Association for Behavior Analysis International

Reinforcement is all around us and reinforcers are contingent on all kinds of behaviors in real life. A good deal of the time those reinforcers are the events that make the world go 'round; they also produce accidents, errors, catastrophes, and on good days they produce humor, satisfaction, scientific discoveries, save lives and bring great joy. This paper will review the many examples of malfunction of the reinforcement contingency with consequences that go far beyond what they used to do in days before computers and large corporations yielding the conditions in which one person or one small group of persons wreaks havoc. I will review cases of radiation poisoning, eggs spreading Salmonella, oil spills, cell phone malfunction and other blessings created by inappropriate reinforcement contingencies in our society. To make up for the bleak picture, I will suggest ways of correcting these malfunctioning reinforcement contingencies.

Building architects are concerned with the physical design of a structure and with the flow of people through it, the ease of maintenance, emergency access, and a range of other factors. They consider the entire building as a dynamic system with all its parts. Performance architects view each organization as a dynamic system where every part affects every other part. They align all the components of the system to best achieve the desired results. Performance architecture grew out of the field of performance technology (PT). Early applications tended to focus on the workers, but soon people like Geary Rummler, Paul Harmon, Don Tosti, and other PT professionals saw the need to consider the nature of the work, the process, as well. Still others began to apply PT principles to the workplace and developed ways to analyze and address factors like culture, leadership, and strategy. These elements impact every worker and every process. Thus, performance architecture addresses the worker, the work, and the workplace, and does this within a system framework. This session will focus on several case studies, the performance architect models and tools, the recommended solutions and measurable evidence of success.

Many studies of Pavlovian conditioning have demonstrated that conditioned behavior can be eliminated when previously established relations between stimuli are severed. This extinction process has been extremely important for the development of learning theories and, more recently, for delineating the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie memory. A key finding from behavioral studies of extinction is that extinction eliminates behavior without eliminating the original memory; extinguished behavior often returns with time or with a return to the context in which the original learning occurred. This persistence of the original memory after extinction creates a challenge for clinical applications that use extinction as part of a treatment intervention. Consequently, a goal of recent neurobiological research on extinction is to identify potential pharmacological targets that may result in persistent extinction. Drugs that promote epigenetic changes are particularly promising because they can result in a long-term molecular signal that, combined with the appropriate behavioral treatment, can cause persistent changes in behavior induced by extinction. I will review some of these findings and describe the ways in which extinction enhancing drugs can impact behavior and brain function.

One of the diagnostic criteria for individuals with autism is a qualitative impairment in social behavior, which can range from rejecting others in their environment to a failure to develop meaningful friendships. This impairment can lead to children and adolescents having fewer friendships, doing poorer in school, and having a lower quality of life. There have been numerous behavioral interventions that have been implemented to individuals with autism to increase their social behaviors. One procedure that has been empirically proven to be effective for teaching social skills is the teaching interaction procedure. The teaching interaction procedure consists of the teacher and the learner labeling the social behavior to be taught, providing a rationale of why the learner should engage in the social behavior, cues and characteristics of when the learner should engage in the social behavior, breaking the social behavior into smaller behavioral components, the teacher modeling the behavior, and the learner role-playing the behavior with the teacher. Previous studies have shown that the teaching interaction procedure is an effective way to teach a variety of social skills. This symposium will discuss three studies that further expand the research on the teaching interaction procedure.

One of the defining characteristics of an autism spectrum disorder is deficits in social interaction. In addition, children with autism spectrum disorders often have reduced play skills, which further interferes with their ability to interact with same age peers. One way that typical children between the ages of four and seven interact is to play structured board and card games. The purpose of this study was to teach two elementary aged children with autism ways to better play and interact with same aged peers by playing structured games. Using the teaching interaction procedure, the children were taught how to set up and play three different age appropriate structured games (i.e., Uno, Go Fish, and Yahtzee Jr.). Both children were able to learn all three games in a structured setting with an adult associated with teaching. In addition, they were able to generalize game play to an additional adult in a different, less structured, setting.

One of the diagnostic criteria for individuals with autism is a qualitative impairment in social behavior, which can range from rejecting others in their environment to a failure to develop meaningful friendships. While research has shown behavioral interventions to be effective in teaching and/or increasing a variety of appropriate social skills, limited research has shown generalization of these skills to the natural setting. One teaching procedure that has shown high levels of generalization for children with autism is the teaching interaction procedure. In this study, the teaching interaction procedure was used to teach a variety of social skills to four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, the researchers utilized a fifth participant as a control; this participant did not receive the teaching interaction procedure. Results of this study indicated that the teaching interaction procedure was effective in teaching new appropriate social skills, of different topographies. Results also showed that participants were able to generalize skills learned to their natural environment.

Two methods that have been implemented to teach social skills to children with autism are social stories and the teaching interaction procedure. This study compared social stories to the teaching interaction procedure for teaching social skills to six children and adolescents diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Using a parallel treatment design, researchers taught 18 social skills with social stories and 18 social skills with teaching interaction procedures. The teaching interaction procedure was effective in teaching all 18 skills across the six participants. Social stories, within the same amount of teaching sessions, however, were effective in teaching 4 of the 18 social skills across the six participants. Also, participants had greater generalization of social skills to adults and to peers when the skills were taught with the teaching interaction procedure. When the participants were allowed to choose whether they would prefer to be taught with the teaching interaction procedure or social stories, they had a slight preference for social stories.

The current symposium contains four presentations that address the use of preference assessments for informing treatment of automatically reinforced problem behavior. The first presenter will review the use of a concurrent chains arrangement to determine treatment preferences for participants with automatically reinforced motor stereotypy. The author will also discuss results from an indirect assessment that was conducted with caretakers and relevant stakeholders. The second presenter will review data from two different preference assessments that are often used to identify preferred items for use in the treatment of automatically reinforced problem behavior. The author will review test-retest reliability for each of the assessments and will discuss the implications of the results for determining items for use in behavioral treatment programs. The third presenter will review data on the response persistence of automatically reinforced motor stereotypy following reinforcement versus control sessions. The author will discuss the effects of presenting matched versus unmatched stimuli during the reinforcement component on participants' subsequent persistence of stereotypy. The fourth presenter will discuss the use of a concurrent operant preference assessment for determining participants' preference for contingent social consequences versus extinction (no consequences) for their aggression. The author will review data from this assessment and will discuss how the findings may help clarify ambiguous functional analysis (FA) outcomes for participants' aggression.

The purpose of this analysis was to assess social validity with two adolescent males diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in addition to their caregivers and other relevant stakeholders. Both participants engaged in high levels of automatically reinforced motor stereotypy and previously experienced a treatment component analysis designed to identify the necessary components to decrease stereotypy and increase appropriate play behavior. The treatment consisted of enriching the environment with leisure materials, prompting appropriate play, restricting access to motor stereotypy through blocking, and providing access to the stereotypy contingent on appropriate play behavior. The present analysis objectively assessed each client's preference, using a concurrent-chains arrangement, for this treatment package versus other relevant treatments commonly used to treat stereotypy (e.g., blocking only, activities only). An indirect assessment was then conducted with caretakers and other relevant stakeholders of each participant via viewing video clips and filling out a questionnaire, to assess the social acceptability of the purpose, goals, and effects of treatment (i.e., behavior changes observed after experiencing treatment) and the procedures that were implemented. Results of the treatment preference assessment indicated that both participants preferred conditions where activities were present as well as the treatment package. Social validity assessed by caregivers and relevant stakeholders indicated overall that the treatment package purpose, goals, treatment procedures, and amount of behavior change were appropriate and acceptable.

Because clinicians cannot withdraw or terminate the reinforcer associated with automatically reinforced problem behavior, effective behavioral treatment relies on identifying potent reinforcers. To this end, clinicians may conduct preference assessments based on item selection or based on both item engagement and problem behavior. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate two different preference assessments for determining items for use in an intervention for problem behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement. Two individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, who exhibited motor stereotypy maintained by automatic reinforcement, participated in this study. We conducted two leisure-item preference assessments, four times each, and alternated assessments using a multielement design. In the paired-stimulus format, the therapist presented two leisure items and asked the participant to select one. Preference was based on the percentage of trials an item was selected. In the competing items format, each item was presented singly for 5 min, and preference was based on levels of item engagement and motor stereotypy. Results showed that the paired-stimulus assessment yielded higher levels of stability as determined by correlation coefficients than did the competing items assessment across replications. Implications of these results for determining items for use in behavioral treatment programs will be discussed.

Previous research has suggested that adding reinforcers into a situation can increase the persistence of behavior. Ahearn, Clark, Gardenier, Chung, and Dube (2003) found stereotypy was more persistent following reinforcement sessions than control sessions. The current study attempts to replicate and extend these findings by differentiating the type of stimuli given to each participant. Two children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder who engaged in stereotypic behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement participated. Three experimental components, matched, unmatched, or control, assessed the effects of matched versus unmatched stimuli on the persistence of stereotypy. Results and implications will be discussed.

Functional analysis (FA) has been shown to be an effective method for identifying the function of aggressive behavior (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994). Aggression is most often maintained by social consequences (Hanley, Iwata, & McCord, 3002). However, previous studies have demonstrated that ambiguous results from FAs may indicate that aggression can be maintained by automatic reinforcement (Ringdahl, Call, Mews, Boelter, & Christensen, 2008). The present study attempted to further evaluate the function of aggression that produced ambiguous results from a FA that included elevated rates of problem behavior in an extended ignore condition (Vollmer et al, 1995). Two participants were exposed to a concurrent operants assessment in which they chose between various social consequences for problem behavior versus extinction. On one side of the room the establishing operations and consequences from the tangible, demand, and attention conditions of the FA were presented. On the other side of the room problem behavior resulted in no programmed consequences. Participants were free to switch sides throughout all session, with choices defined as allocation to one side of the room or the other. Results will be discussed in terms of how concurrent operants arrangements can clarify ambiguous FA results.

The field of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is heavily reliant on single subject research, which clearly demonstrates the functional relations between interventions and outcomes. When reviewing the literature on specific ABA procedures using single subject designs, there are few studies employing systematic methodologies to review the literature and determine the overall effectiveness of particular interventions. One method for amalgamating research results across studies is the percentage of non-overlapping data points (PND). With the current emphasis on evidence- based practice, especially in the field of autism, this symposium is designed to provide a practical tool to offer consumers of research the means to compare results across single subject studies, and to combine results to determine an estimate of effect size for particular interventions. This symposium will begin with a presentation describing the procedure and giving the audience some practical examples of its use, strengths and limits. This will be followed three examples of research projects that have employed PND to determine an estimate of the effect size for a body of published research studies in ABA and autism. The utility of this approach for researchers and consumers will be highlighted.

The field of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) depends largely on single subject designs in research and practice. These designs give the opportunity to demonstrate the impact of an intervention on a target behaviour for each individual in the study. A challenge with these designs is finding a reliable and efficient method of summarizing findings across studies. One possible method for synthesizing visual single subject data is to calculate the percentage of non-overlapping data (PND). This method can be used to determine the effect size of single subject research that includes a visual depiction of the data, including baseline and treatment conditions. PND can be a very useful tool for researchers, clinicians, and consumers of research and clinical services, wanting to determine the relative effectiveness of different techniques. This presentation will provide an overview of PND, and demonstrate the calculation of effect size using this method. The strengths and limits of the method will also be illustrated with sample graphs.

Problem behaviours have a negative impact on quality of life for people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Behavioural interventions based on functional behavioural assessment techniques have been demonstrated effective for reducing aggressive, self-injurious and destructive behaviours in individuals with ASD. Research in this area emphasizes the use of experimental functional analysis, though, in practice, many behaviour analysts rely on descriptive methods. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis to compare the outcomes of intervention studies using experimental functional analysis to those using descriptive methods and combined methods. Effect sizes were measured using percentage of non-overlapping data points (PND). Preliminary findings suggest that treatment outcomes based on analog functional analysis, descriptive assessments or a combination of both were assessed, and found to range in effectiveness. Treatment outcomes were also found to be similarly effective regardless of whether the behaviour was maintained by a single function of behaviour or multi-functional. The implications of this study, limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Interventions using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) are effective for skill development and/or reducing challenging behaviours in children with autism spectrum disorders/developmental disabilities (ASD/DD) (Carr & Durand, 1985; McEachin, Smith & Lovaas, 1993). Many educators still refrain from using ABA in their classroom (Axelrod, Moyer & Berry, 1990). Treatment adherence is essential to improved outcomes for students with DD (Gresham, 1989). Valuable time and money is spent providing educators with training in ABA to implement treatment plans effectively (Ontario Ministry of Ed., PPM 140, 2007). Literature from other sectors (e.g., residential staff) suggests that didactic training is less effective than other methods at improving treatment adherence (Harchik et al., 1989). Given the considerable investment in educator training to support children with disabilities (especially autism) it is essential to examine the evidence to determine the most effective means to train educators. It is hoped that improved information about the effectiveness of training will influence practice, and result in improved treatment implementation and outcomes (Axelrod, Moyer & Berry, 1990, Harchik et al., 1989). This study employed the percentage of non-overlapping data points method to calculate the effect sizes for different training approaches. The relative effectiveness for different training methodologies and their impact on implementation will be discussed.

