Association for Behavior Analysis International

Various pre-assessments have been developed to increase the efficacy of consequences delivered during intervention. For example, stimulus preference assessments, demand assessments, and stimulus avoidance assessments have been found useful in predicting the effects of consequences for promoting effective behavior change. The current symposium includes three papers describing procedures for empirically deriving and systematically evaluating various consequences, including positive reinforcers, negative reinforcers, and punishers. In the first paper, preference assessment outcomes from independent and combined arrays of three stimulus categories, including edible items, leisure items, and forms of attention, will be reviewed. The author will also share reinforcer assessment data depicting the relative reinforcing efficacy of items from each stimulus category. The author of the second paper will describe a study including a demand assessment and a subsequent negative reinforcer assessment. The potential utility of a progressive-ratio schedule for determining the relative efficacy of negative reinforcers will be discussed. In the third paper, the author will present data from a retrospective review of over 30 stimulus avoidance assessments. The potential utility of 5-min versus 10-min session durations and the effects of using a latency measure will be discussed.

Reinforcement-based strategies alone are not always sufficient to produce clinically significant reductions in problem behavior. In such situations, the addition of a response-reduction procedure to reinforcement-based strategies may be required (Fisher, Piazza, Bowman, Hagopian, & Langdon, 1994). A stimulus avoidance assessment, which consists of the time-based application of potential reductive procedures, has been shown to be an effective means of determining the appropriate procedure to reduce problem behavior (Fisher, Piazza, Bowman, Kurtz, Sherer, & Lachman, 1994). However, very little research on this assessment has been conducted since its original publication. This current paper consisted of a retrospective chart review of over 30 stimulus avoidance assessments. Assessments were evaluated as 5 minute and 10 minute sessions to determine if the same procedure would have been selected using a shorter session duration. In addition stability of series and latency of the first avoidant movement/negative vocalization were evaluated using 5 minute and 10 minute session duration to determine the minimum number of series needed and if latency would be a viable alternative measure of adverseness. The results will be discussed in terms of the impact of each of these components on efficiency the assessment.

Several studies have used progressive ratio (PR) schedules to evaluate the efficacy of positive reinforcers (e.g., Roane, Lerman, & Vorndran, 2001). Yet there are no direct assessment procedures for quantifying the value of negative reinforcers. The current study used breakpoints when responding on PR schedules for various tasks to quantify the value of negative reinforcement in the form of escape from those tasks. Following a demand assessment that ranked demands by latency to first instance of problem behavior, high- and low-aversive demands were selected for inclusion in a PR assessment. During the PR assessment, participants earned access to a highly-preferred edible or leisure item on increasing schedules of reinforcement. Higher breakpoints were observed for the low-aversive task and lower breakpoints were observed for the high-aversive task. These preliminary results suggest that this method of quantifying reinforcer value may be well suited for the purpose of determining the value of escape/avoidance of various negative reinforcers. Implications of these results will be discussed, including the possibility that the PR assessment could assist in developing effective treatments for problem behavior maintained by escape/avoidance.

Functional Analysis (FA) technology has been widely used to identify the functional variables of severe behavior, particularly in individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Recent research has allowed for further examination of the length, order, and content of conditions used, but much of the procedure has remained relatively untouched and has been utilized exclusively with special populations. In this symposium we examine methodological changes to FAs that address these issues. The first paper will discuss the use of abolishing operations in functional analyses and latency to first response as the primary dependent measure. The second paper discusses the narrow use of FAs in the treatment of severe behavioral excesses. Recent research has demonstrated the use of FAs with behavioral deficits such as exercise. This symposium will discuss the use of FAs to identify the variables maintaining the exercise behavior of children and the effects of peer involvement. Broader implications will be discussed.

Functional Analysis (FA) has been repeatedly shown to be an effective method of identifying the variables maintaining severe behavioral excesses. Dangerous or harmful behaviors present difficult issues concerning the use of functional analysis methodology as this involves the repeated occurrence of the behavior within each of the conditions. Recent research has examined variables to increase the efficiency of FAs, thereby reducing the risks of repeated instances of the behavior. One such investigation has suggested latency to first response as a primary dependent measure in FAs and examined the possibility of ending conditions after this first response, In this study we extend the research by examining the use of abolishing operations to reduce the likelihood of the target behavior during the maintaining test conditions. Furthermore we use latency to first response as the dependent measure and examine the efficiency of this approach when it is combined with the antecedent control of an abolishing operation. Implications of this method will be discussed

In the United States, 16.9% of children and adolescents from the ages of 2 to 19 are considered to be obese and one-third of children and adolescents are considered to be overweight or obese (Ogden et at., 2012). Although physical activity alone may not solve the obesity epidemic, it has the potential to mitigate some of the health risks that individuals are facing. In this study, we examined whether the presence of a peer in the experimental conditions containing alone, attention, and adult interactive play consequences would affect levels of physical activity in three preschool aged children. The experimental conditions were examined with a multielement design with an initial baseline and follow up to the most effective treatment. The experimental conditions included attention contingent on MVPA, interactive play contingent on MVPA, and alone. Results suggest that the inclusion of peers in these conditions altered the primary maintaining variables of the childrens exercise behavior from attention to interactive play.

Being able to understand, verbalize, and distinguish felt experiences is a key component of psychological interventions. Until recently, there has been an absence of empirical research on the particular value of emotion differentiation on healthy and unhealthy outcomes. Dr. Kashdan will review research in clinical, social, and health psychology that offers insights into the transdiagnostic adaptive value of putting feelings into words. The ability to precisely describe and differentiate emotions has been recently shown to alter the association between negative emotions and emotion regulation difficulties as varied as binge drinking, aggression, neural reactivity to rejection, self-injurious behavior, and the severity of anxiety and depressive disorders. These findings shed light on how negative emotions and stressful experiences can be transformed by how people label and distinguish what they are feeling. Implications for the study of emotions and emotion regulation, and psychological treatment will be discussed.

Psychologists and behavior analysts.

Operating on an organization in order to change the culture is a delicate process, requiring only the most skilled and steady hands to accurately and safely graft new protocol. Unfortunately, behavior analysts often times struggle with establishing policies and procedures that are ethical in nature but that also avoid causing deleterious effects on the body of their companies. Structural arteries within a behavioral organization can be convoluted as each department serves as a life sustaining organ that must work in concert with regulatory bodies, ethical standards, and smart business practices to maintain the blood-flow of the organization. To help navigate the complexities of this process, a primer has been developed. A code of ethics designed to help guide practitioners and administrators as they perform surgery on their businesses. In this symposium, we will discuss what a Code of Ethics for Behavioral Organizations (COEBO) is and how it can help breathe life into your organization.

Behavior analysts are frequently involved when a student's behavior becomes so severe that in-depth analysis and understanding are needed. However, there is considerably more research to guide the analysis for behavior problems than for academic problems. This presentation will provide a framework to analyze difficulties in reading at the small-group (tier 2) and individual (tier 3) levels. Data will be presented from three studies (n ~200 to 600) to demonstrate that targeting the academic intervention based on the function of the behavior was more effective at tier 2 than using a general evidence-based intervention. Moreover, data from 15 students with the most severe reading problems will be provided to support the framework at tier 3.

Today, behavior analysts are faced with the task of making the science of behavior meaningful, efficient, and effective for non-English speakers. Translation of English textbooks, articles, and resources for treatments has become one of the biggest challenges for behavior analysts around the world. How do you adapt early intervention programs and program delivery for children diagnosed with autism when the translated material is not available? How do you pioneer the establishment of non-English BACB-approved curricula outside English-speaking countries? MulitABA SIG presents the panel discussion drawing examples from BACB's globalization initiatives, VB-MAPP translation, and case studies of bilingual intervention, in languages such as Japanese, Russian, and French. The behavior analysts are presented as translators, interpreters, and authors with sufficient cultural and linguistic competence to achieve consistent treatment outcomes and/or educate the target population. We invite the audience to share their qualitative experiences that will further enlighten how international, multicultural, and ?authentic? our field has become.

When the explicit training of a class of responses of one topography leads to the emission of one or more response classes of different topography, we speak of generalized operants. The empirical demonstration of such generalized classes is taken as evidence that the concept can be included in the conceptual toolkit of the behavior analyst without further analysis and that it can be used to explain other examples of emergent behavior. Dr. David C. Palmer will argue that this conclusion is unjustified. He will suggest that atomic repertoires can explain the relevant behavior economically, with no need to invent new explanatory terms. Furthermore, they offer a possible interpretation of the phenomenon of delayed observational learning.

Anyone with an interest in parsimonious interpretations of complex behavior.

