such a comprehensive model of education fits the need for sustainability of welfare systems drastically different from those in the United States. CABAS® was first replicated in Italy in 1991 and further expended through a great deal of applied research across various fields and disciplines. International replications are paving the way for further research and trans-disciplinary analysis of its effects, using longitudinal measurements and both criterion and norm-based data.

ABA master and Ph.D. students, school directors, supervisors, service managers, community health advocates

With modern computers, there is an ever-increasing promise for the ability to conduct complex data analyses that are designed for behavior analysts and the types of data we collect. However, many of these useful techniques remain out of the grasp of the average behavior analyst because the techniques do not exist as a functional tools and are just promises. A wholly different behavioral repertoire related to data analysis and computer programming is necessary to translate the promises into functional tools. The goal of this symposium is to highlight the growing effort within behavior analysis to develop useful data analytic tools and applications for ourselves. Topics will cover efforts to analyze behavioral data in relation to environmental variables outside of the behavior analyst’s control (e.g., client medications), neural network computing to analyze multiple baseline data, methods to develop decision support systems for functional analysis, and development of a system for charting of single-subject design data that can be easily extended to support advanced statistical analysis.

Attendees should be aware of pharmacotherapy and should have knowledge of multiple baselines and functional analyses.

Researchers report increasing trends in psychotropic medication use to treat problem behavior in individuals with intellectual and developmental disability, despite some controversy regarding its application and treatment efficacy. While a substantial evidence-base exists supporting behavioral intervention efficacy, research evaluating separate and combined interventions (i.e., concurrent application of behavioral and psychopharmacological interventions) effects is scarce. This talk demonstrates a series of analysis using the clinical treatment data of four adolescent males who engaged in severe problem behavior to retrospectively explore separate and combined intervention effects. First, we calculated individual effect sizes and corresponding confidence intervals. The results indicated larger problem behavior decreases may have coincided more often with behavioral intervention adjustments compared to medication adjustments. Second, a conditional rates analysis indicated surges in problem behavior may not have reliably coincided with medication reductions. Spearman correlation analyses indicated a negative relationship between behavioral intervention phase progress and weekly episodes of problem behavior compared to a positive relationship between total medication dosage and weekly episodes of problem behavior. However, a non-parametric partial correlation analyses indicated individualized, complex relationships may exist between total medication dosage, behavioral intervention and weekly episodes of problem behavior. Although our conclusions are tentative, we will discuss many potential clinical implications, as well as rationale for behavioral researchers and practitioners to consider applying creative analytic strategies to evaluate separate and combined interventions effects on problem behavior to further explore this extremely understudied topic.

Applied work in Behavior Analysis is moving towards regularly integrating quantitative metrics in the design, delivery, and evaluation of behavioral interventions. Efforts in this area are constrained by the tools available to practitioners. Whereas commercially available spreadsheet software supports robust charting capabilities, only the most basic types of computations are supported. Furthermore, this approach cannot be fully automated and places significant demands on the analyst. The approach presented here leverages the capabilities of the free, open-source R program to support both quantitative as well as the existing charting conventions (e.g., style, formatting) expected of commercially available spreadsheet software. The combination of which is a toolset that supports both visual analysis and the integration of robust statistical methods (e.g., multi-level modeling). This paper ends with a discussion on the importance of statistical consultation and training and exploration of free and open-source alternatives to commercial software packages.

The implications of the philosophical underpinnings of behavior analysis have, of late, increasingly become a point of interest for behavior analytic practitioners in the context of their applied work. Despite this increasing interest, practitioners may continue to benefit from increased opportunities to engage with these concepts that have robust applied utility. One such philosophy of behavior science that has garnered a recent increase in attention is that of J.R. Kantor’s Interbehaviorism (Kantor, 1924). Kantor’s approach to analyzing behavior is naturalistic, and dismisses many assumptions that other approaches operate within. In this symposium, we will discuss key behavior analytic concepts from an interbehavioral lens, and examine how approaching these concepts differently could be beneficial in applied settings. The aim of the symposium is to demonstrate how Interbehaviorism can increase a clinician’s sensitivity to responding occurring within sessions potentially even over other modern philosophies of behavior science, including Radical Behaviorism and Functional Contextualism.

-Basic competency in philosophical concepts of Radical Behaviorism (as a prerequisite to contrasting RB conceptualizations with Interbehaviorial conceptualizations).

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the “gold standard” for service provision aimed at helping young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the increased attention to this population may be detracting from the value associated with taking an ABA approach to support individuals of all ages, across a range of diagnoses. Further, the shift to define ABA as medically necessary for individuals diagnosed with ASD (APBA, April 10, 2020) requires effective patient, provider, and payor collaboration, and recent publications have highlighted the need for structured approaches to decision-making based in analytical ethics to support this transition. Accordingly, APBA released guidelines directing practitioners to provide services based on individualized risk exposure requiring a more patient-informed approach to care. The purpose of the current presentation is to outline a collaborative risk-driven approach designed to help guide practitioners to make ethically informed decisions regarding ABA service delivery, regardless of setting, age, or severity. Considerations regarding a potential divide between science and ABA-based service delivery will be addressed, including misconceptions about that which defines our professional and ethical obligations; specifically, how our related responsibilities extend far beyond particular ABA-based clinical programming procedures, necessitating constant empirical evaluation of the overall continuity of care for a given individual (e.g., placement, transition, community-based activities, and more).

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students

Relationship variables such as mindful presence and compassion, though often dismissed as “soft skills,” are critical to the quality and effectiveness of applied and clinical behavior analysis. The job of a behavior analytic practitioner is to identify, critically analyze, and intervene upon relationships between context and behavior, so that they can promote meaningful change. To the extent that the practitioner is part of the context in which all this takes place, the practitioner-client relationship cannot be extracted from the analysis. In this way, the behavior analytic practitioner’s skills with regards to mindfulness and compassion have immense practical value. In this symposium, the presenters will explore these important variables in the therapeutic relationship and present methods for fostering and measuring such components. The first paper presents a conceptual behavioral analysis of compassionate behavior, along with practical implications for behavior analysts. The second paper presents a multiple baseline study across practitioners on the effects of process-based notetaking on clinical behavior analyst mindfulness and subjective alliance. Finally, the discussant will offer thoughts and invite commentary with regards to relationship variables and the therapeutic context provided in behavior analysis.

Basic

Motivating operations (MO) are antecedent variables responsible for the transitory effects of reinforcing consequences. The MO concept helped behavior analysts focus on environmental, rather than organismic variables when trying to predict and control someone’s wants and needs, as MOs can be defined, observed, measured, and manipulated. The MO also served to stimulate research and allow clinicians to better understand behavioral functions in clinical settings. Despite its obvious utility, the MO is a complex and controversial concept involving multiple origins, effects, and functions. The purpose of this talk is to describe the different types of MOs, differentiate between motivational and discriminative effects, and address some of the most common misconceptions about the concept regarding the utility of the value-altering effect, the direct nature of its control over behavior, its private nature, the multiple functions of MOs, and the need for the different types of Conditioned MOs.

Board certified behavior analysts; graduate students; licensed psychologists