Association for Behavior Analysis International

The purpose of this poster is to describe staff self-monitoring training that was introduced with employees at a residential facility providing services to individuals with intellectual disabilities and emotional behavior disorders. The participants in the intervention range in age from 18-65 years old, with educational backgrounds from High School Diplomas to Masters Degrees, and both male and female staff. The training included preventive and reactive techniques for employees to engage in to avoid feelings of frustration and agitation while at work. Self-monitoring techniques were taught, and practiced through competency based skills training within the staffs' initial onboarding process. This training was one hour in length, and done in addition to three initial days of training on de-escalation with students and clients. Survey results indicate initial positive feedback from staff. The staff will have to be followed for at least a year, or longer, to indicate whether or not the training has had significant increases in retention.

Finding someone with expertise to assist organizations in implementing positive behavior support across universal, secondary, and tertiary tiers in human service settings can be challenging, especially in rural areas. Costs related to travel and staff time can be prohibitive even when training is offered at no cost by the state and efforts are made to establish regional trainings. Professionals at the University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration, are integrating telehealth systems into universal, secondary, and tertiary training systems as part of a statewide training in person-centered practices and positive behavior support to help address challenges related to travel in rural areas. Telehealth refers to leveraging technology to monitor, assess, and intervene in medical, therapeutic, and behavioral health service delivery. Access to telehealth systems can help address the challenges many states face reaching out to organization-wide teams in rural areas interested in implementing positive behavior support trainings. This poster will describe one statewide organization-wide training system for counties, mental health, public health, and provider organizations supporting people with disabilities. Details describing how telehealth is incorporated into the layered training systems across universal, secondary, and tertiary tiers are included.

Research in the field of applied behavior analysis has investigated methods for supervising and providing feedback to direct care providers in order to deliver the most effective treatment possible. Despite this, very little research has been done to assess caregiver satisfaction in regards to BCBA supervision. The present study aims to assess the impact of presenting caregiver feedback on supervision practices. We used surveys to collect data on supervision practices of BCBA's. Surveys were distributed to the families of individuals receiving ABA services, and therefore BCBA supervision. Individual survey responses were blinded from the BCBA and analyzed to provide feedback to BCBA's across professional behavior and social validity measures. Completed surveys were collected, and average score per question was calculated and displayed in a bar graph. Results were presented to BCBA's in numerical and graphical format regarding their average performance on each question. This process was then repeated after 3 months, and results were analyzed to determine if providing anonymous, graphical feedback made an impact on future survey results. As data collection continues, the authors anticipate an increase in scores across second survey collection. Results will be discussed in terms of improvement from initial scores and social validity.

Feedback can be delivered in many formats and it is one of the most commonly used interventions in the field of OBM (VanStelle, 2012). Daniels and Daniels (2006) offer a number of suggestions for the construction of publicly displayed graphs. The authors assert that line graphs are the easiest to construct and to understand; further, that it is important to utilize time-series graphs, which allow viewers to analyze a variable over time. However, Daniels & Daniels (2006) offer no data to support this suggestion. The purpose of the current study was to assess direct staff preference for graphic display of data. Specifically, staff were presented with a line, time-series graph of performance, a bar time-series graph of performance, and a single bar graph depicting most recent performance. In addition to identifying preference for graphic display, staff was questioned on how well he/she was able to interpret each graph. Forty-one direct care staff employed in a hospital serving individuals with intellectual disabilities participated in the study. Results suggested 72% of staff who completed the survey preferred the bar graphs over the line graph. Additionally, staff understood all graphs equally, with an average of 85% accuracy across questions related to graphic interpretation.

Johnson (2013) found a combination of evaluative and objective feedback was necessary to improve undergraduates' performance, however it is unclear if the same is true for employees in a workplace setting. The purpose of this study was to replicate Johnson's findings to reduce the number of time clock adjustments forms (TCAFs) submitted by approximately 120 direct care staff employed on a hospital unit. TCAFs are necessary to correct time sheets when employees fail to swipe in/out of shifts. Failure to swipe is against hospital policy, and results in additional hours of work for administrators and inaccuracies in staff pay. During feedback conditions, graphs depicting the frequency per week of TCAFs were displayed daily during shift change and supervisors provided a combination of objective and evaluative feedback statements to staff describing their performance. When feedback failed to change performance, a response cost component was implemented whereby staff lost the ability to trade staff-patient assignments among each other. This component was effective at reducing TCAFs by more than 50%; however, deleterious effects were observed across other related staff behaviors. Implications of using aversive consequences in human service settings will be discussed.

While working in human services that provides support for adults with developmental disabilities, it is important to have staff that are able to deliver treatment with accuracy and consistency. Good staff training guarantees that the organization provides a high quality of services. It helps in developing the staff job skills and expands their efficacy. Reviews of the literature for people with disabilities, reports that treatment fidelity is very restricted. In order to get treatment fidelity staff needs to demonstrate competency as measured by their performance. Moreover, staff members who have little or no professional training in a clinical field are the ones who provide the vast majority of treatment services. The lack of training presents barriers such as, difficulty in identifying errors that affect the treatment fidelity. This poster presents treatment fidelity in an applied setting for adults with disabilities. A treatment fidelity checklist was implemented to increase treatment fidelity across several staff members. Baseline and intervention data for treatment fidelity will be reviewed and the results of increased treatment fidelity will be reviewed. Poster viewers will discuss how this approach can be used to increase the reliability and validity of treatment across applied settings.

Data based decision making is a core feature of the field of Applied Behavior Analysis, however varying graphical displays can provide practitioners with different information. The Standard Celeration Chart (SCC) is a universal and standardized measurement system (Pennypacker, Gutierrez and Lindsley, 2003). The SCC is ideal for making data based decisions as related to a range of targets for various learners. iChoose is a day habilitation program in Reno, Nv. that serves adults with disabilities from 18-80. Over the past two years the iChoose program has switched to using the SCC as its primary graphing system. An implementation strategy to increase the quality of the data collected daily throughout the year of 2017 was selected, this led to an increase in the total number of plans ran per day. The goal for 2018 was to increase the number of mastered plans by increasing data based decisions of 3 managers. The data from 2017 and from 2018 on plans meeting the success criteria and the number of changes made by managers will be presented. Viewers will be encouraged to participate in a discussion on complex data based decision making related to managing multiple learners with a wide range of personal goals. References: Pennypacker, H., Gutierrez, A. J., & Lindsley, O. (2003). Handbook of the Standard Celeration Chart: Standard Edition. Cambridge Center for Behavioral .