Baker, LeBlanc, and Raetz (2008) published a behavioral conceptualization of aphasia and proposed an assessment and treatment model for use with older adults. Several studies (Gross, Fuqua, & Merritt, 2013; Oleson & Baker, 2014; Trahan, Donaldson, McNabney, & Kahng, 2014) have since begun to assess and intervene on verbal behavior deficits among older adults with aphasia as well as neurocognitive disorder. Although one approach to remediating verbal behavior deficits is through a transfer of stimulus control from one verbal operant to another, to date no research has evaluated transfer of stimulus control methods for older adult populations. This talk will present data from older adults with aphasia and/or neurocognitive disorder where treatments (developed using the assessment approach proposed by Baker et al., 2008) incorporated a transfer of stimulus control component and an evaluation of the efficacy and efficiency of different methods.

A great deal of interest from funding entities, consumers, employers, and practitioners has occurred as a result of the demand for applied behavior analysis (ABA) services over the last several years. We are currently in an era of substantial growth in numbers of certified professionals and training programs in the United States (US). Funding sources like government agencies and health insurance plans prefer to exercise some oversight of credentialed professionals and are reasonably reluctant to pay for those who are not credentialed. As changes continue to occur very quickly, it is a very important time to be generally educated in these areas. Over the past year, licensure efforts have been fast paced, Autism Speaks has been extremely active in getting insurance laws passed in the US, and the international certification program of behavior analysis by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc. (BACB) in conjunction with laws and regulations recognizing this credential has served a role in many licensure and insurance coverage efforts. The symposia presented today will cover all of these areas and then additionally provide graduate and recent graduate student perspectives on these issues.

Public policies affecting the practice of applied behavior analysis (ABA) are proliferating rapidly. They include but are not limited to: laws to license or otherwise regulate practitioners of ABA; other laws and regulations recognizing credentialed behavior analysts as qualified service providers; laws requiring certain private health plans to cover ABA services for people with autism; and policies governing coverage of ABA services by public health plans (Medicaid, TRICARE). The Association of Professional Behavior Analysts (APBA) has worked (and is currently working) with policymakers, regulators, behavior analysts, and consumers on many of those policies. An overview of current laws, regulations, and policies is provided, and their impact on current and future ABA practitioners and the field as a whole is discussed. Some emerging trends in the types of policies being adopted as well as successful and unsuccessful advocacy tactics are described. Finally, some suggestions for training behavior analysts to work in the public policy arena are offered.

Established disciplines show stability in training programs, number of licensed or certified professionals, and changes to professional standards are often minimal. Contrary to this, behavior analysis is in an era of substantial growth, evidenced by changes in several areas: new training programs around the world, new legislation for licensing behavior analysts and in autism insurance laws in the US, and changes in standards at the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. Consequently, it becomes important for professionals in the field, including graduate students, to be proactive with respect to these changes. First, staying current with respect to BACB standard changes and state specific licensure and insurance billing within the US. Secondly, involvement and support of these efforts with the guidance of local leaders on the matter, if there are no local leaders, becoming a leader with the guidance and support of our national professional organizations. In this presentation we will describe suggestions for (a) educational institutions to incorporate this information into curriculum (while maintaining BACB curriculum requirements) and (b) new graduates and professionals to find information on these topics as they pursue their behavior analysis careers in different parts of the world and country.

Global threatening events, including overconsumption of material goods, toxic human societies, and modern warfare are seemingly amenable to systematic change through a behavior analytical approach. An analysis of the systems within which large-scale cultural phenomena are selected for perpetuation is an alluring area of research for behavior analysts. This symposium will detail the conceptual underpinnings of an effective science of intentional cultural change. A historical summary and interpretation of large-scale implementation of behavior analysis will be provided for consideration and resources for further pursuit of knowledge will be provided. Researchers will present descriptive analyses of metacontingencies influencing the aggregate products of rates of safe driving and child welfare outcomes in Brazil. The challenges behavior analysts face when developing valid approaches to the experimental analysis of cultural change will be outlined and recommendations for future explorations will be presented.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

Students of behavior analysis contact few opportunities to acquire knowledge surrounding the history of the field of large-scale behavior analysis. This gap in the students repertoire may be the result of few standards in place within the overarching teaching institutions and certification systems that target this particular skill set. As a result, students of behavior analysis are often left on their own to not only learn the history of the field of large-scale behavior analysis, but to also identify available resources. We have found that individuals who successfully contact this information come to find the value in historical knowledge of such behavioral approaches to examining large-scale behavioral phenomena. The aim of this presentation is to provide a quick review of the history and resources available to the behavioral neophytes who are interested in learning more about the history of large-scale behavior analysis.

Homeless cats living in an animal shelter have a predictable schedule of eating and interacting with conspecifics (if such a room and appropriate cats are available), as well as with staff, caretakers, and the public. At the MSPCA in Boston, the average stay for such a cat is 13 days. However, if a cat is brought to the Shelter with a wound of unknown origin, that cat must be quarantined for six months at the Shelter, per state rabies law, and may not be transferred. These cats are known, in Shelter parlance, as office cats, as they spend their quarantine period living in a staff office. One could argue that a process of enrichment, as is used in zoos for big felids, might be appropriate for an office cat. In this study, we looked at whether scent enrichment, such as is done for zoo cats, would elicit the same sort of behavior from office cats, that of sniffing and interacting with scent jars. We then compared this condition with the cats behavior when an office person and/or another cat were also present.

Where is the momentum of history taking us? What can demographic, economic, technological, environmental, and cultural trends tell us about our possible futures? What role might the science and practice of behavior analysis play in shaping that future? In this talk, Dr. Robert Gilman will address these questions from his perspective as a former astrophysicist who has spent the past 36 years exploring the possibilities for 21st century sustainable cultures. Central to this perspective is the idea that humanity is now involved in a cultural transformation as profound as the shift out of hunting and gathering and into agriculture and cities that happened roughly 5,000-10,000 years ago. The gracefulness of this transition depends on human behavior. Behavior analysts are uniquely equipped to steer global culture toward a future that is necessarily characterized by sustainability if they situate their science and practice in the context of a whole-systems understanding of our rapidly changing societal and natural environment. This talk is designed to provide that broad context, outlining important characteristics of a more sustainable future that can be promoted by all behavior analysts, regardless of whether their work explicitly focuses on issues of sustainability.

People discount the value of delayed or uncertain outcomes, and the same hyperboloid mathematical function describes both delay and probability discounting. Partly for this reason, discounting of delayed outcomes and probabilistic outcomes often is assumed to reflect similar decision-making processes. However, we will show that several manipulations differentially affect how steeply people discount delayed and probabilistic outcomes, as well as the parameters of the discounting function. In addition, we will show that with respect to discounting, losses are not simply the opposite of gains. Finally, we will present data from individuals with medial temporal lobe damage to argue that mental time travel is not required for discounting delayed and probabilistic outcomes. In summary, this tutorial will highlight the similarities and differences between the discounting of delayed and probabilistic gains and losses, as well as the implications of our recent neuropsychological findings for understanding the mechanisms involved (and not involved) in discounting.

General ABAI attendees, both applied and basic researchers and graduate students

1. Participants will be able to describe and provide examples of the discounting of delayed and of probabilistic rewards, and state a similarity and a difference in their discounting.
2. Participants will be able to describe the discounting of gains and losses, and state a similarity and a difference in their discounting.
3. Participants will be able to discuss the relation of discounting to issues of impulsivity and self-control.

Kenya is a developing country located in Africa where Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is a concept that is just about budding. Through collaborations with the Global Autism Project and University of Massachusetts, Pooja Panesar just received her qualification from the Behaviour Analyst Certification Board (BACB) this year. She has been running a centre for students with autism and other developmental disorders since 2009 and this panel's purpose is to discuss all the challenges faced in Kenya along with the progress that has been made since 2009. As a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst (BCBA) providing ABA services in Kenya, many challenges arise such as grey areas in ethics, staff hiring and training challenges and even just Individual Education Plan (IEP) approvals from parents with children who are mainly cared for by ayahs. Mainstream education in Kenya is a business in competition that does not always accept students with disabilities (especially severe), but Kaizora Consultants has managed forming a collaboration with a mainstream school to encourage integration. Join us in a discussion on some of these successes and challenges in providing ABA services as a BCBA in Kenya.

