Association for Behavior Analysis International

Authors often struggle with understanding and replying to comments from reviewers and editors. This is especially the case for less experienced authors and students. This PDS is hosted by the ABAI Publications Council and features ABAI journal editors providing guidance and tips for responding to editorial comments during the manuscript resubmission process. Panelists will respond to questions such as: My paper was not accepted but was not rejected. What do I do now? How do I handle a ‘reject but resubmit’ decision? How should reviewer and editorial comments be interpreted? Must I respond to every editorial comment and recommendation? What do I do if reviewers’ comments conflict with one another? How do I handle reviewer requests that I cannot meet (e.g., asking for more data, different quantitative analyses, more detail than I am permitted to disclose)? Is it acceptable to disagree with a reviewer’s or editor’s recommendations? What do ABAI journal editors want to see in my responses to reviewer and editorial comments? As with previous ABAI Publications Council PDS sessions, we will leave ample time for audience questions.

Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are underrepresented in graduate school programs and make up only 12% of certified behavior analysts (Behavior Analysis Certification Board; BACB 2020). BIPOC students are often met with challenges such as microaggressions, gaslighting, victim blaming, and other nuanced forms of discrimination. Additionally, the lack of representation may create feelings of isolation among peers and seclusion from community resources. Such challenges have potential to create an unbalanced learning environment in which students are still expected to make reputable contributions to the field. Given this, BIPOC students must have access to additional resources to ensure they are supported throughout their tenure and have the tools they need to confront and disrupt discriminatory behaviors. This panel serves to 1) highlight the importance of community through representation 2) discuss the need for mentorship and allyship, 3) promote self-care strategies that have proven effective at mitigating the effects of discrimination, and 4) offer a safe space and reprieve during an otherwise strenuous journey. The panelists will also share personal experiences and resources that proved successful as they navigated their own journeys through graduate school.

Target Audience: Graduate students (BCBAs), Graduate School faculty (associate and full professors, BCBAs and/or BCBA-Ds), individuals providing supervision services to prospective BCBAs

The Association for Behavior Analysis International established a Verified Course Sequence (VCS) for Culturo-Behavior Science (CBS) covering core concepts, procedures, and methodologies to analyze and intervene in system-level social problems. However, the experiential practicum component lacks defined competency criteria; not surprisingly, the handful of current CBS practica also lack clear markers. This panel considers Behavioral Community Psychology (BCP) as a workable framework for developing learning opportunities to demonstrate core competencies. BCP’s core values stress community-researcher collaboration and the development –including systematic evaluation– of sustainable, pragmatic, empirically supported interventions that are replicable and contribute to fundamental social change. Work in BCP suggests a way that competency criteria in the VCS BCS practica can be articulated rationally, inform instructional design of practica, and help evaluate how learners demonstrate competence in terms of applying CBS principles at the prevention level. Among the critical competencies are interpersonal skills necessary to conduct effective collaborative research, assessment, and systems intervention. We discuss how CBS concepts, measures, and procedures can be applied in the organization and evaluation of VCS practicum learning experiences and in the selection of practicum sites to create new opportunities to transfer behavior science to socially significant issues. The intended audience for this panel are students seeking the CBS VCS certificates, as well as faculty designing and evaluating experiential learning, and personnel in host sites that offer venues for practica.