Social skill generalization is essential for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to achieve meaningful outcomes from social skills interventions. This presentation will review a meta-analysis designed to fill a gap in the literature by examining the variables that influence generalization effects by calculating the percentage of non-overlapping data points (PND) from single-case studies. Participant characteristics, quantity of generalization strategies, generalization strategies used, categories of skills trained, and training characteristics were compared with overall and mean PND scores for treatment, maintenance and generalization outcomes. The analysis resulted in borderline significant results suggesting that using Natural Maintaining Contingencies or Training Loosely generalization strategies may produce better generalization effects for children and adolescents with ASD. Training with multiple exemplars was found to be moderately related to better maintenance effects. Further investigation of variables that predict and improve generalization effects for those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is warranted.

Children with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have significant delays in communication and social interaction. Consequently, their parents often feel frustrated and disappointed by their inability to participate in daily interactions that most families take for granted, such as storytelling, laughing together, discussing the day's events, and speaking with their child about his or her thoughts and feelings. To develop these interaction skills, it is usually necessary to teach a variety of specific advanced language skills that are often not adequately addressed in many intervention programs. Some of these skills include being able to describe and answer questions about events as they are happening (i.e., "What are we doing? Who is here? Where are we?"). Another important set of skills is to be able to ask peers and family members for information (e.g., "Where is the playground? When can we go to the playground? Who will take me there?" ). Additionally, the child also must be taught to remember and describe what they are told about their peers (e.g., "What is Joe's favorite video?"), and describe recent past events, (e.g., "Who sat next to you at lunch today? What did he bring for lunch?"). Intervention programs that develop these types of skills can improve a child's ability to establish and maintain meaningful friendships. Specific strategies will be presented that professionals and educators can use to develop these advanced language skills and that focus teaching the child to attend to the actions and interests of peers and family members. Children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), demonstrate the ability to tact and often discuss items or events that they are able to experience. With proper program planning and teaching, children with autism can master intraverbal skills in relation to recalling past events and discussing these events with peers and family. One area that children with autism demonstrate significant delays is the ability to infer and make predictions about pictures, events, and feelings. Since the implementation of the first federal legislation mandating free and appropriate education for children with disabilities, there has been the requirement of specific learning objectives for each student's individualized education program. However, after reviewing many educational programs, it is readily apparent that many of the children who have not made significant progress in their development have objectives in their IEPs that fail to identify critical basic language and learner skills that are necessary to help them develop to their fullest potential. This presentation will review the developmental patterns of critical language and learner skills of typically-developing children between the ages of 6 and 60-months and identify how these data are useful in the establishment of appropriate learning objectives for young children with autism or other developmental delays.

Children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have significant delays in communication, social skills, advanced language skills, and comprehension skills. Consequently, it is difficult for these students to participate in activities within the home and school setting. To develop these advanced verbal behavior skills, it is necessary to teach a variety of specific advanced skills in a variety of settings. Using examples and non-examples it is also necessary to teach prediction of outcomes. Some of these skills include describing activities and events as they are happening, and discussing possible future outcomes to certain events. Intervention programs that develop these skills can improve the child's ability to engage with peers and comprehend events. Specific strategies will be presented that professionals and educators can use to develop these advanced language skills.

Children with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have significant delays in communication and social interaction. Consequently, their parents often feel frustrated and disappointed by their inability to participate in daily interactions that most families take for granted, such as storytelling, laughing together, discussing the days events, and speaking with their child about his or her thoughts and feelings. To develop these interaction skills, it is usually necessary to teach a variety of specific advanced language skills that are often not adequately addressed in many intervention programs. Some of these skills include being able to describe and answer questions about events as they are happening (i.e., "What are we doing? Who is here? Where are we?"). Another important set of skills is to be able to ask peers and family members for information (e.g., "Where is the playground? When can we go to the playground? Who will take me there?" ). Additionally, the child also must be taught to remember and describe what they are told about their peers (e.g., "What is Joe's favorite video?"), and describe recent past events, (e.g., "Who sat next to you at lunch today? What did he bring for lunch?"). Intervention programs that develop these types of skills can improve a child's ability to establish and maintain meaningful friendships. Specific strategies will be presented that professionals and educators can use to develop these advanced language skills and that focus teaching the child to attend to the actions and interests of peers and family members.

Children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), demonstrate the ability to tact and often discuss items or events that they are able to experience. With proper program planning and teaching, children with autism can master intraverbal skills in relation to recalling past events and discussing these events with peers and family. One area that children with autism demonstrate significant delays is the ability to infer and make predictions about pictures, events, and feelings. To develop these skills, it is necessary to teach many examples of situations and stories in which one would infer or predict an outcome. Using tact to intraverbal transfers as well as recall of experiences and emotions students with ASD can begin to infer future events. Intervention programs that develop these skills can improve a child's ability to predict outcomes in everyday experiences as well as with stories. Specific strategies will be presented that professionals and educators can use to develop these advanced skills.

Since the implementation of the first federal legislation mandating free and appropriate education for children with disabilities, there has been the requirement of specific learning objectives for each student's individualized education program (IEP). However, after reviewing many educational programs, it is readily apparent that many of the children who have not made significant progress in their development have objectives in their IEPs that fail to identify critical basic language and learner skills that are necessary to help them develop to their fullest potential. This presentation will review the developmental patterns of critical language and learner skills of typically-developing children between the ages of 6- and 60-months and identify how these data are useful in the establishment of appropriate learning objectives for young children with autism or other developmental delays.

Based on the research evidence of the efficacy of applied behavior analytic interventions, there is an augmented need for effective behavior treatments for autism. The survival of behavior analytic agencies, and the quality of services they offer, depends heavily on these agencies abilities to recruit, train, monitor, and maintain qualified employees. However, at this time, documented research regarding such employees is limited. In the series of papers we present, we conducted a needs assessment with 146 direct staff from 24 different behavioral service providers of individuals with autism. We used group-design analyses to investigate the self-reported needs and desires of employees to determine predictors of turnover among direct staff who work with children with autism. In this symposium, we discuss turnover intentions, and each statistically, socially, and clinically significant predictor, in detail. We provide research findings from prior studies in related fields, as well as offer suggestions for change. This symposium will further the skills and knowledge of BCBAs by addressing which research design is appropriate for a particular research question, highlighting the importance of methodological controls irrespective of type of research design, and outlining how behavior analysts can effectively prioritize their efforts for employee retention.

The large demand for behavior analytic services, in the field of autism intervention, results in a high need for direct staff. Agencies that offer behavioral services exert resources to recruit and maintain staff. However, there is a general knowledge of rapid turnover amongst direct staff even though, to date, there is no documented empirical evidence of turnover in this field. This high rate of turnover can affect a company's productivity, increase costs, as well as hinder a client's progress because of a lack of consistency. Industrial organization researchers found that turnover is costly to organizations because employees decrease productivity and emotionally distance themselves from their work (Keaveney & Nelson, 1993). Additionally, organizations undergo financial strain and a loss of knowledge within the company (Kiekbusch, Price, & Theis, 2003). Researchers have consistently found that intent to leave a company is the best predictor of actual turnover (Lambert, 2006; Ramlall, 2003). In our study 46% of direct staff reported likelihood to leave their company as compared to 12% based on research in related fields. We found variables, such as hours worked per week, employee education, and reimbursements were not in fact related to turnover. From a total of 146 respondents (representing 24 different companies in Los Angeles) we found supervision, training, and pay were the best predictors of turnover (F (1, 77) = 8.80, R2 = .39, p < .001). In this symposium we will discuss predictors of turnover in detail and offer suggestions for future direction.

In Los Angeles County, until very recently, the responsibility to teach direct-service staff necessary skills to appropriately implement behavioral techniques has fallen solely on agencies providing behavior analytic services to children with developmental disabilities. Given that agencies rely on their direct staff for implementation of programs, it is imperative that staff receive sufficient "on the job" training. Previous researchers found that level of training plays a key role in the turnover intentions of employees, such that, individuals receiving adequate training are less likely to leave their job (Rondeau, Williams, & Wagar, 2009). Training duration and the context in which the training was provided were also found to be significant correlates of training satisfaction (Schmidt, 2007). Regrettably, research addressing effects of training on direct-service staff providing behavioral services to children with developmental disabilities is scant. In this study, we used the Training Satisfaction Scale (Liu, 2006) to assess various factors relating to job retention. We found satisfaction with initial training to be the most prominent predictor of turn over intention. In this presentation we will discuss variables that contribute to initial training satisfaction.

Supervision in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) is of paramount importance because the majority of entry-level direct staff enter the field with, at most, an education in concept and theory and are thus largely relying on supervisors for appropriate implementation of services, maintenance, and mastery of skills. Researchers report supervision plays an influential role in the turnover intentions of employees such that individuals who feel satisfied with their supervisor relationship are more likely to continue in the field (Firth, Mellor, Moore, & Loquet, 2004). Furthermore, in the field of special education, researchers found greater levels of administrative support to be associated with greater job satisfaction and less subsequent turnover (Billingsley, 2004). However, within the field of ABA research addressing the relationship between a supervisor and the direct staff who provide applied behavior analytic services to children with disabilities is limited. In this study, we used The Supervision Satisfaction Scale to assess different factors that contribute to perceived supervisor support (Eisenberger et al. 2002). We found perceived supervision satisfaction to be a significant determinant of self-reported turnover intentions. In this presentation, we will discuss variables that contribute to participants' reports of supervision satisfaction.

It is imperative that behavioral agencies nationwide are cognizant of the factors that relate to high turnover rates of behavior therapists working with children diagnosed with autism so that these companies can find ways to better retain their employees. Prior research conducted on special education teachers (Billingsley, 2003; Nickson & Kritsonis, 2006) found variables such as the level of education of teachers, length of time at current job, severity of impairment of the cases, age of teachers, job expectations, and knowledge of concepts to be related to turnover. However, we found that several of these factors, as well as other seemingly pertinent variables (e.g., reimbursements, health insurance, etc.), were not statistically significant predictors of turnover. The results from our research were not similar with prior research and contradict the prevalent belief among agency owners. Furthermore, we found that rate of hourly pay accounted for only a small portion of the variance when predicting intent to turnover. Other variables that were examined, limitations, and implications for future research will be discussed.

O. Ivar Lovaas (1927-2010) was a trail-blazing clinician-scientist who devoted nearly half a century to improving the lives of children with autism and their families, brought applied behavior analysis (ABA) to the attention of the general public, and inspired many students and colleagues to join his quest for ever-more effective treatments. Lovaas' early studies showed the potential of ABA interventions to decrease severe challenging behaviors and establish communicative language in previously nonverbal children. His later work culminated in landmark reports revealing that many children with autism made remarkable gains with early intensive ABA. In person, Lovaas was larger-than-life, ebullient, outgoing, charismatic, feisty, and brilliant. This distinguished panel will discuss his multi-faceted contributions from the perspectives of former students who collaborated with Lovaas at different stages of his career, parents whose son received early intensive behavioral intervention in his clinic, and colleagues who interacted with him over a period of many years.