For many individuals with intellectual disabilities, severe problem behavior represents the most significant barrier to community integration. The extant literature has identified many procedures to assess and treat such problem behavior, and a number of reviews have certain behavioral interventions as evidence-based practices (EBPs). In the present study, we sought to determine the extent to which EBPs are employed among a sample of residential placements. The functional behavior assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) were sampled for 20 adults with intellectual disabilities and problem behavior (e.g. self-injury, aggression) from six residential settings across three states. All FBAs and BIPs were reviewed to determine: (a) the procedures employed during the FBA process, (b) the extent to which treatment recommendations were based on the results of the FBA, (c) the type of data collection conducted for ongoing program evaluation, and (d) the types of treatment recommendations that were made. Regarding the latter category, we then examined the extent to which the treatment recommendations included those procedures that have been identified as EBPs. Results will be discussed in terms of the links between research and practice for developing BIPs in residential placements, as well as suggestions for future research.

The initiation of the Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) credential by the BACB has provided an important framework for the training of front line staff that provide behavior analytic services. The framework lists the competencies that must be mastered before one can become an RBT. The development of a competency-based curriculum (e.g., task analysis) and implementing training methods consistent with behavior analytic principles (e.g., Behavioral Skills Training) are skills that should be a skillset that most behavior analysts possess. What can vary between programs is the means by which the curriculum is delivered (e.g., in-vivo or online), how skills are taught (e.g., didactic or role-play) and the way skills should be performed (i.e., necessary components for a demonstrated skills). This presentation will review the experiences of early implementation of an RBT curriculum including a review of data from initial cohorts. Considerations of providing RBT training in predominantly non-behavioral settings or where ABA is a smaller part of a larger system (e.g., public school and University lab school), evaluation of competency and efforts to include other certified professionals within those settings will be reviewed.

Some have suggested that the definition of verbal behavior offered by B. F. Skinner (1957) fails to capture the essence of language insofar as it is too broad and not functional. In this tutorial, Dr. Matthew Normand will explain how the ambiguities of Skinner's definition are not an indictment of it, and show that suggestions to the contrary are problematic because they suffer a critical error of scientific reasoning. Specifically, he will explain that (a) no clear definition of verbal behavior is possible because there is no natural distinction between verbal and nonverbal behavior; (b) attempts at an immutable definition are essentialistic; and (c) Skinner's functional taxonomy of language is in no way affected by the particulars of any definition of verbal behavior. Moreover, Dr. Normand will explain how categorical definitions, and the vagaries that sometimes arise from them, are not unique to Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior.

BCBAs, BCaBAs

1. State the two primary arguments used to question the validity of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior.
2. State the two ways that the term “function” is used by behavior analysts and describe how Skinner’s taxonomy of verbal operants addresses both uses.
3. Describe the shortcomings of the argument that Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior is not functional. Use the concept of essentialism in your answer.

Little research exists validating effective strategies for teaching responses to bullying. When victims respond with aggression, they are at risk of punitive sanctions. Thus, we propose a non-violent strategy consisting of a progressive chain of conditional responses. For example, when bullied, the victim asks the bully to change her behavior. If ineffective, the victim recruits help from an adult. Finally, if bullying persists, the victim leaves the situation. However, bringing this specific sequence of behavior under control of relevant establishing operations (and prior to aggression) may be challenging as previous research suggests that response- class hierarchies can be influenced by a variety of factors (e.g., history, effort, discriminative stimuli, etc.). Notwithstanding, recent translational research has shown that it is possible to establish hierarchies through serial instructional sequencing. Specifically, it is possible to program a sequence of behavior when response-class members contact extinction by teaching and reinforcing component responses in the reverse order in which they should resurge (i.e., reversion). However, this effect has not consistently been replicated when applied to the treatment of problem behavior. Thus, we implemented a modification of serial Functional Communication Training to address a childs aggression evoked by bullying. Results, limitations, and potential implications are discussed.

One barrier to children receiving empirically supported treatments is the lack of community based practitioners trained to acceptable levels of fidelity. Effective interventions often have to be administered by knowledgeable clinicians with a specific educational background and clinical experiences. Training parents, teachers, and other caregivers is one solution to overcome the barriers associated with accessing quality interventions from specialists. This symposium includes four papers on methods for training others and includes some common barriers (e.g., caregiver stress, problem behavior) and interventions characteristic to working with a specialized population (e.g., self-care, braille reading). Specifically, Subramaniam and colleagues examined the extent to which challenging behavior impacted parents adherence to a distance learning package. Connolly, Baker, Robinson, and Delfs evaluated the relationship between caregiver stress, maladaptive behavior, and acquisition of material in the context of a live behavioral parent training model. Rubow and Vollmer employed a parent mediated, behavioral skills training package to increase self-care skills. Putnam and Tiger assessed the utility of a computer program to train braille-to-print relations and the effect on visual-braille reading, a foundational skill for educators working with children with visual impairments.

Rural parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may lack access to behavior-analytic services. One cost-effective method by which therapists can address this barrier is to provide parents with remote supervision. We provided 51 rural parents of children with ASD with either written or video training materials about how to implement discrete-trial training (DTT). We instructed parents to record DTT sessions and mail the memory cards to trainers using pre-stamped and addressed envelopes. Trainers provided parents with written or video-based remote supervision following a baseline assessment of treatment integrity. Of the parents who received training materials, only 28 mailed at least one DTT session. We characterized patterns of adherence using slopes obtained through least-squares linear regression and examined the extent to which challenging behavior (e.g., loud vocals, property destruction, aggression) in the first recorded session predicted patterns of adherence. We found that first-session challenging behavior predicted a decline in treatment adherence. Therapists using distance-learning training procedures might consider taking an active coaching role in assisting parents with challenging behavior prior to training academic programs.

The training of police and military working dogs is rooted in 19th Century Europe. Dog breeds that originated as pastoral herding animals in the Old World, and in an old century, have become instruments of civil policing and military power in a global 21st Century community stitched together by satellites, airliners, and computers. The methods by which working dogs were trained 100 years ago reflected traditional coercive notions of education and behavioral management. It was taken as a given that a dog should be physically forced to perform, and that much of its performance could and should be motivated by discomfort- and stress-avoidance. In this form, working dog training developed for perhaps 75 years, influenced chiefly by European ethology, and relatively isolated from American psychology and behaviorism. In the late 20th Century, powerful methodologies founded in the obscure field of exotic animal training began to penetrate, first into dog obedience training and companion dog behavioral management, then into the methods used by participants in international working dog competitions such as IPO (International Prufungsordnung). However, until recently police and military working dog training has not reflected this influence. It is only in the past 15 years that "operant methodologies" have been integrated into the field, with consequences that are still unfolding today.

Those interested in learning about dog training for military working dogs and how this training has been impacted by broader changes taking place in applied animal behavior.

Impulsivity is a common concern in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). While not a defining characteristic of ASDs, the presence of impulsivity can be pervasive and can dramatically affect the intervention process. Delay discounting refers to the decrease in the present value of reinforcers as a function of the delay of their receipt. In other words, the value of reinforcers often decreases as the length of time one has to wait for them increases. Researchers have outlined some procedures for evaluating delay discounting in human populations. However, much of this research is limited to hypothetical choices with typically developing populations. The purpose of the current investigation was the employ delay discounting procedures with individuals with ASDs. In the investigation, participants were given choices between an impulsive choice (a sooner smaller amount of reinforcement) and a self-controlled choice (accepting a delayed, larger amount of reinforcement). Indifference points (the point at which an individual switches from the smaller-sooner to larger-later reinforcement) were plotted. A waiting protocol involving a rule card was implemented in an effort to affect impulsiveness. The preliminary results suggest that using delay discounting procedures may inform treatment development for this clinical population.

This symposium covers procedures to increase skill acquisition in children diagnosed with Autism. Niemeier, Fisher, and Paden compared an errorless teaching procedure to an error correction teaching procedure using a receptive identification task. Results indicated that the errorless procedure was more efficient for two participants and error correction was more efficient for one. The errorless procedure was more effective for two participants, while the error correction procedure was more effective for one. Neither procedure was effective nor efficient for a final participant. Gunby and Rapp examined the effects of behavioral skills training with in-situ feedback on safe responding by children with autism to abduction lures that were presented following a high-probability (high-p) request sequence. This sequence was intended to simulate a grooming or recruitment process. Results show that all three participants ultimately acquired the safety response to abduction lures presented following a high-p sequence and maintained the safety response at 1-month follow up. Dr. Sarah Lechago, a leading researcher in the study of verbal behavior and editor of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior will serve as the discussant.

The effectiveness of intensive behavioral intervention on skill acquisition and reduction of aberrant behavior with learners with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities is readily demonstrated within the behavior analytic community. This type of education is rarely observed within public school systems, particularly in California. The current paper presents various outcome data for students enrolled in applied behavior analysis (ABA) classrooms within a public elementary school across up to 3-years. The classrooms involved are a result of collaboration between a public school district and an ABA organization. In particular, outcomes related to IEP goals achieved, rates of skill acquisition, maintenance and generalization of acquired skills, and undesirable behavior will be presented for multiple children on the autism spectrum and children with other developmental disabilities, including downs syndrome and cerebral palsy, enrolled in two different behavior analytic classrooms. The implications of these data as well as future directions related to student progress and methods for measuring and evaluating outcomes will be discussed.

