Association for Behavior Analysis International

Behavior analysis in Brazil had its initial development centered in experimental and theoretical research. Nowadays, its applied branch is expanding, especially dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorder. These matters have prompted the behavior analytic community, who discusses the need for clear parameters about academic curriculum, professional experience and performance standards. This presentation will address these points, a) considering the challenges and possibilities of an intervention in Brazil that takes in the dimensions discussed in Baer, Wolf, and Riesley; b) analyze the importance of theoretical reflections for an intervention with the conceptual dimension, as when using concepts like "executive functions", imported from the cognitive-behavioral therapy, whose meaning to the behavior analyst has to be understood through the analysis of the smaller units that compose this concept, and without mentalist interpretations; c) To compare and consider how the behavior analyst has worked with intervention models like the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) and Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT), its terminologies, and the importance of these models for naturalistic teaching and consequent reach of the dimension of the generalization of abilities.

Behavior analysis in Brazil had its initial development centered in experimental and theoretical research. Nowadays, its applied branch is expanding, especially dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This development has produced questions in the social community, to witch the perception about the behavior analyst work is that ABA is only the application of certain techniques, the "ABA Method." These matters also have prompted the behavior analytic community, who discusses the need for clear parameters about academic curriculum, professional experience and performance standards. This presentation will address these points, considering the challenges and possibilities of an intervention in Brazil that takes in the dimensions discussed in Baer, Wolf and Riesley: how to make a conceptual-based work when the courses in psychology target a generalist coursework; how to make a intensive care, but with accessible cost to the population; how to make an intervention based on scientific principles, with a clear methods, with data taken and collected, when these skills are not taught in the traditional graduation - or understood only as academic requirements; and, without all this, how to deliver socially relevant consequences.

Executive function (EF) is a broad term that refers to the cognitive processes that help us regulate, control and manage our thoughts and actions. It includes planning, working memory, attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, initiation of actions and monitoring of actions. Most people on the autism spectrum have some degree of impaired executive function. Because executive function is such a complex concept, it can it can negatively impact success at school, home, the community and work. It is challenging to translate such a cognitivist conception into behavioral terms. First, behavioral psychology is not concerned with mentalistic causes of behavior and instead focuses on the behavior itself. Behavioral psychology is interested in behaviors and their relationship with the environment. Second, EF as a complex ability must be analysed into different behavioral units related to verbal behavior and rule-governed behavior. The understanding of such ability in behavioral terms will lead in techniques increasingly clear.

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) do not speech due presenting motor speech issues (Apraxia of Speech). Because of the importance of the intervention focusing on the speech and language abilities for nonverbal children with ASD this study aims to describe two interventions that have been widely applied: The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) and Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT). The ESDM is an early intervention for children with ASD the suggest a in individualized curriculum focussing on the current child ability, using naturalistic teaching strategies, based on Applied Behavior Analysis and also developmentalist theories. PROMPT is a technique that has as its final goal to re-establish the patient speech motor control through fiscal and gestures prompts for each phoneme. In the discussions, the importance of the research about interventions models for language is brought back, showing the efficiency of the studies. Both models have in their assumptions similarities and differences, but both use naturalistic teaching. It is essential that the evaluation and planning establish which techniques should be used, aiming language abilities teaching through interaction or through the oral motor abilities teaching. It is important to emphasize the importance of an integrated teamwork.