The symposium includes a series of four presentations on the assessment and treatment of stereotypy in children with developmental disabilities. The first two studies examined the effects matched stimulation on immediate and subsequent engagement in stereotypy and collateral behavior. Specifically, Lanovaz et al. showed that music reduced vocal stereotypy and altered immediate and subsequent in toy manipulation in some children with autism. In contrast, Sheridan et al. found that the removal of a matched stimulus did not increase, nor decrease task engagement when compared to a baseline condition. The third and fourth studies extend research on assessment by analyzing levels of stereotypy during different functional analysis conditions. Rispoli and Lang have found that the presence of preferred stimuli may be associated with increased engagement in stereotypy. In a study comparing levels of repetitive behavior in children with developmental disabilities and/or autism with a sample of typically functioning adults, Bosch et al. showed that the stereotypy of a subset of participants may be maintained by automatic reinforcement established as such by aversive stimulation. The results of each study will be discussed in terms of improving the assessment and treatment of stereotypy in children with autism and other developmental disabilities.

Researchers have shown that music may decrease engagement in vocal stereotypy in children with autism (e.g., Lanovaz, Fletcher, & Rapp, 2009; Rapp, 2007). However, the effects of this reduction on engagement in other behavior have not been documented. To extend prior research, we used a three-component multiple-schedule combined with a multielement design to examine the effects of music on immediate and subsequent engagement in vocal stereotypy and toy manipulation in three children with autism. Music decreased immediate engagement in vocal stereotypy for two participants, but we detected no clear effects on subsequent engagement. The effects of music on toy manipulation varied considerably across participants. Music increased immediate and subsequent toy manipulation for one participant, produced the converse for another, and only increased subsequent engagement for the third participant. The implications of the results will be discussed in terms of the importance of monitoring the collateral effects of music on engagement in other behavior.

We conducted a series of experiments using multiple-schedules to evaluate the immediate and subsequent effects of structurally matched stimuli on stereotypy displayed by four participants diagnosed with autism. In Experiment 1, we found that structurally matched preferred items for 2 of 3 targeted responses produced a subsequent mildabsolishing operation (AO)or no motivating operation (MO) effect. For one response a subsequent establishing operation (EO) effect was produced. In Experiment 2, we found that for both participants the subsequent levels of task engagement, following the removal of the preferred stimulus, were high and undifferentiated in both the baseline (NI) and test (PS) sequences. In Experiment 3, in order to minimize the effects of prior access to stereotypy on subsequent engagement in stereotypy we used a twocomponent multiple-schedule. For one participant, access to structurally matched stimuli did decrease the immediate engagement in stereotypy. None of the stimuli produced an EO for subsequent stereotypy. The percentage of on-task behavior was undifferentiated following access to a matched stimulus. The implications for the assessment and treatment of stereotypy and their relation to increasing academic productivity are discussed.

Automatically maintained behavior can present considerable assessment and treatment challenges. One method that has been shown to be effective in treating automatically maintained behavior is environmental enrichment, which involves increasing the quantity or quality of preferred stimuli. However, studies have shown that in some instances, exposure to preferred stimuli may increase levels of automatically maintained behavior. In order to examine within-session patterns of responding, this study examined the effect of preferred stimuli on the cumulative frequency of automatically maintained behavior within the alone condition of an analogue functional analysis. Alone conditions with and without access to preferred stimuli were implemented for a 10-year-old boy with autism using a repeated reversals design. Across-session analyses suggested that the presence of preferred stimuli was associated with increased engagement in stereotypy compared to the absence of preferred stimuli. Within-session analysis revealed an increasing trend in the frequency of stereotypy in the presence of preferred stimuli. Results are discussed with respect to establishing operations and environmental enrichment interventions.

Last year, we presented data on repetitive behavior (e.g. nail biting, hair twirling, and skin scratching) in 50 typically functioning adults under conditions similar to those utilized in an antecedent-based functional analysis. Results showed that a majority of participants engaged in the highest levels of repetitive behavior in the alone condition, suggesting that repetitive behavior was maintained by automatic reinforcment. A subset of participants also displayed high rates of repetitive behavior in the demand condition; the absence of programmed consequences in the demand condition suggests that repetitive behavior in this condition may have been maintained by automatic reinforcement established as such by aversive stimulation. This year, we have extended our methods to children and adolescents with developmental disabilities and/or autism who engage in stereotypic behavior; results with developmentally disabled children are similar to those obtained with the sample of typically functioning adults. Implications for functional analysis methodologies will be discussed.

Although applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the evidence-based treatment (EBT) for problem behaviors, knowledge and skills accumulated so far is far from perfect in terms of effective service delivery. Hence, continuous efffort for treatment outcome study is necessary. At the same time, however, balance between research and clinical work is hard to reach due to many practical reasons. In this symposium, we demonstrate our efforts to conduct research in a clinical setting for 4 most common treatment topics in developmental disabilities (DD); early intervention, social-skills training, staff training in positive behavior support (PBS) and parenting training. We present our research questions, methods, preliminary results, research/clinical implications and suggestions for the future. Our future plan will be introduced, along with tips for the researchers/clinicians who are interested in conducting research in clinical setting.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of staff training in positive behavior support (PBS) on the behavior of persons with developmental disabilities (DD) in four residential facilities. A representative staff of each facility participated in PBS training once per month for 5 months and delivered trained PBS material to staffs in each facility. And each staff implemented acquired skills under the supervision of the representative staff. Overall level of problem behaviors as well as severity of target population was monitored along with staffs' stress level on service delivery. The results showed that behavioral problems of target population as well as staffs' stress level decreased significantly. Also, positive behaviors of target population increased. The results suggest that indirect training of staff in PBS can be effective for improving the behavioral problems of persons with DD, even in residential settings. The implications and limitations of this study, with directions for future research, are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the effectiveness of a behavioral parent training (BPT) is affected by the age of children. Seventy-twoparents of children with developmental disabilities aged from 2 to 17 (55 boys, 17 girls) participated in this study. The BPT was conducted in a small group format (6-7 per group) for 12 weeks and parents learned basic behavior principles as well as actual application of acquired skills to their child. Data were collected from direct observation and self-report scales. Thescore of each measure from pre to post training was calculated. The data were analyzed with one-way ANOVA. The results showed that parents who have preschool children (less than 7-years-old, N = 43) acquired more knowledge and skills about how to handle the situation of behavior problems than those who have school age children (over 7-years-old, N = 22). On the other hand, no significant difference scores could be found onparents' efficacy scale (PSI), and BPI. This suggested that BPT for parents of preschool children is more effective for acquiring knowledge than for parents of older children.

The purpose of this study is to examine how developmental level influences on the learning curve of young children with developmental disabilities (6 boys and 4 girls aging from 3 to 6). Measures included the K SIB-R and numbers of capable activities from the list of selecting teaching program (STP). Participants were divided into two groups: (A: above 2 years of K SIB-R score and 10 activities/ B: below 2 years of K SIB-R score and 10 activities). The program consisted of imitation and instruction of actions with object, and imitation of actions with gross and fine motor movements. Result showed significant differences between groups in learning curve for the imitation and instruction of actions with object. This suggested that lower the functions, the more influenced they were by the levels of the tasks. Performance of Group B fluctuated more than that of Group A, suggesting that an individual approach may be inevitable for Group B. No significant difference found between groups in imitating actions with gross and fine motor movements, indicating that imitation of motor movements may be influenced by variables other than participants aptitude. Further study needs to compare two groups after equalizing numbers of task in each field.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a peer-mediated social skills Training program (PSST), which was the modified version of two programs from Vernon et al. (1996) and Chung et al., (2007). The PSST was held for 100 minutes once a week for 20 weeks in a small group format. Target participants were two childrenwith Asperger syndrome and one child with autism aged from 10 to 13. Four typically developing children participated in the program as peers. To examine the effectiveness of PSST, parents completed the peer social tasks rating scale, social responsiveness scale and social skills rating scale before and after the training. Therapists also completed the clinical behavior checklist of social skills scale every session. Two out of three children showed improvement in social skills on parental report, whereas all showed improvement on therapist's report. Implications and future suggestions were discussed.

Robert Siegler's earlier B. F. Skinner Lecture will be discussed. Siegler's lecture will be given from a current non-behavioral developmental perspective. The panelists represent behavioral positions and will discuss Siegler's remarks and his responses to them.

This symposium is one in an ongoing, annual series that provides updated information and data on the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction, and its application in our laboratory school. In our lab school, we investigate promising curricula or instructional procedures, measure their effectiveness, and revise our curriculum and instruction protocols as the data suggests. Presentation #1 by Andrea McDermott describes a classroom response tool for generating meaningful active responding, #2 by Jenni Reilly describes teacher performance monitoring procedures using standard celeration charts and publicly posted wall charts, #3 by Jennifer Testa describes a model for predicting year-end reading comprehension growth from a repeated progress monitoring instrument, and #4 by Marianne Delgado describes how to track essay writing across the curriculum with standard celeration charts.

An invention of a tool at Morningside Academy was designed in partnership with Project H, a nonprofit humanitarian design network. We will present the process of user testing and modifying the product, design challenges, and implementation successes and challenges. Project H partnerships start in small educational settings and are targeted for wide-scale international implementations. These engagement boards function like Heward's response cards with a design twist.

Morningside Academy has recently implemented the use of standard celeration charts and wall charts for staff development of newly hired educators. A component, composite analysis, or task analysis, of skills necessary to implement the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction was done and a list of pinpoints or target behaviors were identified. A rating scale is used to evaluate the performance of each educator from month to month. Group and individual goals are set for each month and educators are coached and mentored to help them reach their goals. Performance ratings are publicly posted and the standard celeration chart is used to monitor the performance of each educator as a means of monitoring performance over time and to set personal goals for individual teachers. In this presentation, performance data from the wall chart and standard celeration charts will be shown from 09-10 and 10-11 school year.

Morningside Academy uses the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) as a progress-monitoring tool to predict posttest outcomes on a standardized reading comprehension test. Using longitudinal data, we found that SRI scores are highly correlated with post-test standardized assessment reading comprehension scores. Thus, using a linear regression model, we are able to make predictions regarding the growth in reading comprehension that students will make within the academic school year. Having early indicators of a students acquisition of reading comprehension skills also enables Morningside to make instructional changes and implement interventions to ensure student progress. This talk is a follow-up study to a prediction model presented at the 36th Association for Behavior Analysis International Annual Convention (Gire, Testa, & Johnson, 2010). We will examine the utility of the prediction model in monitoring student progress and informing instructional decisions. Finally, observed posttest scores will be used to examine the predictive validity of our model.

We will explore different uses of the standard celeration chart in tracking essay writing across the curriculum: student response journaling to recreational reading in literature; essay questions and lab report discussion sections in science, position papers in writing, and "how to" expository essays in Math. The celeration chart excels in tracking output over time. Unique ways of tracking efficiency of writing, writer's engagement, acquisition of expository skills and fading of teacher prompts, by using symbols charted "below the floor" will be explained. We will present pre- and post-measures and student work samples across curricula and describe application uses at parent/teacher/student conferences.

The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires (Ward, 2008), helps educators assess the ease with which their students can be taught. For students who are difficult to teach, the IGLR helps teachers identify ways to begin to establish instructional control. For more cooperative learners, the IGLR helps teachers identify ways to make instruction increasingly natural. The papers presented in this symposium will describe IGLR profiles for specific students, discuss the interventions selected as a result of these assessments, and discuss the outcomes both in regard to the specific repertoires targeted and related repertoires.

The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires (Ward, 2008) assesses the ease with which students can be taught. Deficits in learner repertoires represent barriers to instruction, and frequently represent impediments to a student's overall level of functioning. Students who display excessive anxiety under ordinary circumstances can be limited in their access to environments and can be subjected to poorly-planned consequences of problem behavior. This presentation will describe, in detail, a scripted procedure for teaching students to calm in the presence of stressors. Recommendations are made for appropriate and inappropriate uses of this procecdure, and additional considerations when programming for students who display excessive anxiety.

The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires (Ward, 2008) outlines 10 learning areas, 139 repertoires in total, that are component skills for the "good learner," or that are necessary skills to help a student to be a ready and available learner. The deficient repertoires in these learning areas are barriers to learning that typically keep students out of their home district school, or less restrictive environments. While teachers have many goals for their students, it is the goal of The Chicago Education Project to teach the students how to learn, or to overcome these baririers, so that they can benefit from more diverse environments. This discussion will focus on the learning profile of one student diagnosed with autism, attending a private day school. Specifically, this presentation will discuss whow deficits in learner repertoitres were identified, how these deficits affected multiple areas of functioning, and how interventions were selected.