This panel discussion will memorialize the contributions to behavior analysis of Donald Keith Pumroy and will provide a timeline of the evolution of the field from the 1950s to the 2000s. Pumroy was a pioneer in making the transition from research-based behavioral analysis to the application of behavioral principles in applied settings. He was the first psychologist to apply behavioral principles to a child and publish those results. Others followed his lead, and by the 1960's, behavior analysis had moved from the laboratory to wider field settings, including classrooms and mental health settings. It made its way into industry, public policy and legislation. Other contributions for which Pumroy is credited are toilet training, a time line analysis describing how behavior is learned, and school gun violence and analysis of shooter behavior regarding the application of behavior analysis to problems within the broad culture. Pumroy founded the College Park Behavior Group whose mission is to clarify and disseminate behavioral principles. Pumroy served both as the president of the Maryland Psychological Association and the president of the Maryland Association of School Psychologists, the only person to date to hold both positions. Pumroy also served as Chairman, Maryland Board of Examiners of Psychologists.

Behavior analysis, like any discipline, has its own set of technical terminology. Behavior analysts benefit from being part of a strong verbal community that supports efficient communication using technical terms. However, to outsiders, it can seem as though behavior analysts are speaking a different language- "Behaviorese." This PDS event will address how professional behavior analysts translate technical terminology in order to effectively collaborate with others and disseminate findings to non-behavior analytic audiences. The panel will feature leaders in dissemination and will include discussion of issues relevant to practitioners and researchers. Points of discussion will include such issues as, "How do you speak to a broad audience while maintaining the integrity of your research?" "Do you use any technical terms when talking to outside audiences?" "What are some techniques that young behavior analysts can use to develop their skills in talking to those outside the field?" Such discussion will be useful for behavior analysts with any level of experience to develop their communication skills with individuals outside the behavior-analytic community.

Self-injurious Behavior (SIB) is one of the most serious problems experienced by individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities. In most cases, functional analysis indicates that SIB is reinforced by caregiver reactions (e.g., attention). In roughly 25% of cases, however, SIB levels are unaffected by social consequences. In such cases, the term "automatic" reinforcement is used because the behavior is assumed to produce its own reinforcement. In contrast to the numerous categories of social functions, automatic SIB remains a single but poorly understood category--one in great need of further explication. Although the body of research on the biological bases of SIB and pharmacological treatment of SIB has produced some meaningful findings, it informs us little about automatic SIB in particular because the majority of studies neither report on the function of SIB or have any exclusion criteria listed that would allow us to hypothesize about the function. The current discussion will summarize our initial efforts to classify automatic SIB into subtypes according to patterns of responding during the functional analysis and the presence of self-restraint--based on the premise that these observable features reflect distinct functional properties of SIB unique to each subtype.

While each entrepreneur's experience differs from the next, there are some broad strokes that can be used to paint a successful venture. Just as withclinical endeavors, data are king. This tutorial will provide the audience with an example of how behavior analytic principles (OBM) were used to found and grow Lodestone Academy, a private school in Florida that serves consumers who exhibit severe behavioral issues. In addition to an examination of organizational data, a discussion of the trials and tribulations of Lodestone will provide "life lessons" to audience members with suggestions to facilitate a smooth entrepreneurial journey. In addition to the example of Lodestone Academy, Dr. Pritchard will describe some other entrepreneurial ventures and the lessons learned from each. This tutorial will conclude with a few recommended directions that a new entrepreneur could explore which would allow for both personal success and a broadened impact of behavior analysis on society.

From the tinkerings of Skinner to modern applications and robots, technology has always been an exciting and expanding area of interest in the field of behavior analysis. Currently the uses of technology in behavior analysis are a dynamic and growing platform, which are especially useful in training, research, and applied work. While technology has endless advantages, perhaps the most useful aspect of technology in behavioral analysis is the ability to make behavioral interventions accessible to a much larger and diverse audience. In this Professional Development Series event, a variety of speakers will discuss how they incorporate technology into their research, training, and applied work. Each presenter will discuss different types of technology and new ways to train, research, and disseminate behavior analysis using technology. Speakers will also address challenges faced when using new technology, as well as ways in which we can improve the use of technology in behavior analysis.

The path to mastery of the field of behavior analysis is a long and treacherous journey. On the road there are many milestones such as graduating with a master's degree, passing the BACB exam, learning specialty skills, graduating with a doctorate degree, and countless others. The current panel aims to open a discussion around the options currently available to a behavior analyst following their graduation that will ensure they are ready for the long road ahead. The panel participants will share valuable tips and tricks that will allow behavior analysts, at any milestone, to remain involved in "academia-like" behavior and to plan for their professional journey. Participants will be encouraged to create individual goals related to their impending careers, build strong support networks, stay current in the literature; we will provide an alternative outline on how to become (and remain) true masters of their science.

Communication deficits and patterns of repetitive behavior are two defining characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Perseverative speech is a combination of these two deficits. These vocal behaviors may be socially stigmatizing and can interfere with the acquisition of important skills. The current investigation assessed repetitive vocalizations for a 16 year old adolescent male diagnosed with ASD. In the initial stages of assessment, ABC data collected by classroom staff suggested an attention function for the behavior. However, a traditional functional analysis (FA) yielded equivocal results. Subsequently, an adapted FA that compared a traditional attention condition, a noncontingent attention (control) condition and a condition that utilized the repeated arrival of novel therapists was conducted. High rates of repetitive vocalization were observed in the novel attention condition relative to those observed during both the traditional FA attention condition and the noncontingent attention condition. Implications for the effective treatment of repetitive vocalization will be discussed.

It is widely known that Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) can produce large gains in social, cognitive, and language development. Changes in performance are typically measured using norm-referenced standardized assessment tools which produce a score of overall functioning level. During the past 15 years, Dr. Rebecca P. F. MacDonald and colleagues have developed an assessment tool for the direct measurement of autism specific symptomatology. The Early Skills Assessment Tool (ESAT) includes measures of imitation, language, joint attention, play, and stereotypic behavior (MacDonald et al., 2014). In their most recent work, 83 children with autism (CWA), ages 1, 2, and 3 years old and 58 same-aged typically developing children were assessed using the ESAT. CWA were assessed at entry into an EIBI program and again after one year of treatment. While significant gains were seen in all children across all age groups, the greatest gains were seen in the children who entered treatment before their second birthday. Long-term follow up data suggest long lasting gains in these children. These findings underscore the importance autism screening at 12 to 18 months, the critical role of pediatricians in early identification of ASD and the need for high quality EIBI for all identified children.

Visual Phonics is a tool that uses a combination of visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and auditory feedback to facilitate the development of phonemic awareness, reading, spelling, and speech production skills. The system consists of 45 hand movements and written symbols, which represent each phoneme and relate to how a sound is produced. Visual Phonics helps deaf, hard of hearing, hearing, and special needs individuals "see" or conceptualize the English sound system and relate it to print. This presentation summarizes the results from three studies collected in three states with various age groups of children. It demonstrates that given instruction from various phonics-based reading curricula supplemented by Visual Phonics, pre-school, kindergarten, and first-grade students who were d/Deaf or hard of hearing could demonstrate improvements in beginning reading skills and the acquired skills could be sustained after intervention. Furthermore, the acquisition of beginning reading skills did not appear to be related to degree of hearing loss. Implications for the use of Visual Phonics for other populations of students in reading, spelling, and speech production are provided.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

Social behavior is a topic of enormous scientific importance that spans disciplines from neuroscience to anthropology. While the topic has received a good deal of empirical and theoretical attention outside behavior analysis, it has largely been neglected within the field. This is unfortunate, as behavior analysis has much to contribute to this field, both methodologically and conceptually. In this talk, Dr. Timothy Hackenberg will describe some recent work in the comparative analysis of social behavior and how behavior-analytic methods and concepts can be usefully brought to bear on such work. He will focus on three areas of research and interpretation, using some recent research from his laboratory with rats for illustration. The first is concerned with cooperative behavior, in which rats coordinate their responses in relation to a mutual reinforcement contingency. The second is concerned with reciprocal behavior, in which two rats produce reinforcement for each other, alternating roles of producer and receiver. The third is concerned with the reinforcing value of social interaction, assessed in relation to food reinforcement and under various deprivation conditions. Together, these studies illustrate some ways in which behavior-analytic methods and concepts can contribute to the interdisciplinary science of social behavior.

