Association for Behavior Analysis International

PREAMBLE In this 21st century, Africa and its states remains a 'dark continent' in the era of the fastest developing profession - applied behavior analysis worldwide. The population of Africa is currently 1.24 billion. The World Health Organization has described the situation with autism in Africa as a 'developmental disability pandemic' that is largely under recognized, under appreciated in its impact, and under resourced. Nigeria's current population is about 193million and nearly 1.9 million is projected to be affected. In the entire Africa, the number of Registered Behavior Technicians is 22; BCaBA 4; BCBA 6; BACB approved training institution one, and there is no approved test center in the continent. Specifically, no functional disability legislation in Nigeria rather there exists ineffective infrastructure for special needs service delivery, exclusion on grounds of disability, abuse and violation of human rights. Only one state in Nigeria has 32 government owned inclusion schools staffed with very limited number of under qualified teachers attending. ABA is currently the only scientifically validated intervention for children with Autism and other Developmental Disorders and it comprises of a series of clinically articulated procedures that are systematically performed based on set principles and taught in a highly structured, culturally sensitive manner. The technological know-how involved in this science requires good supervision to ensure competent practice by the professionals CONCLUSION: There is strong need for sustainable capacity building through the transfer of ABA technology, and culturally sensitive manpower development in Nigeria and Africa at large.

Paraprofessionals can work in children with special needs in special education centers in Turkey and usually they don't enroll any trainig program on special education or applied behavior analysis. On the other hand, using preference assessment procedures are really uncommon procedures for them except to interview with parents about reinforments. Because of impotance of using and identify effective reinforcements, it is important to conduct systemical trainig for theachers who are working in special education and provide instruction on evidence-based practices to them. Cause of that requirement, to teach conducting Multiple Stimulus Pererecence Assessment (MSWO) was purposed in the current study. Six teachers participated the study. When three of them were primary participants, other three were secondary participants. The study questions were: If three primary participants could conduct MSWO after reading a text about MSWO implementation steps? If three participants could condcut MSWO after teacher trainig program (lecture+video model+ dramatization) with one-to-one feedback? If secondarry three participants could conduct MSWO after three primary participants train them? Results of the study showed that, primary three paricipants couldn't meet the criteria after reading the text about MSWO steps, but all three could conduct all steps correctly after teacher training programme. Additionally secondary three participants couldn't meet the criteria after their colleguaes trained them. So it is highly recommended that to conduct teacher training programme to paraprofessionals about evidence based practices.