Hunter is a student diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, who has been very difficult to teach. These challenges ultimately led the local school district to fund significant behavioral intervention. The presenter assessed Hunter using "The Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires" (Ward, 2008). As a result of that assessment, the presenter identified 3 primary areas in need of programming: motivation, rate of response, and vocal responding. In this presentation, the presenter will discuss how these areas of need were identified, the negative impact these deficits were having on Hunter's learning, programming that remediated these deficits, and the resulting improvement in Hunter's ability to learn. Recommendations for future interventions will be provided.

It can be challenging for a behavior analyst to demonstrate responsible professional conduct consistent with the values of behavior analysis and meet the expectations of clients, supervisors, organizations and advisors. An example of one such challenge is when behavior analysts engage professionally with individuals and organizations that do not share a commitment to evidence-based practice, a key tenant of the practice of applied behavior analysis. In another example, a behavior analyst may experience conflicts with supervisors and advisors who try to influence a behavior analyst's clinical judgment because of organizational and professional interests not directly associated with the client's best interest. And, of course, a behavior analyst has a responsibility to follow through with professional obligations to individuals they are serving and organizations for whom they are involved, as employee or consultant. This panel will present case examples of professional conflicts and suggest and discuss possible solutions. The audience will be encouraged to participate by responding to panel members and offering additional examples.

Numerous instructional strategies exist to increase the efficiency of academic interventions. However, many of these instructional strategies have only been evaluated with a limited number of individuals. In addition, research on novel strategies used to increase the efficiency of acquisition is needed to expand the potential intervention procedures that are available to therapists and teachers. The collection of studies in this symposium sought to expand upon current intervention strategies and evaluate novel procedures to increase the efficiency of intervention. The first presentation compared three interventions to decrease echolalia and increase the rate of acquisition of intraverbal responses in children with autism. The second presentation compared prompts that were or were not paired with a discriminative stimulus (SD)and the effects of these procedures on the acquisition of intraverbal responses in children with autism. The third presentation evaluated antecedent and consequence manipulations to increase accuracy during sight-word reading. The final presentation compared embedded identity-matching prompts with embedded echoic prompts that were intended to serve as differential observed responses (DORs) to the auditory sample stimuli, and evaluated effect on tact emergence as well as the acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations.

Children with autism frequently engage in echolalia that may interfere with the acquisition of verbal behavior during language-based training. Several previous studies evaluated a cues-pause-point procedure (CPP) to reduce non-functional vocalizations during language training. Although the treatment was effective and resulted in generalization to untrained targets, the authors had to fade various aspects of treatment to transfer stimulus control from a prompt or cue within the learning trial (i.e., a tact prompt, a finger cue) to the auditory verbal stimulus. In addition, the procedure may not be as efficient as other prompting strategies more commonly utilized in early intervention programs. Thus, additional evaluations of treatment procedures for echolalia during verbal behavior training are warranted. We compared the effectiveness and efficiency of three interventions to reduce echolalia in children with autism during intraverbal training. Results indicated that an echoic prompt with error correction was the most effective and efficient treatment for all participants, although a tact prompt with error correction was also effective for teaching intraverbal responses for 2 participants.

Least-to-most prompting is a common strategy used in acquisition training for individuals with developmental disabilities. Despite being an oft-utilized procedure, little research has been conducted to compare variations within least-to-most prompting procedures. The current study compared the efficacy of reiterating the initial verbal discriminative stimulus (SD) with every prompt (SD pairing condition) and withholding the verbal SD when prompting (no SD pairing condition). Variations in responding were assessed across intraverbal skills for 3 participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Acquisition was compared using a combined multielement and multiple baseline across targets design. Overall, the SD pairing condition resulted in faster acquisition than the no SD pairing condition. Furthermore, all SD pairing targets were acquired; however, in several cases, the no SD pairing condition did not result in acquisition of the intraverbal. These findings are discussed in terms of clinical recommendations, the potential for generalization across skills, and treatment integrity.

Antecedent and consequent interventions have been shown to be effective for teaching skills. Antecedent interventions might include modeling or priming, and consequent interventions might include feedback or error correction. The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of some antecedent and consequent interventions for teaching sight-word reading to two typically developing preschool-aged children. For one participant, we found that (a) simply modeling the correct response one time (single pre-exposure) or (b) providing error correction (no pre-exposure+EC) for incorrect responding was effective for increasing correct sight-word reading. Further manipulation suggested that error correction was most effective when it was implemented for incorrect responding as compared to a general feedback condition. For the second participant, we found that modeling the correct response one time was not effective; however, (a) modeling prior to every session (multiple pre-exposure) or (b) single pre-exposure plus error correction was effective for increasing sight-word reading. Further manipulation suggested that when the number of exposures to the correct response was controlled, multiple pre-exposure was more effective than a condition involving multiple exposures to feedback.

Embedding an identity-matching (IM) prompt in a least-to-most prompting sequence has been shown to enhance acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations (Fisher, Kodak, & Moore, 2007). The IM response may function as a differential observing response (DOR) to the visual comparison stimuli. The present study compared embedded IM prompts with embedded echoic prompts that were intended to serve as DORs to the auditory sample stimuli, and evaluated effect on tact emergence as well as the acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations. Four typically-developing children aged 4- to 6-years-old participated. An adapted multi-element design was used to compare (a) an echoic prompt embedded in a least-to-most prompting hierarchy, (b) an identity matching prompt embedded in a least-to-most prompting hierarchy, and (c) a least-to-most prompting hierarchy alone. All participants acquired the target auditory-visual discriminations, but in contrast to prior studies, there were no differential effects of the three prompting conditions on acquisition. For one participant, tact emergence was greatest in the echoic condition, but no differential effects were found for the other 3 participants. Typically developing children may already have the necessary skills to perform well on auditory-visual conditional discrimination tasks and therefore, enhanced prompting procedures may not have benefited these participants.

Behavior analysts have powerful tools to produce behavior change in a very broad range of populations. Yet an effective intervention can be stopped in its tracks when the behavior analyst consultant cannot get the primary care provider or direct care staff to follow the principles and protocols that were developed to be helpful. There has been little attention paid to problems that arise at this interface. This tutorial will provide an introduction to behavior change principles that can be applied to create a relationship between the behavioral consultant and treatment provider so that collaboration and problem-solving readily occur. To achieve this aim the tutorial will show how the behavior analyst can approach a functional analysis to the consulting relationship to identify stimuli that impede or improve collaboration. Functional classes of responses that should be considered will be discussed that pay particular attention to the stimulus properties of the consultant as well as his or her repertoire for effectively assessing and influencing the service provider. The tutorial will provide conceptual information as well as clinical scenarios one is likely to encounter when implementing programs. The emphasis will be on building constructive repertoires in both the consultant and provider.

The session will focus on the growing emphasis on defining "evidence-based practices" and the role of single-case research to contribute to this effort. Specific recommendations being applied by the What Works Clearinghouse will guide discussion of how single-case research may become more influential.

Other panelists: KENNON A. LATTAL (West Virginia University), M. JACKSON MARR (Georgia Institute of Technology), PHILIP N. HINELINE (Temple University), TIMOTHY D. HACKENBERG (Reed College), and JAY MOORE (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Participants in this panel offer ABAI members some solutions to problems emanating from rapid growth of the field to include large numbers of much needed practitioner/technicians (the good news) and the ensuing back-channel struggle for control of the mother-organization (the bad news). In congruence with its stated mission, the panelists agree that ABAI should continue its historical role of advancing science and supporting full-spectrum training of scientist/practitioners and scientists to serve as future leaders in the practice and the science of behavior analysis. This panel of leading behavior analysts offers insights into the long-term consequences of various alternative roles for ABAI and suggests that the growth of behavior analysis justifies multiple organizations having multiple functions and differing, albeit overlapping, constituencies.

Despite convincing evidence on the effectiveness of applied behavior analysis (ABA) for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), delivery of ABA services is becoming increasingly difficult due to a growing population, economical cuts at the state and federal level, and a shortage of trained ABA therapists. Many members of the ABA community are now looking toward technology and how it can be leveraged to serve a larger number of ASD children and adults. Some of the solutions include the use of computers and other media (e.g. video) for training parents, school staff, or therapists; supervision of remote home and school programs; data collection systems; and computer-assisted instructional programs. The benefits of using technology include improved data collection and reporting, increased access to ABA services, increasing number of people that can be served by ABA professionals, and potential improved outcomes for children and adults with ASD. There are also limitations with technology including less face time with clients and staff, technology break-downs or difficulties, and potential ethical issues with confidentiality, competency, and emergency situations. Panel members will briefly discuss the current trends in remote service delivery along with what the research tells us. The benefits and limitations including ethical issues will be discussed with participants.

Establishing response generalization is important to increase the utility of any behavior change procedure. This symposium examines three research studies that investigated various teaching procedures to establish response generalization across social initiations and intraverbals. In the first study, a generalized repertoire of social initiations in the presence of multiple toys was established with four children with autism using multiple exemplar training and script fading procedures. In the second study, matrix training was used to establish recombinative generalization to the intraverbal relation in three preschoolers of typical development. In the final study, response variability of intraverbals was increased in five individuals with autism by implementing a conjunctive differential reinforcement schedule. In all three studies, response generalization increased, albeit to varying degrees.

Interventions that teach verbal initiations are crucial for the social development of children with autism. Script fading procedures have been shown to be effective for teaching children with autism to initiate and participate in social interactions without verbal prompts from adults. Previous research in this area, however, has generated mixed results in establishing a generalized repertoire of verbal interactions under the control of stimuli found in the natural environment. In this study, four boys with autism were taught to verbally initiate a social interaction in the presence of a toy through the use of a script fading procedure and multiple exemplar training. Six training categories of toys were used to increase the likelihood of generalization of verbal interactions across novel toys. A multiple-baseline with a multiple probe across-subjects design was used to assess the successes of this procedure to increase novel initiations. The results showed that children with autism initiated and sustained verbal interactions under the control of stimuli present in the natural environment. These results also generalized to novel stimuli, settings, and peers. In addition, all participants increased their use of novel interactions.

Matrix training is a procedure for selecting training stimuli in order to produce recombinative generalization to untrained combinations of stimuli. Ample research has demonstrated the effectiveness of this procedure across a variety of verbal operants, listener behavior and play skills. The purpose of this investigation is to extend the matrix training strategy to the intraverbal relation. Three typically developing preschool girls participated in a multiple baseline across responses design. Two out of the three demonstrated limited generalization to untrained combinations, while the third participant did not emit any generalized responding.

A procedure intended to teach variation in appropriate verbal responding to an antecedent stimulus was systematically manipulated for 5 individuals with autism. Four antecedent stimuli that include the clause, else do you like to do were presented in a varying order. Five responses that were appropriate to any of the antecedent stimuli were taught using a script-fading procedure. Percentage of varied verbal responses was studied under a conjunctive-differential reinforcement procedure using a multiple-baseline-across-subjects experimental design. Under a modified percentile requirement of the conjunctive schedule, responses were ranked according to their frequency of emission after every session and reinforcement was omitted for the 2 most frequent responses on the subsequent session. Under a lag-1 schedule requirement, reinforcement was omitted for consecutive occurrences of a given response within a given session. Data showed that the percentage of responses meeting the conjunctive schedule requirement increased with the systematic implementation of the schedule. A variability measure showed that responses were more stereotyped during baseline sessions in comparison to treatment sessions. Comparisons between the numbers of different statements emitted by individuals with autism versus those of their typically developing peers suggest that further research is necessary to increase responding to a typical level. Nevertheless, responses by teachers and parents to a social validity questionnaire suggest that the procedure could be applied in clinical and home settings and used to increase varied verbal responding.

Identifying effective reinforcers is an important aspect of many interventions that used in a wide range of settings. Several different types of preference assessments have been demonstrated to be effective at fulfilling this need. However, previous research has demonstrated that, when given a choice between edible and leisure items within a multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment, individuals are more likely to choose edible items (DeLeon, Iwata, & Roscoe, 1997). This symposium will present three talks, each further evaluating this line of research and extending it beyond multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) assessments used with children with developmental disabilities. The first talk evaluated displacement in paired-stimulus preference assessments with young children diagnosed with autism as well as typically developing children. The second talk also evaluates the paired-stimulus format and as well as whether shifts in preference from leisure to edible items may be a result of delays inherent in the preference assessment procedures. Finally, in the third talk the paired-stimulus format is compared with a single presentation of the MSWO to explore the effects of deprivation and satiation on the displacement of leisure items by edibles.