Basic and applied scientists.

Three-term contingencies are relations among stimuli, responses, and consequences as they interact in the context of motivational operations. The stimulus is therefore an integral part of behavior analysis. Experimental psychology courses once routinely included learning and behavior along with sensory psychology and psychophysics as substantive components, but they gradually evolved into methodology courses devoid of specific content. Behavior analysis and sensory psychology then diverged despite their commonalities, not least of which were single-subject research designs. Sensory psychology remains crucially relevant to many things we do. This tutorial explores how it has made and can continue to make significant contributions to both basic research and applications. The examples to be considered include, among others, problem behavior that is sometimes a byproduct of the sensory deficits that often accompany developmental disabilities, the auditory phenomenon of recruitment as it can occur in geriatric populations, and signal-detection analyses of the costs and benefits of false alarms and misses in discrimination tasks such as breast self-examination. Behavior is a biological system, so it should be no surprise that it shares properties with sensory processes, as when contrast effects in behavior are paralleled by similar effects in vision, hearing, and other senses.

BCBAs, BCaBAs

1. Engaged participants should be able to briefly describe the basic signal-detection payoff matrix and say why it is relevant to behavior analysis.
2. Engaged participants should be able to describe the basics of sensory psychology, including the role of inhibitory processes in edge detection, color-blindness and other visual deficits, and recruitment effects in hearing, and say why such phenomena are relevant to behavior analysts.
3. Engaged participants should be able to describe the individual-organism methodologies of both sensory psychophysics and behavior analysis, and to identify the common features of these two areas that make them potential partners in a biologically based science of behavior.

The experimental analysis of behavior has made several contributions to the understanding of human and non-human behavior (Waltz & Follette, 2009). However, many of these methods of examining behavior rely heavily on quantitative analyses. Because of the nature of mathematical models, including, but not limited to, (a) their complexity, (b) the need for specific behavioral measures, (c) the use of statistical methods, and (d) experience in interpreting results, quantitative analyses have not been widely adopted by applied researchers and practitioners (Critchfield & Reed, 2009). In addition, although this trend is changing, graduate training standards in behavior analysis have historically not emphasized extensive training in quantitative analyses. This seems unfortunate given the benefits quantitative analyses provide to not only understand, but also to improve the human condition. Thus, this Professional Development Series will highlight some of the barriers that prohibit applied researchers and practitioners from conducting quantitative analyses, including why individuals should be using them. In addition, there will be discussions about deciding whether the use of quantitative analyses is appropriate for the research question at hand and how to use quantitative analyses, including tools available for their use.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has a strategic plan that calls for “the development, for research purposes, of new ways of classifying psychopathology based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.” Collectively, these dimensions form the Research Domain Criteria project (RDoC) and include several dimensions of potential interest to behavior analysts, for example, positive valence systems that incorporating reward learning, responsiveness to reward, and preference-based decision-making. Several funding initiatives based on better characterizing these dimensions have been instituted and future consideration of these dimensions in guiding funding priorities is acknowledged. This symposium describes the various dimensions of the RDoC relevant to behavior analysts, and potential knowledge gaps that behavioral research could address. The symposium also provides several examples from established investigators illustrating how these dimensions may be applied to behavioral research focused directly on mental health and on drug abuse, which is associated with co-occurring mental health disorders, as well as these investigators’ perspectives on this dimensional system of behavior classification.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

While DSM5 provides ways to classify psychopathologies, the National Institute of Mental Health has recognized that understanding the antecedents and progression of disorders, as well as stimulating research on new treatments, may require new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures. The implementation of this strategy has been named the Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC). This talk will describe the background impetus for the RDoC project, the various domains of interest and the constructs included in those domains, and levels of analysis (from circuits to behavior) identified as critical research foci by work groups of scientists. However, domains and constructs of specific interest to behavioral analysis will provide the main focus. A brief overview of the knowledge gaps identified by NIMH and areas of high priority for research will be described, including explicit suggestions from NIMH for how these domains should be used to focus future research efforts by basic and clinician-scientists.

ADHD is a common psychiatric condition that is characterized clinically by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. There has long been recognition that this disorder is associated with disruptions in responsiveness to reward and reinforcement learning. More recently, the neurobiological and neuropharmacological substrates underlying these disruptions have been increasingly elucidated. It is argued that careful behavior analytic inquiry into the nature of behavior-consequence relations among those with ADHD can help advance knowledge about ADHD and its association with other problem behaviors, like substance abuse, and that such an experimental approach lies squarely within the National Institute of Mental Health RDoC framework for conceptualizing psychopathology. Examples of human operant and behavioral pharmacology studies of patients with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD will be reviewed and discussed.

Rapport has been acknowledged as an important variable in therapeutic contexts. The current evaluation defined and assessed rapport quality between children with autism and behavioral therapists based on behavioral correlates. In addition, we evaluated the effects of an operant discrimination training procedure to enhance rapport levels for therapists with low levels of rapport. More specifically, we evaluated: (a) if the discrimination training procedure would establish therapists' social interactions as a discriminative stimulus and (b) if social interaction would function as a conditioned reinforcer for novel responses. Results suggest that the discrimination training procedure was successful in conditioning social interaction as a reinforcer for all child participants, and as a result, rapport increased.

Interventions based in applied behavior analysis have been shown to be effective in the treatment of pediatric feeding problems. However, well-established interventions are limited to escape extinction and differential positive reinforcement to reduce inappropriate mealtime behavior and increase acceptance, and physical guidance to increase self feeding (Volkert & Piazza, 2012). Thus, additional research is needed to identify efficacious interventions to treat other topographies of feeding problems, such as packing. In addition, further research is necessary to determine effective assessment methods to predict the most necessary, effective, and efficient interventions to treat the wide range of feeding problems. Dieter and colleagues from Kennedy Krieger Institute will present on descriptive and lag-sequential analyses to assess emesis. Kirkwood and colleagues from UNC Wilmington will present results of a comparison of two different experimental analysis methods to identify the function of food/liquid refusal. Wall and colleagues from the Marcus Autism Center will present on a decision matrix to guide selection of interventions to establish liquid intake. Finally, Ibanez and colleagues from the Munroe Meyer Institute will present the results of a comparison of two methods to treat packing.

Descriptive analyses have been used to observe food refusal directly under naturally occurring conditions. Although a history of emesis and health concerns related to emesis (e.g., reflux, food allergies) may be associated with food refusal, emesis has not been the focus of previous descriptive analyses. Emesis is not an ideal response to evaluate using functional analyses due to potential health risks, and may be more suited for evaluation as it naturally occurs. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate emesis, gagging, and coughing, for 10 children, via descriptive analyses by conducting conditional probability analyses to evaluate the most common caregiver responses following these responses. Descriptive data were also used to conduct lag-sequential analyses to examine the relationship between emesis, gagging, and coughing. Conditional probabilities for caregiver responses following emesis, gagging, and coughing were compared to the unconditional probabilities of each event. Results showed that tangible access, attention, and escape occurred frequently followed emesis. Lag-sequential analyses identified gagging or coughing as potential precursors to emesis for 60% of participants. The patterns observed may reveal the uniqueness of emesis as a target response due to its biological nature and these implications are discussed.

Behavioral intervention is the only treatment for severe feeding disorders with well-documented empirical support. To date, the majority of this research focuses on establishing food consumption with comparably fewer examples of methods to increase intake of liquids. Establishing adequate consumption of liquids represents a key aspect of intervention planning, necessary to assure optimal health outcomes (e.g., adequate hydration) and a prerequisite for weaning a child from tube feedings. Past reports describing the use of behavioral intervention to establish liquid intake include non-removal of the cup, spoon-to-cup fading, and stimulus fading of drink bolus. However, few replications of these treatments are available and no guidelines exist to aide clinicians in selecting and evaluating these treatments. The current study describes an assessment and decision-making model for selecting treatment elements to increase liquid intake in pediatric feeding disorders. This model involves the combination of antecedent manipulations with extinction procedures to promote highly specific treatment packages that balance addressing the operant function of liquid refusal with maintaining the least restrictive environment. Results suggest this systematic approach to intervention may serve as a valuable tool for clinicians, with all participants experiencing a significant increase in liquid intake.

Psychological flexibility is a broadly applicable term that provides focus and coherence to a collection of behaviors theorized to underlie psychological health. Although grounded in matters of clinical relevance, the repertoires of interest may be considered in respect to non-clinical topics as well, particularly topics such as stigma and social categorization. However, to date psychological flexibility has mostly been measured via self-report. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) is a relatively new, computerized, response latency measure developed out of a behavior analytic laboratory. The IRAP measures an interlocking network of derived relational repertoires. It has been demonstrated to be sensitive to a variety of attitudinal biases, including and perhaps especially in regard to stigma and social categorization. This symposium will present a collection of IRAP studies. Three assess social stigma and involve multiple measurement strategies and some novel stimulus configurations. A fourth study attempts to directly assess acceptance/avoidance repertoires. All studies provide some new data and suggest some new directions for the future of IRAP research on psychological flexibility.

