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.

The implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) was originally conceptualised as a method for assessing the strength of natural verbal relations as conceptualised within RFT. The method itself involved combining the relational evaluation procedure (REP), an RFT-based methodology, and an instrument developed within mainstream social cognitive psychology known as the implicit association test (IAT). The latter was designed to measure the strength of associations in memory and was therefore clearly a tool based on the assumptions of cognitive psychology. In combining the REP and IAT into the IRAP, an increasingly vigorous program of research emerged in which the IRAP was used as an instrument for assessing implicit cognition rather than the strength of natural verbal relations. Although the research program was not without value, in retrospect it was always going to be limited and the IRAP as such would fail to deliver on its original purpose. The current paper will review this retrospective narrative on the history of the IRAP and consider some of the more recent research that has focused on using it as a measure of the dynamics of relational framing itself.

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.