The identification of effective reinforcers continues to be an important component of successful behavioral interventions for individuals with developmental disabilities. Likewise, the identification of effective reinforcers for individuals of typical development is necessary for effective behavioral interventions. Preference assessments have been developed to identify potential reinforcers. However, previous research has indicated that when individuals with developmental disabilities are given the opportunity to choose between food and leisure items, they choose food items more frequently, even when the leisure items are highly preferred (DeLeon, Iwata, & Roscoe, 1997). This study examined displacement of leisure items with young children diagnosed with autism and young children of typical development. Forty-three participants, aged 9 mos to 8 years, were exposed to three paired-choice preference assessments: 1) edible items only, 2) leisure items only, and 3) combined edible and leisure items. Results suggest that displacement of leisure items is not unique to individuals with developmental disabilities, and as such, separate assessments may be necessary to identify preferred leisure stimuli for children with and without autism.

Studies have indicated that edible stimuli will displace leisure items when compared during preference assessments (DeLeon, Iwata, & Roscoe, 1997; Bojak & Carr, 1999). However, the prevalence of displacement as a phenomenon is unclear. Additionally, the influence of reinforcer magnitude for leisure items (i.e., duration of access) and delays on displacement is unknown. Displacement may be a product of the relatively brief periods of access to leisure items typically utilized in preference assessments. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the prevalence of displacement of leisure items in children with autism, and to determine whether duration of access to leisure items affects displacement. In Experiment 1, 26 participants were exposed to three paired-choice preference assessments that evaluated edible stimuli, leisure items, and the two combined. Results suggest that the displacement of leisure items is common amongst children with autism. In Experiment 2, participants chose between the edible stimuli that displaced leisure items and the top ranked leisure item. Access to the leisure item was systematically increased across series to identify the point at which leisure items became more preferred. Results are discussed in terms of implications for clinicians who may use leisure items as reinforcers.

Over the past several years, methodologies aimed at assessing effective and efficient identification of reinforcers have been developed. Research has validated preference assessment methods reported by Fisher et al., (1992) and DeLeon and Iwata (1996). Extensions of these methods have included implementing fewer presentation trials (Carr et al., 2000), examining displacement of leisure items by food items (DeLeon et al., 1997) and examining manipulations and the effects of establishing operations on preference (Gottschalk et al. 2000, McAdam et al., 2005). This study extends the literature by examining the motivating operation effects of deprivation on food and leisure items and to examine establishing that may effect displacement of leisure items. The current study also presents a single presentation of a multiple-stimulus preference assessment. Participants were exposed to either one multiple-stimulus preference assessment or paired-stimulus preference assessment immediately following 2 hours of food deprivation, or immediately following 10 minutes of free access to edibles. Results indicate that establishing operations can affect outcomes of preference assessments. For two participants, deprivation of food items resulted in an increase in preference selection of food items for each assessment (multiple stimuli withoutreplacementand paired stimulus).

The literature in the area of applied behavior analysis has provided educators of students with autism a plethora of effective teaching strategies. As the incidence of the population has increased, however, challenges for practitioners have as well. It is paramount that skills necessary to function at the highest level of independence are identified and systematically taught. Areas of particular concern include identifying effective strategies to fade staff support, teaching children to earn in a group instructional format, and improving social skills in a group setting. The papers in this symposium will discuss three research projects. Specific data are presented on teaching social skills in small group formats as well as a detailed description of a conceptual model outlining several instructional strategies to enhance social skills in group settings. Additionally, data on the results of a project designed to systematically fade staff support while simultaneously increasing student independence will be discussed.

The majority of scientifically based literature indicates that young children with autism learn most efficiently using individualized teaching practices based in applied behavior analysis. Current economic resources have required practitioners prepare students for learning formats commonly found within the community and least restrictive environments, typically requiring that students independently function and acquire group learning skills. To do so, practitioners need a systematic plan to move students from one-on-one instructional formats, to small groups, and, when appropriate, to inclusion settings, including vocational and community settings. This research project includes an assessment protocol and a teaching strategy designed to fade staff support in a systematic, empirically based manner. Dependent measures include active engagement, active responding, accuracy of responding, rates of competing behaviors and frequency and topography of staff prompts. The teaching strategy employed utilizes a simple conditioned reinforcement procedure combined with fading staff support. The participants are 10 students at a private school for students with autism, ranging in age from 8-16. A multiple baseline across group instructional formats within participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the independent variable. Baseline data indicates that student performance and levels of support students required is consistent with individual learning profiles.

One of the most prevalent challenges for students with autism is in the area of social skills, including difficulty with observational skills, play interactions, social pragmatics, taking another's perspective, making inferences, and sharing enjoyment. To date, instructional models have been minimally successful in the acquisition, durability, and generalization of meaningful social skills (Bellini, S., Peters, J., Benner, L., & Hopf, A., 2007; Quinn, Kavale, Mathur, Rutherford, & Forness, 1999; Gresham, Sugai, & Horner, 2001). Consistent with recommendations in the literature (Gresham, et. al, 2001; Peters, et. al, 2007; and Quinn, et. al, 1999), the current study investigates the use of social skills groups to teach children to emit novel discrete social skills in conjunction with a generalization strategy to promote immediate generalization and multiple learning opportunities. Participants included nine students with autism, ranging in age from 8-16, grouped according to learning style, behavioral repertoire, and social skills deficits. A multiple baseline design across skills within students was used to assess the teaching strategies' effectiveness. Preliminary results indicate that the social skills group format was successful in teaching a variety of social skills to students across time, with clear demonstration of skill generalization.

Teaching children with autism in group contexts is challenging. The attention deficits associated with autism impede the children’s ability to learn in group settings. In addition, the history and experience of the child in 1:1 instruction can be difficult to transition from. There are also associated worries that group instruction will, by definition, reduce the intensity of instruction, thereby providing fewer instructional opportunities. The data set we are presenting follows a stepwise progression of training targets. The critical elements of instruction were identified as average rates of SD’s delivered per minute and average rate of reinforcers delivered per minute. Behavioral skills training was effective in building these rates, while didactic training alone was insufficient. Additional targets of teaching included increasing the rates of instructions delivered to the entire group to facilitate choral responding, and the number of instructions delivered from children to fellow students. Ancillary data demonstrated that improvements in the rate and quality of group instructions were associated with reduction in stereotypy and increases in engagement. Results will be discussed in terms of stepwise training approaches to group instruction and the utility of treatment integrity tools to assist in staff training to deliver group instruction.

Specific fears are commonly reported in children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (White et al., 2009), and are a common priority for treatment in service delivery settings (e.g., clinics and schools; Ghaziuddin, 2002). However, the core symptoms and associated features of ASD present significant challenges to the assessment and treatment of comorbid specific fears. Further, there are currently few studies addressing the phenomenology of these comorbid fears in children with an ASD, including evaluation of associated behavior problems. Moreover, treatment requires special considerations due to functional limitations that already impede the children's quality of life. This symposium will focus on recent research efforts that have yielded promising new methods for assessment and treatment of specific fears in children with an ASD. Emphasis will be placed on assessment and clinical intervention in structured research and school-based settings. Examples will include an evaluation of the incremental clinical utility of multimodal assessment procedures and the relationships between individual characteristics of ASD, comorbid specific fears, and increased injury risk for the child with an ASD. Further, intervention considerations will be illustrated with three case examples in the context of an effective behavioral treatment package implemented in a school setting.

Intense fears and phobias have been reported in 31% - 64% of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Muris et al., 1998; Sukhodolsky et al., 2008). However, the phenomenology of fear in children with an ASD has been largely ignored in the behavioral literature. A common speculation that fear in children with an ASD may be related to the core symptoms of autism (Evans et al., 2005; Sukhodolsky et al., 2008), was investigated in this study using a novel, multimodal assessment procedure. In this study, parents of 32 children with an ASD completed the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory (PDDBI; Cohen & Sudhalter, 2005) and a survey of their child's fears. These data were combined with results from a novel behavioral assessment procedure, which included systematic observations of children's responses to pictorial fear stimuli. Results indicated that social approach behaviors and receptive and expressive language abilities were positively correlated with overall levels of fear in children with an ASD. Results also indicated that medical fears were the most common fear type in this population. Implications and limitations will be discussed with emphasis on valid and reliable assessment techniques for children with an ASD.

Previous research has demonstrated that children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience more intense fears than both typically developing children and other developmentally delayed peers (Evans, et al., 2005; Matson & Love, 1990). Within the injury risk literature, fearful behavior has been suggested as a protective factor against risk-taking behavior in typically developing children (Morrongiello & Matheis, 2007). However, children with an ASD have been shown to engage in more risk-taking behaviors and sustain more severe injuries than typically developing peers (Lee, et al., 2008; McDermott, et al., 2008; Straub & Romanczyk, 2009). The purpose of this presentation is to present and review characteristics of children with an ASD, particularly expressive and receptive communication, which might explain the existing disparate findings regarding fear and injury in this population. Further, potential applications of these findings will be reviewed within the context of environmental stimulus control to increase child safety in home and school or residential service settings. Discussion will focus on challenges in the assessment of injury risk in children with an ASD and the utility of caregiver report in identifying potential risk factors as targets for intervention in applied service settings.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may experience feelings of anxiety or fear in the school setting. Although the social and communication skill deficits associated with ASD make it difficult for many children to tact their feelings of anxiety or fear, the co-occurring extreme avoidant behaviors (e.g., hitting, screaming, or running away) and marked physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart rate, breathing, and sweat production) are indicative of such feelings. These avoidant behaviors can lead to disruption of the learning environment, peer rejection, and a decline in academic performance. Fortunately, they can be successfully treated by using a behavioral treatment package that includes systematic desensitization, shaping, differential reinforcement, social and coping skills training, and contingency management (Gillis et al., 2009; Jones & Friman, 1989; Tolin et al., 2009). Three cases involving specific fears the school setting will be presented including (1) school refusal in a 5-year-old with autism, (2) fear of fire alarms in a 7-year-old with autism, and (3) fear of bugs and peer ridicule in a 12-year-old with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). Behavioral concerns, intervention strategies, and treatment efficacy will be discussed.

This symposium will demonstrate the efficacy of applied behavior analysis across the lifespan. The present data will demonstrate that though younger children with autism display vast improvements with applied behavioral treatments, participants that are in adolescence or adulthood can also show gains from our scientific approaches. A case study demonstrating the effective collaboration of key trans disciplinary team members in the treatment of a child with autism will be presented along with pertinent data related to the efficacy of this collaboration. A presentation will also be made related to enhancing the reliability of a frequently used assessment tool in autism, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Children and adolescents ages 5 to 15 were used as participants in this study. Preliminary data will also be presented on the use of the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment & Placement Program (VBMAPP) for adults with autism, demonstrating its efficacy in the assessment and curriculum development for this often underserved group.

The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment & Placement Program (VBMAPP) is a MULTI component assessment designed to provide a baseline measure of an individual's verbal skills and deficits based on B. F. Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior (Sundberg, 2009). In addition to providing a measure of the individuals current skill level, the assessment can be used to establish curricular goals and evaluate progress over the course of a treatment program. The five components of the assessment are the milestones assessment, the barriers assessment, the transition assessment, task analysis and skills tracking, and placement and individualized education program goals. The VBMAPP is typically used to assess the verbal behavior and social skills of children as they develop. Sundberg (2009) also states that the assessment can be used for adults with developmental delays. The present study will describe the use of the VBMAPP to evaluate adults with a primary diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. Some preliminary findings will be discussed along with some examples of how an effective treatment curriculum can be developed using this assessment device.

The ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) is a diagnostic tool used in the assessment of autism spectrum disorders. Some clinical challenges have been noted by administrators of the test related to the interobserver reliability scores that are obtained after coding the schedule. A number of the items on the inventory involve the coding of observations that are somewhat subjective making inter-observer reliability an issue. The following project used four reliability observers, three ofwhich were trained in applied behavior analysis and one in occupational therapy. Observations of children's behavior were conducted using the existing guidelines for the administration of the ADOS assessment. A second condition was implemented whereby each of the areas of the test was modified to include operational definitions of each of the areas of observation. The results indicated enhanced inter-observer reliability scores as a result of utilizing operational definitions to code the schedule. Outcome data on the inter-observer reliability scores for the observers under both conditions will be reported as well as implications for future research.