Mental health stigma, while common, leads to harmful consequences. Research has been inconsistent in determining the best method of stigma reduction, and even when reduction is observed with a particular method, it is typically short-lived. The current study uses the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, a measure of bias in relational repertoires, to assess mental health stigma in a more behavioral manner as opposed to traditional, self-report methods. Participants of varying class-levels from a local university were given two vignettes, one depicting a person experiencing symptoms without having an official diagnosis, and another experiencing similar symptoms and having a diagnosis. Implicit stigma toward each individual was measured using the IRAP. We also examine social distance, empathy and psychological flexibility to assess how mental health stigma varies based on an individuals level of each. Data suggest that mental health bias is a function of education as well as an individuals willingness to interact with stigmatized individuals. Participants who were more willing to interact with a hypothetical diagnosed individual showed less of an implicit bias toward stigmatized individuals compared to participants who were less willing to interact with stigmatized individuals. Implications for creating more effective education interventions will be discussed.

Behavior analysis has a unique and difficult task in the measuring behavior. The ephemeral nature, range of topographies, and functional complexity of behavior poses a challenge mostly unknown to other natural sciences. Therefore, it is of little surprise that behavior measurement is accomplished using a wide range of measuring instruments, techniques, displays, and dimensions. Behavior analysis was fortunate to have been founded in conjunction with the most sophisticated technology every devised in the pursuit of behavior measurement, the cumulative recorder. However, from a practical standpoint there is important potential for scientists and practitioners in identifying the most effective and simple measurement system, and the ability to analyze data in the absence of numbers and machines. This presentation will cover the basic philosophical roots and techniques of behavior measurement, the machine-less flexibility of measuring with the minds eye, and a guide to selecting quick and easy measurement tools from the standpoint of a seasoned practitioner.

The mind has both historically and rightfully been waved off as a slippery slope that leads to dualistic views of behavior and practically invaluable psychological interpretations, technologies and systems. The old behavior analytic saying goes, "If you aren't taking data, then you aren't doing behavior analysis!" While this may be true under certain circumstances, it conflicts with various behaviorisms such as Skinner's radical behaviorism and functional contextualism. This presentation will begin with a short anecdote from a graduate student working late in the night while listening to behavior analytic podcasts in which Owen White suggested that we only take data when we think we may be wrong. I will suggest that there may be conditions under which the "mind's eye" is appropriate and valuable to a behavior analyst, as well as provide preliminary data on the possible conditions under which mind's eye data is a worthwhile venture for behavior analysts.

In this tutorial, the basic requirements and ideal conditions for successfully training, evaluating, and deploying animals for scent-detection tasks will be outlined. Fundamental chemical and environmental factors that influence scent detection will be described, as will some factors to consider when selecting species and strains for this work. Because operational scent detection often involves detection of a variety of odor combinations, training requirements are similar to those for concept formation, which has important implications for selection of training samples. These and other considerations related to sample presentation will be discussed. Common training methods for both "discrete-trial" and "free-operant" scent-discrimination tasks will be presented and critical components of training highlighted. Evaluation of the scent-detection accuracy of animal detectors is a critical step prior to and during operational deployment. Some key features of precise estimation of performance will be discussed followed by a description of some operational deployment scenarios and features that are more and less conducive to success. Finally, common challenges associated with scent-detection work and some methods of overcoming the challenges will be presented for discussion.

BCBAs, BCaBAs

1. Describe three factors that influence scent availability.
2. Design a basic scent-detection training protocol.
3. Conduct an evaluation of a scent-detection animal.
4. Describe three challenges associated with scent detection.

Providing consultation from a distance is becoming increasingly more popular, because it allows for expert consultation even if those needing consultation live far from the consultant. This applies to individuals living in rural areas as well as in urban centers, where traffic congestion can make travel to the consultation site just as problematic as driving to rural areas. Teleconsultation is a method of providing consultation using distance technology. In states where behavior analysts are in short supply but demand for their services is great, teleconsultation can be one solution to the problem. In this tutorial, the ins and outs of setting up a consultation model will be provided. Dr. Peterson will share some of the things she has learned (the good, the bad, and the ugly) during the past year and a half of starting up a new teleconsultation service in Michigan, with a goal of helping participants be prepared for the hurdles that will be encountered.

BCBAs; BCaBAs

Habituation is a fundamental form of learning highly conserved throughout phylogeny and poorly understood mechanistically. In the years that Dr. Catharine Rankin's lab has studied habituation in C. elegans, they have developed an understanding of habituation and two neural circuits underlying behaviors that habituate. They have studies both associative and nonassociative aspects of habituation as well as both short- and long-term memory. They are now focusing on the genes underlying this learning in two different, but overlapping neural circuits using a novel high-throughput behavioral analysis system, the multi-worm tracker. The first response is startle response habituation to a mechanosensory tap to the substrate holding the worm; this response is mediated by five sensory neurons. The second is habituation of a withdrawal response following optogenetic activation of a pair of polymodal nociceptors (the ASH neurons) in the head of the worm. Through analyses of these two response systems, they have found that habituation is not a single phenomenon, but is made up of the integration of different subcomponents that show different patterns/kinetics of habituation and sensitization. The integration of these components leads to behavioral outcomes that are different depending on the nature of stimulation, and are highly adaptive for the worm.

Anyone who wants to understand or study the biological mechanisms underlying behavior.

This session is based on the book, 25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them. The premise of the book is that teachers can avoid making mistakes by being made aware of the mistakes of others. In spite of teachers' best intentions and research encouraging best practices, teachers all over the world make mistakes when trying to control student behavior. The need for discipline and control in classrooms is universal. How teachers respond to that need, apparently, also is universal--as evidenced by translation of the book into several languages. Teachers have power--power that can be abused or used constructively. This session will examine what happens when teacher power runs rampant and anger and frustration reigns; also, the consequent effects of the teachers' mistreatment of students and why it happens. Academic trauma, defined as a result of a significant emotional event that is caused by an aversive academic experience usually involving a teacher, will be explored. The motives of teachers, who admitted to mistreating students, will be discussed to find out why they did what they did, possible psychosocial student outcomes, and recommendations for avoiding mistakes.

Despite the innumerous advances our field has made in uncovering variables involved in the acquisition and maintenance of verbal behavior, the focus has been primarily on simpler behaviors, such as manding for or tacting objects, their function, class, or features. Little attention has been placed on more complex behaviors like the ones involved in the production of sentences and narratives and in reading comprehension. The papers to be presented in this symposium will focus on complex verbal behaviors. The first presentation will address autoclitic processes involved in the comprehension and production of sentences and narratives, focusing on the review and analysis of research studies that have addressed ordering and sequencing of complex verbal material. The second presentation will examine reading comprehension as a form of critical inquiry, which goes beyond answering who, when, where, and how questions, through the lenses of Skinners analysis of verbal behavior. A discussion encompassing sentence and narrative production, building toward reading comprehension, and concluding with suggestions for future analysis and research will complete this symposium.

The proposed symposium includes four presentations addressing recent advances in staff training. The first presentation evaluated the extent to which peer observations affected the treatment integrity of the observer in a human service setting. The second presentation evaluated the effects of a video-models combined with a self-instructional manual to teach behavioral therapists to implement both discrete-trial instruction (DTI) and enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) techniques. Together, these results indicate that therapists are able to acquire a large number of skills following a brief training. The third presentation examined the effectiveness of video modeling (VM) to train staff to conduct three preference assessments. The results demonstrated that VM was effective, and staff demonstrated high integrity during generalization and follow-up probes. The fourth presentation evaluated The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) to assess the environmental variables contributing to poor employee performance. The indicated intervention was effective to increase performance; the non PDC-HS based intervention was ineffective. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of the PDC-HS as a tool to identify a variety of performance problems in a variety of human service settings. Collectively these studies provide support for the effectiveness of a range of training approaches for staff.

Treatment integrity is a critical component of interventions in human service settings. Previous research has demonstrated significant increases in target behaviors that pertain to treatment integrity, directly linked to the observer effect, which is demonstrated when observing the behavior of others changes the behavior of the observer. The primary purpose of this study was to replicate and extend the work by Howard et al. (2013) by evaluating the extent to which peer observations affected the treatment integrity of the observer in a human service setting. Six clinicians working in a treatment center for children and young adults diagnosed with autism and other intellectual disabilities participated in this study. Participants were assigned to 3 different dyads: one member served as the observer and the other as the designated observee. A multiple baseline design across behaviors was used to evaluate the effects of peer observations on the treatment integrity of the observer.

