Association for Behavior Analysis International

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Developmental Delay (DD) have difficulty with communication. Caregivers, such as parents, often spend a great deal of effort understanding their children and helping them to communicate. Behavior Skills Training (BST) is a didactic instruction procedure that includes the following steps: instructions, modeling, role-play, and feedback. Research has shown that BST is an effective method for training caregivers such as parents, teachers, and paraprofessionals. This study examined the effects of BST on parent implementation of a constant time delay (CTD) procedure for her three children (ages 2-6) with autism or developmental delay. The experimenter trained the mother to use CTD to teach her children to tact pictures. The mother of the three participants was diagnosed with an intellectual disability (ID). Results of the study suggest BST was effective for training the parent to implement the BST steps correctly and was effective for improving each child’s tacting skills.

There is limited research evaluating strategies being used to train pre-service behavior analysts. A review of the literature was conducted to identify studies that examine the effects of teaching strategies on pre-service behavior analysts acquisition of behavior analytic skills. Studies were included if participants were graduate students training to become behavior analysts, the dependent variable was a behavior analytic skill, a single-case research design was used, and individual participant data was reported. A systematic search identified seven studies that met the aforementioned inclusion criteria. The purposes of this review were to: 1) identify and summarize literature on training pre-service behavior analysts, (2) evaluate the quality of existing literature by applying the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) single-case research design standards to the included studies, and (3) obtain an effect size of the strategies that met the WWC single-case research design standards. Results of the included analyses are summarized and implications for future research are discussed.

Recently, applied behavior analysis (ABA) has seen dramatic increases in university training programs, experimental and applied research studies, and certified practitioners (Burning Glass, 2015; Carr & Nosik, 2017; Deochand & Fuqua, 2016), mirroring increasing nation-wide demand for credentialed behavior analysts (BACB, 2018). However, little research focuses on understanding our professional workforce, including their introductions to the discipline. Behavior analysts across Pennsylvania (n = 98) completed an in-depth quantitative and qualitative survey. Several researchers conducted both the analysis and coding, and measures were taken to ensure sufficient accuracy. Questions focused on a variety of issues/experiences, including their own pivotal experiences with ABA and motivating factors for becoming a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). Results highlight that behavior analysts are introduced to the field through working with clients, professional trainings, and during undergraduate or graduate coursework. After learning about the field, the respondents described career opportunities, a desire to gain both knowledge and skills, a connection with the science and practical applications of ABA, and enjoyment of the work and clients as key in pursing their BCBA. The results from study provide important preliminary information about our workforce and the professional and personal experiences which brought them to the field.

Recent empirical research and special issues have focused on determining appropriate training program ranking metrics, including faculty productivity and pass rates. Arguably, an important way to judge the quality of a training program is by talking with its graduates. Field leaders have recognized the critical importance of student voice in understanding program quality (Iwata, 2015). However, to date no research has focused on understanding the program or supervision experiences of our behavior professionals. A mixed-methods survey was send to over 1,200 behavior analysts across Pennsylvania to understand a variety of professional issues, including questions about their program selection considerations, and strengths and needs of their training program. The respondents (n = 98) also described the type(s), strengths, and needs of their supervision experiences and supervisors. Results from this survey are still being analyzed; however, preliminary findings suggest that future behavior analysts select their training program based on location/convenience, program reputation, and specific program characteristics (e.g., able to work while completing the program). Results from this survey will add an important missing voice into our fields’ conversations regarding training program quality and can provide critically important information for those responsible for training the next generation of behavior analysts.

Wraparound professionals are typically masters-level service providers who work with individuals with autism in home and community settings. However, as this study shows, some may lack the necessary skills to do so using applied behavioral analytic (ABA) strategies. This study discusses a competency-based training designed to bridge this gap. At the present time, eight participants have received training on how to define behavior, write behavioral goals, and collect and analyze behavioral data visually. Twenty more professionals are projected to complete the training by the end of the project. Preliminary results show that prior to training on average most participants score at 34% competency level. Currently, after fully training two participants, the average competency level increases to 84%. Likewise, participants and administrators report greater satisfaction with this approach as compared to traditional training.

Students in an undergraduate applied behavior analysis (ABA) course were asked to develop and implement a behavioral self-management program in which they pinpointed a single target behavior within one of six dimensions of wellbeing. Students were provided with instruction on ABA principles and strategies and received guidance from the course instructor while crafting action plans for their behavior change projects. The purpose of this project was to enhance students' learning experience while learning the basic principles of behavior analysis. Students were asked to apply ABA principles in order to demonstrate their ability to effectively use self-management strategies to change their own behavior, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior change strategies. This poster will illustrate the step-by-step process through which the course instructor guided students, share data-based results from individual student projects, as well as share a summary of students' reflections on their experiences and students' perceptions of their ability to use what they learned in the course in future behavior change applications.

We extended Mitteer, Greer, Fisher, and Cohrs (2018) by examining the effects of a video model on inputting data into GraphPad Prism, which is a necessary skill for graph construction. We also replicated Mitteer et al. by examining the effects of a graphing video model with each participant following acquisition of data input. We used a concurrent multiple-baseline-across-skills design with two behavior technicians to assess input and graphing skills separately prior to and during access to relevant video models. We evaluated the generality of the training procedures by assessing both skills during input-plus-graphing sessions without access to the video models. The video models resulted in mastery of input and graphing skills when assessed individually. We observed training effects generalize to input-plus-graphing sessions once behavior technicians experienced all relevant video models. These results suggest that individuals should view both input and graphing video models prior to depicting single-case design data in Prism but that these skills can maintain at high levels of accuracy without continued access to the training materials.

In this research the psychological aspects that participate in a teaching-learning situation are analyzed and discussed. That is, the modes of language, as a medium of conventional contact and the abilities, aptitudes and competencies. The functional contact emphasizes the psychological phenomenon, as an activity defined from an individual and at least one object or another individual; the individual is not separable, as part of the relationship of the other entities. The term contact, as a logical category, specifies the means that makes the functional relationship possible. Sixteen children of both sexes of the fifth grade with and without special education requirements from a public elementary school participated in the study analyzed. An intrasubject design was used with a diagnostic test, initial test, intervention phase and a final test. The analysis of the psychological dimension in a teaching-learning situation can be an alternative to transfer from a traditional conception that emphasizes the products and results, to another centered on interdependent relationships in which the complementary modes of language (speaking-listening, reading-writing, observing-pointing/gesturing), are integrated as multimodal episodes and make possible the interaction between people, actions, objects and events pertinent to the situation.

This research aims to find a suitable replacement for rats in experimental behavior analysis discipline on undergraduate courses. To achieve this objective the game Portal 2 ® test chamber creation tool has been utilized on naive psychology students as a way to teach them basic behavior analysis concepts, such as modeling, all the participants had to solve a questionnaire before and after the experiment as well as attend to theoretical classes, then they were divided into two groups one of them had practical modeling and extinction classes with a Portal 2 ® test chamber created by the authors and the other had a standard approach with Wistar rats and Skinner boxes. The results showed that both groups had similar results on their post-test which may classify Portal 2 ® test chambers as a suitable alternative to traditional teaching on experimental behavior analysis.