Special education teams for children with significant behavioral challenges traditionally include teacher(s), paraprofessionals, therapists, and other supporting professionals. The current model of collaboration is often frustrating and inefficient due to incongruent professional vocabulary, competing service delivery models and lack of teamwork. This talk will focus on a private school experiencing these same difficulties that sought to make a change in the manner in which they addressed behavioral issues. Student ages ranged from 5-21 years at the school. The majority of them were supported through individualized education plans and behavior support plans. Separate treatment teams were in place that consisted of five to eight professionals. Most of the teams also included anapplied behavior analysisimplementer, speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, special education teacher, program supervisor (certified special educator or BCaBA), clinical director (BCBA), and program director. Considering the number of professionals involved on each student's educational team, a collaborative model is necessary in order to embrace a true transdiciplinary approach that will accelerate academic learning and behavioral progress. Some key outcomes in terms of student progress will be detailed along with representative data based upon the collaborative model that will be described. Data to be reviewed will include increased job satisfaction, greater understanding of programmatic goals, and improvements in goal development systems. All of these organizational targets will be detailed with the ultimate goal of successful, efficient programming for the student.

Narrative language is a sophisticated type of language that has strong associations with academic skills and social competence. Story Champs was designed to teach children the structure of fictional and personal stories and provide a context for targeting complex language features such as subordination and elaborated noun phrases. Principles of behavior and of effective instruction form the basis of this program. For example, active responding is built into every step of the procedures; systematic prompting, shaping, and prompt fading are also embedded in the program, and the program makes use of activities enjoyed by most children (e.g. storytelling). The flexible procedures allow for implementation at several levels: large group, small group, and individual. The smaller, focused intervention provides a context for differentiation and individualization, whereas the large group intervention allows for efficient and cost effective narrative instruction. In this symposium, we will present three different applications of narrative language interventionlarge group of at-risk preschoolers, written stories of typical first graders, and individualized procedures for children with autism. The third paper has only one of the three participants completed, but the results are positive. Data from the other two participants will be completed soon and presented at the conference.

Children use narrative language (storytelling) to socialize with peers and report to adults about their school day. Narrative language is also closely associated with literacy and academic outcomes. Many behavioral educators provide language intervention to children with language delays and few procedures for improving storytelling have sufficient research support. In this study, a pre/posttest, control group design was employed to investigate the effects of Story Champs, a narrative language program, on preschoolers' language performance. Story Champs was delivered in two Head Start preschool classrooms with approximately 20 children at a time. Twelve sessions of intervention were delivered, each lasting approximately 15-20 minutes. The critical instructional components include group responding, visual prompting, prompt fading, and peer-monitored independent practice. Children's language skills were assessed in the context of story retells and answering comprehension questions. As a measure of generalization, children told personal stories. Differences between groups at posttest were statistically significant for both story retells and story comprehension. Results indicate that Story Champs enhanced children's narrative language skills. In addition, the size of the group and the few, brief sessions delivered suggests that Story Champs is an efficient and cost effective intervention for improving narrative language.

Children typically produce oral stories with causally and temporally-related components such as an initiating event, an attempt, and a consequence. These components form the basis of stories and other features such as information about the character and setting, dialogue, feelings, and modifiers enhance the quality of stories. Children tend to produce oral stories with these structures naturally; however, these features do not always appear in young children's writing without explicit instruction. Behavioral educators may be called on to teach story writing to elementary aged children with or without disabilities. This study investigated the effect of Story Champs, a small group oral language program, on children's written stories. Story Champs was delivered by the classroom teacher in six 10-15 minute instructional sessions to groups of four children. The procedures involved repeated modeling, retelling, and story generation using pictures and icons to support children's productions. The teacher modeled a pre-scripted, relatable story, and then guided the group and individuals to retell the story and then to generate their own oral story. A multiple-baseline design was employed across seven first grade students. Results indicate that the oral language program increased the number of important story components children included in their written stories.

Children who have autism nearly always present with language impairment, including difficulty producing certain aspects of narration. Many behavior analysts work to improve this type of language in children with autism. Language intervention that focuses on improving narrative ability has been effective with preschool and school-age children with language impairment, however, there is currently little research examining the effects of narrative intervention on the language production of school-age children with autism. Using a multiple-baseline design across behaviors and participants, this study investigated the effects of narrative intervention on specific aspects of story structure and language complexity of narrative retellings and personal story generations produced bythree children with autism. The narrative intervention program, Story Champs, involved repeated modeling, retelling, and story generation using simple drawings, icons, and clinician prompts to support narrative productions. Following staggered baseline phases, each participant received 12, 30-min individual narrative intervention sessions. Repeated elicitations of participants' narratives were analyzed for several narrative features including causal subordination, temporal subordination, elaborated noun phrases, and story structure. Results indicate that there were meaningful changes in both story structure and language complexity.

Educators who specialize instruction behaviorally must move beyond "just talk" about verbal behavior to evaluating the real behavior of interest-desired changes in student and teacher verbal behavior. The purpose of this session is to discuss findings on effective educational interventions to improve verbal behavior instruction for students and to improve the verbal mediation of instructors. One study analyzed variables related to student verbal behavior. Student verbal behavior was investigated in a systematic replication and extension of Hugh-Pennie, 2006, which tested the auditory consequences that controlled non-contextual repetitive speech (i.e. delayed echolalia/ palilalia); results were further analyzed to test if stimulus control would transfer from the individual to a verbal audience. In two studies of the verbal mediation of instructors, authors tested the effects of data decision analysis review meetings, and the effects of video modeling and self-observations to develop teacher-training protocols. Findings from the video self-observation study reach beyond the original Teacher Performance rate and Accuracy (TPRA) form developed by Ingham and Greer, 1992. The study of Data Analysis Review (DAR) meetings found that DAR meetings improved teacher verbal behavior and rate of effective instruction in the classroom, which was measured by teacher correct tacts of data decision opportunities, correct and incorrect teaching strategies provided, and overall number of instructional units to criterion.

This study was a systematic replication of Hugh-Pennie, 2006 which tested the effects of auditory stimulation on non-contextual repetitive speech/palilalia of children with autism spectrum disorder and other disabilities. The study is relevant to further determining underlying causes of non-contextual repetitive speech and developing teaching procedures to develop socially appropriate and functional verbal behavior for children who emit palilalia. The effects of auditory consequences were tested on four school-aged children; two male and two female, in a publicly funded private school in New York. The students ranged in ages from 5-10. The students were all diagnosed as children with autism spectrum disorder. All of the students' emitted non-contextual repetitive speech (i.e. delayed echolalia or palilalia). Baseline data was taken on the number of mands, tacts, intraverbals, vocal stereotypy, and palilalia emitted during 10 minute 1:1, group, and play sessions. The results will help to determine if non-contextual repetitive speech can be shaped into socially appropriate vocalizations through the use of auditory consequences, such as: music, the students own voice, and novel-stimuli. Finally, the original study found a transfer of stimulus control from self to a verbal audience. A further investigation of this transfer will be discussed. Data collection is ongoing

This study is a systematic replication of the effects of direct and observed supervisor learn units on teachers scientific tacts and instructional strategies (Nuzullo, 2002). This study tested the effects of weekly data analysis review meetings on the rate of effective instructional decisions made by teachers. The study took place on two campuses of a publicly funded private school in New York. The subjects of this experiment were teachers with experience ranging from 0-8 years. The students were children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or other disability. Baseline data was taken on the number of correct and incorrect data decisions made by teachers through an analysis of students individualized educational program graphs. Additionally, data were taken on correct and incorrect tacts of data decision opportunities, and correct and incorrect teaching strategies chosen. A data analysis review form was used by school supervisors and administrators to determine correct and incorrect data decisions. The interventions used by teachers were determined to be effective if the student met criterion in the subsequent phase. Additionally, if the intervention matched up to the error in the three-term contingency it was considered as a correct teaching strategy. Data collection is ongoing.

Previous research (Doll, Covington, Rosenfeld, & Cerrone, 2009; Doll, Covington, Sgueglia, & Logozio, 2010) has identified that a subset of teaching staff do not respond to repeated observation-and-feedback cycles with a modified Teacher Performance Rate/Accuracy (TPRA) form fashioned after Ingham & Greer, 1992. In the 2009 and 2010 studies, those teachers who continued to commit instructional errors subsequently improved when they were taught how to use the modified TPRA form and then used this form in order to self-score their own teaching behavior from video samples. Teaching accuracy improved and instructional rate also improved; accuracy was a treated variable, while rate was an untreated variable. The present study seeks to replicate results from the 2009 and 2010 studies; and to evaluate whether training and video self-observation applied prescriptively for new staff improve staff performance compared to other new staff on a wait-list and compared to returning staff who do not receive the intervention. Data collection is ongoing.

York Central Hospital Behaviour Management Services of York and Simcoe employs a mediator model in the delivery of behavioural interventions for individuals with developmental disabilities. In this model parents and/or care providers are involved with the assessment of the behaviour and are provided with clinical recommendations that they are to carry out on a day to day basis with feedback and monitoring provided by the behaviour consultant or therapist. Moderate to high levels of treatment integrity are considered essential if a treatment plan is to be effective. Implementation of behavioural interventions in natural settings may be challenging due to a variety of variables including: subject variables, such as parent stress and psychopathology; behavioural consultant and client characteristics; environmental variables, such as staff to client ratio, and treatment characteristics, such as the complexity of the intervention. The following symposium will demonstrate some of the barriers faced by day program staff, families and group home staff that make adherence to behavioural recommendations challenging. Strategies to help care providers manage and decrease difficult behaviours despite challenges surrounding the implementation of recommendation in natural settings will be provided.

Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) has been an effective method used to decrease vocal stereotypy maintained by automatic reinforcement in individuals with developmental disabilities. RIRD can be difficult to implement, as it is important that each occurrence of the behaviour is blocked. A mediator model was utilized in the development and implementation of an intervention package used to decrease the vocal stereotypy of a woman with a developmental delay in a day program setting. Due to environmental factors within the day program, adherence to a RIRD intervention was difficult. This presentation will focus on the development of the intervention package; the challenges the staff at the day program faced in implementing the behavioural strategies; and the steps that were taken to over come these challenges to provide the best possible intervention for this individual.

The mediator model has shown to be successful with the majority of individuals served through York Central Hospital Behaviour Management Services of York and Simcoe. However, there are numerous barriers that may make adherence to behavioural recommendations difficult for some families. Each family's situation must be considered when developing a plan to help decrease problem behaviour. This will be illustrated through the service provided to a 15-year-old young man with autism. He exhibited severe aggression and self-injurious behaviour (SIB) maintained by escape and attention. Due to the intensity of this behaviour, safety concerns and the level of stress in the home, his family was unable to implement empirically based strategies to decrease aggression and SIB. This presentation will focus on the preventative , skills development and intervention strategies that were developed; the challenges that were faced in implementing the strategies and the steps that were taken to overcome these challenges to provide the best possible service for this individual.

A mediator model is a service delivery model in which a consultant (behaviour therapist) and mediators (parents, group home staff, teachers) work together to solve behaviour problems presented by a client. A mediator model has its limits and relies mostly on group home staff, parents and or teachers to implement the treatment programs. Ensuring treatment recommendations are being implemented correctly is often more difficult than the initial treatment development. A case study using a very complex young woman who is deaf, has Cornelia de Lange Syndrome and many aberrant behaviours will illustrate how a mediator model made a difference in reducing problem behaviours and at the same time increasing proper implementation of treatment recommendations.

This symposium will bring together leaders in our field who will discuss the latest ethical and professional challenges to behavior analysis. These challenges are often based in the fact that practitioners are the most public face and fastest growing segment of behavior analysis. A 2008 survey indicated that almost 50% of the practitioners had less than 5 years of professional experience. Challenges for behavior analysts related to supervision, informed consent, referrals, and working within one's scope of practice will be discussed as well as issues related to training practitioners so that they receive the necessary theory in behavior analysis as well as meet practice standards. Financial contingencies that affect the implementation of services can also result in questions in ethical, professional behavior. Finally, lessons that can be learned for those who misrepresent research and interventions and for those whose work is misrepresented will be addressed.