The current evaluation assessed the effects of a video-models combined with a self-instructional manual to teach behavioral therapists to implement both discrete-trial instruction (DTI)) and enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) techniques. For DTI, experimenters provided instruction on completing a receptive-identification program and experimenters assessed performance with: (a) a confederate role-playing a child with autism, (b) generalization across other types of DTI programs, and (c) generalization with a child participant. For EMT, experimenters provided instruction on eight EMT techniques related to creating a learning environment and correct incidental teaching procedures. Following EMT training, experimenters assessed performance with both a confederate and with child participants. Results indicate that participants increased DTI performance from 0% in baseline to mastery criterion (90% correct) across all measures following approximately 1.5 hours of DTI training. Participants engaged in moderate levels (approximately 40%) of correct implementation of EMT procedures in baseline and correct performance increased to mastery criterion (90% correct) following approximately 1.0 hours of EMT training. Together, these results indicate that therapists are able to acquire a large number of skills using two teaching techniques, DTI and EMT, following a brief training using a combination of video-models and self-instructional manuals.

There is an ongoing need to identify stimuli that may function as reinforcers due to the reliance on reinforcement techniques during teaching. Three commonly used stimulus preference assessments (SPAs) are the single-stimulus (SS; Pace, Ivancic, Edwards, Iwata, & Page, 1985), paired-stimulus (PS; Fisher et al., 1992), and multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO; DeLeon & Iwata, 1996) preference assessments. The current study examined the effectiveness of video modeling with voiceover instruction to train staff to conduct these SPAs. The results demonstrated that video modeling was effective, and staff trainees demonstrated high levels of integrity during generalization and follow-up probes. These results support recent research that suggests video modeling is an effective approach to staff training.

Employee performance problems in human service settings can negatively impact services. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is an informant-based tool designed to assess the environmental variables contributing to poor employee performance in human service settings. We administered the PDC-HS to three supervisors to assess the variables contributing to poor performance by four staff members when securing clients in therapy rooms at a treatment center for children with autism. The PDC-HS identified a lack of appropriate consequences as contributing to poor staff performance. We then evaluated a PDC-HS indicated intervention as well as an intervention not suggested by PDC-HS results. The non-indicated intervention consisted of a prompt. The PDC-HS indicated intervention, graphed feedback, was effective to increase performance; the non PDC-HS based intervention was ineffective. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of the PDC-HS as a tool to identify a variety of performance problems in a variety of human service settings.

The revolution in what we know about verbal behavior development changes how we should intervene and teach children with language delays, social deficits, and cochlear implants. These findings determine how we should teach children in general education as well as special education. Empirically identified verbal development cusps are driven by the presence or absence of learned social reinforcers including how, or if, these can be acquired from social learning contexts. Social learning itself is a behavioral developmental cusp also driven by learned reinforcers. Tested protocols can establish missing cusps, resulting in significant advances in children’s social, verbal, and educational prognoses.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

A large and growing evidence base suggests that in order for language topographies to be verbal learned social reinforcers must be present as a function of incidental experiences or design. Establishing new reinforcers for observing responses and social reinforcers appear key to the advancement of verbal development and social development. Evidence across the range of verbal developmental cusps and social development suggest that if you build social reinforcers, verbal behavior will come. These findings point to the essential role of the establishment of collaborative reinforcement in verbal development.

The identification of verbal developmental cusps and protocols to establish them has utility for children with cochlear implants. The relevant protocols include conditioning voices, listener literacy, various naming interventions, and other protocols that act to join the speaker-as-own-listener within the skin and to establish vocal verbal stimulus control. Using these protocols in conjunction with see and say signs holds promise for advancing the reading achievement of deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Verbal behavior is fundamentally social. Its development requires the establishment not only of verbal operants, but their reinforcers. Without the proper reinforcers, social behavior and subsequent language will not develop. Evidence exists that new reinforcers can be conditioned through social contingencies, that is, by observation. This paper will present an overview of what research has told us about the observational conditioning of new reinforcers, and how it relates to verbal development.

We report several studies on infants' progression from vocalizations to early verbal operants. Experiment 1 showed infants vocalizations were shaped and maintained by adult echoics. Experiment 2 compared two groups of 3- to 8-month-old infants using a multi-element probe design with a noncontingent reinforcement control condition and two forms of contingent reinforcement. This distinguished between the reinforcing effects of contingent maternal echoics and motherese speech from the eliciting effects of noncontingent vocal stimuli. Experiment 3 tested the effects of an intensive tact protocol on increases in mands and tacts. Collectively, the research shows the importance of social reinforcement on verbal development.

Individuals with brain-based disorders are often plagued with incontinence due to compromised processing between the peripheral and central nervous system. These individuals often have lower cognition level and may exhibit abnormalities such as encopresis, enuresis and fecal smearing. Toilet training also plagues the gerontological population as neural disconnection hinder the flow of information required to effect continence. The most commonly used behavior strategy is a combination of the Azrin & Foxx method (1971) and operant conditioning. Although these program have resulted in successful training in most cases, there is a considerable proportion of individuals who have not accomplished bladder and bowel control and therefore require intensive caregiving staff. A paucity of data precluded conclusions regarding the abnormality in individuals resistant to toilet training. This paper reviews methods to achieve independent self-care through behavior analytic approach, and proposes a sensory-neural understanding of the toilet training-resistant cohort, which is largely unknown. Case studies demonstrate how sensory experiences affect toilet training success and argues for its consideration in the toilet training regimen. Future collaboration between occupational therapy and behavior analysis will foster both theoretical development and practical application on treating neurologically challenged individuals in the most intimate aspect of self-care.

Empirically testing and validating error correction techniques is important for the development of best clinical practices for discrete trial training. Some research has found that error correction procedures that incorporate an Active Student Response (ASR) are more effective than error correction procedures with no active response (NR) required on the part of the learner. However, other research has found that ASRs may not be necessary or advantageous across some learners and skill domains (cf. McGhan & Lerman, 2013). In the current study, we compared the acquisition of target items in a receptive identification task using follow-up prompted trial error-correction techniques to two forms of error-corrective informational feedback: 1) participants were not inhibited from making an active response during corrective feedback or 2) the role of active feedback was minimized by placing the target stimulus out of reach of the learner during corrective feedback. For two learners diagnosed with autism, results revealed that target stimuli in each condition reached acquisition with some idiosyncratic differences in the number of trials to acquisition. Implications for using ASR based error-correction techniques and potential mechanisms by which learning still occurred in the absence of an observable ASR (e.g., covert responding) will be discussed.

Suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury remain the hallmark wounds of the War on Terror. Common across all of these problems is a degradation in functioning in any of the following areas: occupational, interpersonal, communication, cognitive performance. Although cognitive and behavioral treatments which address these functional impairments have been developed and broadly disseminated across the Department of Defense or the Department of Veteran Affairs, applied behavior analysis (ABA) remains unknown across most mental health and neuropsychological points of care within the Military Health System (MHS). Four research and practice initiatives will be discussed during this symposium including one-minute-timing and standard celeration charting of problematic private events, the development of a verbal operant learning channel instrument for veterans and service members with TBI, using modeling to examine training outcomes of veteran law enforcement officers versus non veteran law enforcement officers, and the application of the single case research design and standard celeration charting to improve suicide prevention program evaluation. Collectively, these projects illustrate how ABA can and will continue to be useful for helping this population.

The law enforcement (LE) field generally accepts video simulation as one of the gold standard methods for teaching officers to handle lethal situations and use of force appropriately. The training relies on video contingencies which LE officers interact with, but the training also relies on rule-governed contingencies, and didactic instruction. Despite the psychological research on training in general, little empirical research exists on simulator training in the law enforcement community (Bennell, 2007). Considering the importance of contingency-governed behavior versus these other methods of learning (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007; Sidman, 1989), this gold standard training method for the LE field warrants some exploration by the field of applied behavior analysis. Since one study found that the greatest magnitude of learning occurs in the earliest stages of simulation training (Justice and Safety center, 2002), the author tested modelling techniques prior to video simulation LE training, and found that modeling yielded higher performance and faster engagement with the training module than teaching as usual. The author expands his analysis of this work to evaluate performance of veterans versus non-veterans in video simulation LE training. Findings and implications for future ABA integration in LE training are discussed.

