Association for Behavior Analysis International

The initial Azrin-Foxx self-initiation training protocol was both a gift and a challenge to the field of behavior analysis. It provided a robust, highly-effective, and easily replicated treatment package with broad applicability to other populations, as evidenced by results obtained in institutional, school, and community settings across the United States and in other countries. However, it also raised expectations about the range of learners who could learn to self-initiate and challenged us to create environments that accommodated these newly acquired skills. Our symposium will consider the evolution of self-initiation training protocols since their initial applications in terms of developments in the field which have required overcorrection procedures to be dropped and request procedures to be added. Data from the original Willowbrook Cohort will be contrasted against those from two present community agencies; and a data collection tool for coding these data will be presented, together with reliability and validity data. We will discuss implications for practice.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, graduate students and anyone interested in self-initiation.

The Willowbrook Sate School was an institution for individuals with developmental disabilities located on Staten Island and run by New York State. Willowbrook was made infamous as a snake pit and an incompetent environment through the reporting efforts of Geraldo Rivera and litigation and legislation by Senator Robert Kennedy and others. One of the many stipulations of the Willowbrook Consent Decree was that individuals residing at Willowbrook were to receive comprehensive toilet training. This talk will describe what conditions were like at the time of the Willowbrook Consent Decree and immediately thereafter; the presenter's experience as a team member administering and training others to administer the original Azrin-Foxx toileting protocol as part of the original intervention team; and outcome data from these efforts.

Reasonable people, even or perhaps especially professionals, can and do disagree (often vigorously, and usually beyond the available data) about the number, order, and necessity of various prerequisite skills for teaching toileting. This presentation will provide participants with a simple 16-item toileting survey that may be used to obtain a cross-section of toileting-related skills for groups of learners of any age (e.g., classes of students in schools; groups of individuals in residences or habilitation programs). Each learner is assessed for Self-Initiation, Requesting, Scheduled Elimination, and Accident Rate using a 4-point scale which is descriptive in nature and written in plain language in order to be equally accessible to paraprofessionals, direct-care workers, or professionals. Administration instructions, anecdotes about administration, inter-observer agreement data, and construct validity data will be presented, along with implications for practice.