Practitioners are the most public face and fastest growing segment of our field. A 2008 survey indicated that almost 50% of the practitioners had less than 5 years of professional experience. Only a minority of those responding reported that they held professional licenses or credentials in other disciplines governed by separate established legal or ethical standards. Challenges for behavior analysts related to supervision, informed consent, recruitment of clients, and working within one's scope of practice will be illustrated through case example. In addition, complexities including competing contingencies (e.g., levels of tx supported by research vs. available funding) will be explored along with suggestions for ways to avoid or address such problems at both the individual practitioner and systemic level.

The author will provide a description of concerns regarding the training of ethical behavior for individuals going into both practice and academia. How one promotes ethical behavior across all types of trainees will be addressed.

In 2007, Morton Ann Gernsbacher gave invited lectures at the University of Kansas titled, "The Science of Autism: Beyond the Myths and Misconceptions," that misrepresented applied behavior analysis in autism. In 2009, Edward K. Morris published a response to her lecture titled, "A Case Study in the Misrepresentation of Applied Behavior Analysis in Autism: The Gernsbacher Lectures." This presentation uses Gernsbacher's lecture and Morris's correspondence with her and her colleagues about it as case studies in (a) the ethics of representing and misrepresenting intervention research and (b) professional conduct in responding to any such misrepresentations. The ethical issues concerning Gernsbacher's lecture lie in the areas of competence, public statements, teaching, and conflicts of interest. The professional issues concerning Morris's response and correspondence lie in the areas copyright, misrepresenting misrepresentations, disingenuousness, and personal attributions. The presentation concludes with lessons for those who misrepresent research and interventions and for those whose work is misrepresented.

The values that guided the development of applied behavior analysis emerged from the science of behavior. Our founders expressed those values in the seminal paper, "Some Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis" (Baer, Wolf & Risley, 1968). They envisioned a field that was applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, embodying conceptual systems, effective, and generalizable. They specifically did not include "profitable" as I do not believe they could imagine a day behavior analysis would emerge as a profession powered by competitive markets with all the attendant legal and ethical issues we see in other business ventures. In this presentation I will address the clash of two cultures: capitalism and behavior analysis and outline what I see as some specific problematic issues for our profession.

Intraverbal behavior contributes to a number of social and academic skills, such as answering questions, reciting items by category, singing songs, and engaging in conversation. To maximize the effectiveness of early intervention, it is important to study the acquisition of intraverbal responses in individuals with a diagnosis of developmental disabilities (such as autism), whose language development is delayed. To elucidate the relevant environmental variables, it is equally important to study the acquisition of intraverbal responses in typically developing individuals. In the current symposium, Valentino and Shillingsburg will first present a study on the use of echoic prompts with and without motor movements during intraverbal training with an individual with autism. Next, Coon and Miguel present a study on the influence of instructional history on the effectiveness of different prompt modalities during intraverbal training with typically developing preschoolers. Next, Carp, Lepper, and Petursdottir will present an evaluation of the use of a blocked trials procedure to teach intraverbal responses to typically developing preschoolers. Finally, Ingvarsson and Cammilleri present a study on the emergence of listener responses following intraverbal training. Together, these studies represent a sample of current efforts to expand upon the relatively limited literature on the acquisition of intraverbal behavior.

In the current study, we used an adapted alternating treatments design to compare the effectiveness of echoic prompting alone versus echoic prompting with associated motor movements on the acquisition of independent intraverbal responses in one female with a diagnosis of autism. At admission, the participant had a limited echoic repertoire; therefore, verbal behavior skills were initially targeted using sign language. After the participant had developed a strong echoic repertoire, teaching of vocal verbal behavior skills was initiated. The current investigation indicated that including associated motor movements in combination with echoic prompting resulted in faster acquisition of intraverbal responses when compared with using echoic prompting in isolation. The difference between the two prompting approaches was replicated with the same participant using additional intraverbal targets. We will discuss the implications of using combined prompt modalities in intraverbal training, and the unique learning histories and prerequisite skills that may contribute to the effectiveness of such procedures.

The results of studies comparing the effectiveness of differing prompt types to teach intraverbal responses have yielded mixed results. These results suggest individuals' histories of exposure to specific prompt types may influence which prompt type will be most effective. The purpose of this study was to test whether programmed increases in exposure to specific prompt types can produce concomitant increases in the acquisition rate of intraverbal responding. Acquisition rates among four typically developing preschool aged children were compared when taught using either echoic or tact prompts following exposure training with one prompt type. Results indicated that for all participants the prompt method most recently used to teach intraverbal responses required fewer trials to teach new intraverbal responses compared to a prompt method that had not recently been used to teach intraverbal behavior. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of reinforcement history on the acquisition of verbal behavior.

We describe a procedure that was developed to establish vocal intraverbal relations in the context of a basic study on derived stimulus relations. Participants in the study were typically developing children aged 3 and 4 years, and the experimental protocol required establishing control by three vocally presented stimuli (names of Greek letters) over three arbitrary vocal responses. The original training protocol, in which all three relations were introduced simultaneously, resulted in slow acquisition and a large number of errors. As a result, we developed a new training protocol that was in part based on blocking procedures that have previously been described in the literature on establishing conditional discriminations (e.g., Perez-Gonzalez & Williams, 2002; Saunders & Spradlin, 1989; Smeets & Striefel, 1994). Each relation was originally introduced in massed-trial format that included distracter-trials intended to prevent self-echoic control over the target responses. Training then gradually progressed to mixed trials that included all three relations. Two participants have been exposed to the new training protocol, and training with additional participants is in progress. Compared to earlier participants, participants have required fewer trials to criterion with the new protocol, and errors during training have been greatly reduced.

We examined the emergence of derived listener responses following intraverbal training in four children diagnosed of autism, whose intraverbal repertoire was deficient relative to other verbal skills. We first taught the participants to tact pictures of state birds. We then conducted listener baseline probes in which pictures of the birds were presented with the spoken name of the state (e.g., "Point to the state bird of Idaho"). An intraverbal baseline (e.g., "What is the state bird of Idaho?") was conducted concurrently. We then conducted transfer-of-control intraverbal training using either vocal prompts or picture prompts. We expected picture prompts to facilitate the emergence of the listener responses, because the picture of the birds and spoken state names are explicitly paired during that procedure. However, only one participant's listener post-test results supported that hypothesis, with the other three participants scoring 100% regardless of prompt type used during training. Thus, the participants were able to identify the pictures when presented with the state names, although that relation had never been directly trained. The learning histories and prerequisite skills that might be necessary for this kind of emergent relation will be discussed.

We present eight experimental analyses, in four papers, devoted to testing effects of verbal developmental interventions on emergence of verbal behavior developmental cusps and cusps that are capabilities in young children with language delays. In current verbal behavior developmental research, verbal capabilities are language developmental cusps that also result in the capability to learn by remote or indirect contact with basic principles. In Experiment 1, we tested the effect of the acquisition of generalized imitation cusp (GI) on preschoolers rate of learning. In Experiment 2, we tested (a) mirrored and non-mirrored GI emitted by adults to determine what should be accepted as accurate GI and (b) isolation of the use of a mirror in the induction of GI in preschoolers. In Experiment 3, we tested the effects of the induction of Naming on possible benefits of pre-learn unit demonstrations on rate of learning of correct discriminations of place value. In Experiment 4 we tested the effects of an auditory matching protocol that included matching rhymes and phrases on emergence of speaker and listener cusps and the intercept of speaker and listener.

We report two experiments that tested the effects of teaching 2 to 5-year-old children with developmental delays to imitate adult actions in a mirror on the emergence of generalized imitation (GI) using a delayed multiple probe design. In both experiments the participants were selected because they achieved few objectives over numerous instructional sessions on motor imitation and did not demonstrate GI. The independent variable in both experiments was the participants mastery of imitating sets of adults motor actions while looking at an adult perform actions in a mirror. In Experiment 1, the dependent variable was the number of untaught imitative responses emitted by participants prior to and following treatment phases while facing the experimenter. The dependent variable in Experiment 2 was identical to those conducted in Experiment 1 with the addition of experimental probes that assessed participant curricular learning rates. A functional relation was found between mastering motor actions in a mirror and the emergence of GI.

In Experiment 1 we tested the presence of generalized imitation (GI) with the requirement of left/right discrimination in 100 typically developing adults, both male and female, aged from 19 to 56 years old. Only 38.6% of the adult participants responded with the correct left/right orientations. Therefore, left/right discrimination was not considered as a necessary component of GI in young children. In Experiment 2, using a combined experimental-control group design with a “nested” time-lagged multiple probe design across participants, We compared experimental (4 children, ages 3 to 4 years old) and control groups (4 children, ages 3 to 4 years old) while controlling for the amount of instruction and maturation to isolate the whether the use of the mirror facilitated the induction generalized imitation in the participants. The dependent variable in this study was numbers of correct novel imitative responses in pre and post-intervention probe sessions, and the independent variable was the mastery of imitation sets using a mirror through. The study is still in process.

We tested the effects of the absence and presence of naming, a verbal developmental capability that is a source for children to acquire language incidentally, on the rate of learning under model demonstration learn unit conditions using a counterbalanced time-lagged multiple probe design across matched pairs of participants. Eight elementary aged children ranging in age from 4 to 6 with autism were selected because they lacked Naming at the onset of the study. The dependent variable was the number of instructional trials, or learn units, required to meet criterion on six curricular objectives: three prior to the instantiation of naming, and three post the acquisition of Naming. The objectives were taught under conditions in which the experimenter modeled an exemplar of a correct response prior to delivering standard learn units. The independent variable was the induction of naming using multiple exemplar instruction across listener and speaker responses. The results of the study showed the participants learned curricular objectives two to four times faster after the instantiation of naming. Thus, the onset of naming allowed the students to benefit from demonstrations, whereas, prior to naming, demonstration presentations did not affect learning.

We tested the effects of an mastery of an advanced auditory matching protocol (matching phrases and rhymes) on the emergence of listener literacy, naming (incidentally learning contrived words for contrived stimuli), appropriate self-talk in free play, say-do correspondence, and the emission of conversational units in non-instructional sessions by first and second grade students with autism spectrum disorder. The completed experiment, and a systematic replication in progress, used time-delayed multiple probe designs across four participants respectively. During intervention sessions, participants were taught to match progressively more difficult target phrases and rhyming words by emitting match-to-sample responses using a touch screen, when the correct responses and rotated incorrect matches were present. Mastery consisted of errorless matching for a novel set of words on the first trial. Flash animation technology was used for presenting the auditory matching procedure. Results of the first study demonstrated that listener literacy, speaker as own listener cusps emerged, and accurate echoic repertoires of participants increased in number.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic mental health disorder in children that causes serious problems in relationships with teachers, parents, and peers, and school functioning, as well as other adverse outcomes through the lifespan. With a prevalence rate of 2-9%, ADHD is a major public health problem in the U.S. and worldwide. The vast majority of ADHD children are treated with psychoactive medication alone, and the rates of medication usage have increased exponentially over the past decade. Although medication is beneficial in the short term, it has no demonstrable long-term benefit and long-term side effects (e.g., permanent growth suppression). There are two other methods of treatment for children with ADHD: behavioral (non-medicinal) treatments; and multimodal approaches that combine behavioral and pharmacological treatments. Behavioral treatments have a solid evidence base for the short-term treatment of children with ADHD, but evidence of long-term impact is lacking. The combination of the two treatments has been understudied—especially with respect to the dosing and sequencing of each component. Important questions remain unanswered. Should high or low doses of treatment be employed, and what are the costs, risks, and benefits of different doses and lengths of intervention? Should non-medicinal treatments such as parent training and classroom interventions begin before trying medication or vice versa? If one or the other is begun first, does that influence the dose of the second component, its incremental effectiveness, and the societal cost of providing treatment? Does treatment sequencing impact positive outcomes and side effects? Are there individual differences among children that influence the answers to such questions? This presentation will describe a series of studies designed to answer such issues. The implications for treatment of children with ADHD and the costs and benefits to children, families, schools, and society at large will be discussed.