This talk identifies aspects of Epicurean philosophy that are related to the ideas promoted by B. F. Skinner. A Greek philosopher who lived at the time of Plato and Aristotle, Epicurus was an empiricist who maintained that lawful interactions among atoms were the bases for all things, including physical, biological, and behavioral. He also posited that atoms swerved randomly, this providing for voluntary actions and the creation of novel things. Epicurus argued against soul (in contemporary terms, mind or cognitions) being independent of body, and against superstitious beliefs, including life-after-death and godly influences on humankind. Animals shared, according to Epicurus, many of the same attributes as humans, and he posited that life existed on many worlds other than our own. Epicurus created and lived in a utopian community, the Garden, that was similar in many ways to Walden II--in its emphasis on work and simple rewards, in avoiding aversives and emphasizing positives, and in its inclusion of all members of society, rich and poor, women and men. This talk will compare Skinner and Epicurus and explore why their common views may be helpful to us as individuals, to our culture, and to our world.

In general, when we as applied behavior analysts carry out behavioral interventions, we must look carefully to address or eliminate potential ethical concerns. When working with sexual behaviors in particular, potential ethical concerns abound, especially when those we work with have intellectual or developmental disabilities. There are also legal implications of which we must be cognizant when working in the delicate domain of sexual behavior. Using research and clinical case examples to illustrate their points, members of this panel will address some of the legal and ethical concerns and themes that commonly arise when clinicians are called upon to address issues related to sexual behavior in applied settings. Panelists will also discuss reasons why behaviors that are sexual in nature may warrant targeted behavior change efforts through empirically verified sex education curricula and behavior reduction programming, as well as situations in which it would be unethical to target such behaviors.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present with deficits in communication and social interaction. One intervention option is script fading. During script fading, scripts provide learners with a model of appropriate language for specific social situations. In this intervention study, three children with autism were taught to initiate peer-to-peer social interactions using a script fading intervention during group play. Results demonstrate that scripted initiations increased for all three participants. Additionally, response generalization in the form of novel unscripted utterances emerged. In some cases these novel utterances included age and context appropriate changes in the topic of conversation. Generalization across novel toys, settings and peers was also observed. Results are discussed in terms of response variability and future research directions.

Behavioral interventions for repetitive and stereotyped behavior (RSB) primarily reduce rather than replace RSB with adaptive behavior. Evidence suggests replacement of RSB might be achieved by directly reinforcing operant variability. Applied studies have shown that lag-schedules of reinforcement can increase variability in the verbal and play behavior of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The current study extends research on lag-schedules to the problem of repetitive and restricted feeding by children with ASD and high food selectivity (HFS). HFS is viewed here as a form of RSB consisting of the excessive repeated consumption of a narrow range of edible stimuli despite alternatives being readily available. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a lag-schedule on independent variant food consumption and variety of food consumed in a discrete-trial format using an ABAB design. One participant has completed the study thus far. A decrease in variable food consumption was observed across baseline sessions under a continuous schedule of reinforcement. A lag 1 schedule of reinforcement increased the variety of edible stimuli consumed and decreased repetitive food consumption. This is the first demonstration of increased operant variability and variety of food consumption using lag-schedules in children with ASD.

School-wide Positive Behavior Support, a data based multi-tiered framework has been shown to be effective in schools in improving behavior support (Sugai & Horner, 2009). The use of data-based decision making incorporating applied behavior analysis /evidenced-based practices at the universal, secondary and intensive level has not been implemented in large organizations serving both children and adults with autism spectrum disorder and developmental disabilities in day and residential programs. A critical feature of an effective, multi-tiered data-based approach is to have efficient and effective data systems that allow teams to make timely data-based decisions at each tier. The use of technology to improve access and quality of services will be highlighted in this data-based symposium. The first data-based presentation will highlight the development and implementation of an electronic data collection system to track, discrete behavior data, skill acquisition and physical management and other incidents across a large (2,100 staff) behavior analytic organization serving both children and adults with ASD and/or developmental disabilities. This electronic data system has been shown to improve behavior support and skill acquisition practices through timely data based decisions. The second data-based presentation will demonstrate the development and implementation of multi-tiered behavior support systems, data-based decision making and applied behavior analytical practices to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of behavior support practices across the same organization.

The hallmark of any effective multi-tiered system of support using behavior analytic/evidenced-based practices is timely data-based decision making by representative data teams at each tier. The use of paper-based systems and the timely and efficient conversion of this information into representative visual presentations using excel and/or other graphing programs to allow teams to make data-based decisions consumes significant staff resources. Additionally, the use of functional assessment information to establish system level interventions is often lacking. As this organization has moved to implement a timely, data-based multi-tiered decision model the need for electronic data collection and automatic visual presentation of these data was a high priority. This organization has worked over the past four years to develop and implement an electronic data collection and graphing system to be used across 150 programs throughout the country. The system tracks critical data such as program treatment integrity across the tiers, behavioral incidents, physical management, discrete behavior tracking, and skill acquisition data. This presentation will review the ongoing development and implementation of a system to collect system-wide data used to determine the effectiveness of both system-wide and individual behavior supports. . In addition the system allows the review of location, time, activity and staff involved in these procedures to assist in the improvement of its behavior support practices on a program-wide basis. Presentation of data as well as the effective use of data to make system-level changes in interventions will be presented.

Highlighting the critical role of early diagnosis and intervention in attenuating the symptoms of autism, data will be presented on early diagnostic indicators obtained through eye-tracking-based behavioral assays that quantify social disabilities. Results generate "growth charts" of normative social engagement, and deviations from the norm are taken as early indicators of risk. The ultimate goal of this effort is to develop objectified and quantified tools for the detection of autism in infancy, tools that might be deployed in primary care and pediatricians’ offices. Both the science and the translational efforts described in this presentation set up a new challenge to ABA technologies. The natural platform for social and communication brain development in infants and toddlers is reciprocal interaction between children and their caregivers. In autism, this learning environment represents the instantiation of genetic vulnerabilities into atypical social and communication experiences, likely due to children’s attenuated social orienting and engagement behavior. The derailment of reciprocal social engagement appears to lead to the emergence of autism symptoms in the second year of life. How can we alter this process, within the confines of naturalistic mother-child social engagement, defines new challenges to ABA, indeed a new frontier.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

Behavior analysts historically been committed to science and the scientific procedure for studying human behavior. The major behavioral organizations, ABAI and BACB, have set forth standards of conduct that require behavior analysts to use effective treatment procedures. The BACB's Guidelines for Responsible Conduct specifically state that behavior analysts must use scientifically supported most effective treatments. However, there are a number of BCBAs who have been found using practices that are pseudoscientific or fads. This symposium will address this concern by reviewing criteria for evidence to which behavior analysts should adhere, providing examples of behaviorists behaving beautifully, and behaviorists behaving not so well, and offering strategies to convince these behavior analysts to once again behave according to our scientific principles, or how to deal with such transgressions.

In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on context in both the experimental and applied analysis of behavior. The term, at times, has been used to emphasize the role setting variables may play in the analysis of behavior, and at other times the way in which stimulus control relations may emerge from exposures to certain programmed contingent histories. While both of these do suggest the importance of context they are not sufficient to understand the scope of the concept. This panel will discuss the meaning of context as it applies to behavior analytic investigations, both experimental and applied. We will examine how the consequential contingency provides the basis for contextual considerations. Included will be a discussion of the work on the role of context by those scientists from the instrumental conditioning tradition (for example, Wyrwicka, 2000), the role of alternative sets of contingencies which define the intercontingency context, the intracontingency context, the contextual implications of the intertwining of abstraction and dimensional stimulus control, as well as setting events, among others, will be examined.

Humans are remarkably similar to other apes. Like us, chimpanzees and orangutans are extremely clever, use tools and exhibit rudimentary understanding of causality and what others intend. However, other apes are not nearly as good at understanding the intentions of others nor nearly so eager to accommodate or help them. By contrast, right from an early age, humans are eager to help and share. It was this combination of understanding what others intend along with impulses to help and please them that enabled our ancestors to coordinate behavior in pursuit of common goals—with spectacular consequences later on. So how and why did such other-regarding capacities emerge in creatures as self-serving as nonhuman apes are? And why did they emerge in the line leading to the genus Homo, but not in other apes? In her lecture, Dr. Sarah Hrdy explains why she became convinced that the psychological and emotional underpinnings for these “other-regarding” impulses emerged very early in hominin evolution, as byproducts of shared parental and alloparental care and provisioning of young. According to widely accepted chronology, large-brained, anatomically modern humans evolved by 200,000 years ago, while behaviorally modern humans, capable of symbolic thought and language, evolved more recently still, in the past 150,000 or so years. But Hrdy hypothesizes that emotionally modern humans, interested in the mental and subjective states of others emerged far earlier, perhaps by the beginning of the Pleistocene 1.8 million years ago.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.