This presentation will provide an overview of a comprehensive model of behavior analytic education as it has been implemented and replicated in schools in the State of Virginia. The Faison School, initially established as an affiliate program of Virginia Commonwealth University, has grown from a program offour students to nearly 100, all diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other developmental disability. The school is now affiliated with the applied behavior analysis program at Teachers College Columbia University and the Department of Behavioral Psychology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Through these affiliations, the school offers a comprehensive behavior analytic model of education and training alongside more intensive intervention services for students removed from public education settings. The school's data-driven and individualized system allows for immediate data collection and analysis of the behaviors of teachers and students, which allows participants to receive the most appropriate services and tactics for all areas of learning and teaching. In total, the school maintains data on learn units, Teacher Performance Rate Accuracy Observations, teacher decisions, student and staff achievement toward goals, as some examples. The model has also recently been replicated in the public schools. In this presentation, the CABAS components, including learn units, teacher data, decision analyses, and assessments, will be reviewed and discussed as well as future needs and directions of the model overall.

Chronic drug use is associated with a range of cognitive deficits, including elevated levels of impulsive and risky decision-making, but the causal relationships between these two phenomena have not been clear. Our laboratory uses rodent models to investigate relationships between drug use and decision-making. In one line of research, we have found that chronic cocaine self-administration causes long-lasting increases in impulsive choice in a delay discounting task, and that chronic cocaine exposure results in decreased sensitivity of the task to dopaminergic manipulations. In another line of research, we have developed a "risky decision-making" task, in which rats choose between small "safe" rewards and large rewards associated with varying risks of punishment. Preference for the large "risky" reward is associated with lower D2 dopamine receptor mRNA expression in dorsal striatum, and this preference is reduced by activation of D2-like receptors. Preliminary data also indicate a relationship between greater preference for the large risky reward and acquisition of cocaine self-administration, suggestive of links between risk-taking, drug use, and striatal D2 receptors. Considered together, the data indicate the presence of bi-directional relationships between drug use and decision-making deficits that have the potential to further the process of addiction.

In 1977, Ted Carr described five major hypotheses regarding the motivation for self-injurious behavior (SIB) and provided a comprehensive review related to each hypothesis. What followed was the development and evolution of a robust technology for examining the influence of the first two hypotheses Carr described, namely, operant mechanisms. Functional analysis technology can be effective for specifying positive and negative social reinforcers, and in turn, effective intervention for socially-maintained SIB. Far less is known about the third and fourth hypotheses; namely the sensory and neurobiological bases of chronic SIB among individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In behavioral models of SIB, sensory mechanisms function as putative positive or negative automatic reinforcers but there is little evidence directly linking behavioral and biological mechanisms. Evidence from both clinical and animal studies of chronic pain and its behavioral sequelae support the hypothesis that some forms of SIB may be regulated by altered pain mechanisms. We know that pain can lead to SIB in individuals with IDD, but we do not know whether chronic SIB leads to pain and the resulting neurobiological cascade of effects. This talk will describe several sets of recent findings pertaining to the relationship between pain and SIB.

Since the publication of the book Nudge, governments world-wide have become increasingly interested in behaviour change. Nudge was written not by behaviour analysts, nor even by psychologists, but by an economist (Thaler) and a law professor (Sunstein) and, following their lead, there has been a stream of further publications by other academics setting out to show that the most pressing health and social problems of our time can be effectively addressed only by changing people's behaviour. So the message of behaviour change is at last getting through. But where are behaviour analysts in this enterprise? Are they among those helping to influence health and social policy? And, most crucially, are they playing their full and vital part in delivering programmes of behaviour change? This paper will consider how academic research can assist governments and other agencies to bring about large-scale and positive behavior change in whole populations. To illustrate key issues, it will examine the history of a behavior analysis-based programme designed to combat obesity and improve children's eating habits internationally-the Food Dudes Programme. There are lessons that need to be learned from this and related enterprises, both within and outside behavior analysis, if we really are to change the world.

Although there are now meta-analytic evidence reviews in support of the use of intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) for pre-school children with autism and/or in center or home settings, there are fewer data available on outcomes of behavioral intervention from school-based models. In this symposium, we present data from four different Applied Behavior Analysis school models where the teaching interventions were based on and extended from autism programs using an IBI approach. In the first presentation, standardized test data from baseline to the end of one year are presented for children in an ABA class attached to a mainstream school. In the second presentation, standardized test data are summarized for children who attend a small ABA center-based school designed to supplement the teaching delivered for children with autism in mainstream school settings. In the third presentation, 12 month changes in standardized test data are presented for young people across childhood and adolescence. This third paper focuses on typical change in a large ABA special school over the course of an academic school year (rather than from intake to the end of the first year of intervention). The final study focuses on outcomes for children with autism who continue or do not continue with ABA intervention across the transition from pre-school to school settings.

The applied behavior analysis (ABA) class at Westwood School is a provision for children with autism 4-7 years of age within a mainstream school setting. In the present study, 11 children were tested at intake to the ABA class (typically at 4 years of age) and again after the end of their first and second years in the setting. Data on IQ, adaptive skills, and learning and language skills were collected. After one year of intervention, the sample had marginally significantly higher intelligence quotient (IQ) scores than at baseline (p = .051) and this improvement was of a moderate effect size (Cohen's d = .58). Consistent positive results were also obtained for changes in standardized Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) scores. The sample's VABS adaptive behavior composite score was significantly higher after one year of intervention (d = .52, a moderate effect size), and after two years of intervention when the effect was stronger and large (d = 1.11). All of these group effects were reflected in positive changes for individual children over time. These data will be discussed in the context of considering how outcomes from highly controlled intervention trials can be transferred into practice, and the potential advantages of delivering ABA-based education for children with autism in a mainstream setting.

A new model of provision has been developed for children with autism at the Highfield Centre, combining behavioral intervention at the centre with placement in mainstream pre-school/school. The three children in the present study had the following characteristics: a) age between six and eight years at intake, b)a diagnosis of autism, c) all had received early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) in home settings for several years prior to enrollment at Highfield. Intervention was provided for a total of 30-40 hours per week by full-time, permanent staff trained and certified by the Centre. The children attended mainstream school on average 10 hours a week, the rest of the week they were at the Centre. Standardized testing was done annually to evaluate progress and make adjustments in intervention. The results of the testing show that clinically significant gains in the children's intelligence and adaptive behavior scores were seen even in this older sample of children.

Research evaluations of early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children with autism have typically adopted careful inclusion criteria, often screening out those children with significant challenging behaviors and those with more severe intellectual disability. In applied behavior analysis (ABA) school settings in the UK where children's placements are funded by local education departments, there is a necessity to admit and to teach any child with autism and to apply ABA teaching methods across childhood and into adolescence. Students are also admitted at any time during their school years. We present the results from outcome data collected in TreeHouse school in London over the course of a 12 month school year. Fifty three students with autism were tested and then re-tested with the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS-R), and for 24 students a repeated Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) assessment was available. Repeated measures t tests revealed statistically significant improvements over time on all ABLLS domains and for all VABS scores. These changes were reflected in change in individual students: 51/53 improved on the ABLLS over 12 months, and 18/23 increased their VABS composite scores over 12 months.

A project was started in Norway whereby children who had received intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) in preschool, were either reintroduced to IBI or continued to receive IBI in school. For two children IBI was reintroduced in school after 2 and 4 years respectively of other educational provision, and for 15 children IBI was continued into school without interruption. These 17 children are compared to six children who stopped IBI abruptly when they started school, and where IBI has never been reintroduced. The results suggest that transition from pre-school to school may lead to maintained and continued gains for the children continuing to receive IBI when compared to children ending IBI.

Children with autism often present with both academic and social skill deficits as well as the communication deficits and behavioral excesses that typically define the disorder. With the increased availability of video technology, many researchers have begun to investigate the use of this technology to teach students with autism. Two techniques will be discussed in this symposium: video-based instruction and video modeling. In video-based instruction, instruction is provided to the student with autism via a recorded video rather than by a live instructor. Two studies comparing the relative effectiveness of video instruction and live, teacher-led instruction will be presented in the symposium. Video modeling is a technique that involves the creation of a recorded video example of appropriate behavior which is then played for the student with autism to imitate. Two studies investigating the effectiveness of two types of video modeling will also be presented. The information presented in these research studies will provide BCBAs and BCaBAs with detailed information about these teaching procedures and the research that supports their use.

A large body of research has demonstrated that video modeling is an effective tool to teach a variety of skills to children with autism. However, there is limited research on video instruction, in which there are embedded instructions to prompt the individual to respond immediately. Video instruction may be a more effective tool than video modeling to teach some skills, such as expressive object labeling, because the video can break skills down into smaller components and the individual will get immediate feedback for each stimulus. Little is known about the effectiveness of video instruction for teaching expressive language skills to children with autism and how this tool compares to the teaching methods that are currently in use (e.g., in vivo teacher presentation). The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of video and in vivo teacher instruction on the acquisition and generalization of expressive object labeling skills in preschool children with autism. Our results indicate that teacher instruction facilitated faster acquisition of expressive object labeling in all four participants however, the results were mixed regarding generalization of expressive object labels. Most importantly, this highlights the need to individualize interventions for students with autism. Although video instruction is an evidenced-based practice, it was not as effective for all four learners, so clinicians should be very cautious when choosing interventions.

While there is a great deal of research on effective treatments and teaching procedures for children with autism, there is little research examining the effectiveness of video instruction for teaching children with autism expressive object labeling skills. Video instruction may be an effective teaching procedure due to the ease of implementation and the reduced resources needed for delivery. However, previous research that has been conducted in this area suggests that systematic teacher instruction (in vivo presentation) is more effective than video instruction. In these studies, participants acquired tacts at a faster rate in the teacher condition as compared to the video instruction condition. One reason for these results may be the participant's prior history with in vivo teacher instruction. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of video instruction to teach tacting to children with autism who do not have a prior history with systematic teaching procedures (in vivo presentation). Currently we have two participants in this study and thus far the results indicate no difference in the rate of acquisition of across the two methods. These results highlight the need for additional research in this area as well as the importance of individualized instruction.

There is a large body of research documenting the positive effects of behavioral interventions on the social interactions of persons diagnosed with autism; however there is limited information on the relative utility of the commonly used procedures. Three different relevant investigations will be presented in this paper. In one experiment, the effects of using textual prompts on spontaneous initiations to play games were evaluated. During Experiment 2, conversation initiations and reciprocations using a voice output augmentative communication device was evaluated. The third experiment focused on the effects of a video modeling procedure on social interactions demonstrated by a child in the school setting. Improvements in social behavior were observed in all three experiments, and tests for generalization produced mixed results. Taken together, these investigations have implications for the relative utility of these various procedures. Implications for home and school programming for children with varying levels of developmental delay will be discussed.

This study evaluated the effects of video self-modeling with feedback on generalization of skills across the school and home settings for three individuals diagnosed with developmental disabilities. Skills that reliably occurred in the school setting but per parental report were not observed in the home setting were included. Video self-modeling was defined as the participant viewing a recording of him/her self successfully engaging in a target skill in the school setting and the intervention consisted of the parent setting the occasion for the skill to occur pre and post viewing the recording with their child in the home setting. Generalization was observed for one participant, however the behavior decreased contingent on removal of the video. The remaining two participants did not meet the criteria for intervention. Results are discussed in terms of implications for parent training and maintenance of video self-modeling procedures.

Developing strategies to improve performance of direct service staff continues to be a focus in the field of applied behavior analysis. This symposium will look at strategies to improve staff performance in private and public school programs that utilize the principles of behavior analysis to teach students with autism. The first presentation will address improving staff performance in common problem areas such as attendance and tardiness. Strategies used to decrease staff turnover will also be discussed. The second and third presentations will focus on the use of an outcome management program (Reid & Parsons, 2002) to improve performance on a variety of staff behaviors such as implementing natural environment teaching, correctly completing required documentation and maintaining students' work areas. Student outcomes and how they are directly affected by the changes in staff behavior will also be discussed in the third presentation. The last session will describe a comprehensive, competency based model of supervision for BCBA candidates that can be used to improve performance and expertise of teachers and direct service staff. [Reid, D. H., & Parsons, M. B. (2002). Working with staff to overcome challenging behavior among people who have severe disabilities: A guide for getting support plans carried out. Morganton, NC: Habilitative Management Consultants.]

Achieving peak performance in human services staff requires intensive training and ongoing evaluation; however, its effectiveness is impacted by the work ethic and inherent motivation of the direct care staff. Three indicators were identified as determining employees most likely to be successful in retaining and implementing training in applied behavior analysis (ABA): regular attendance, timeliness, and increased education, particularly in a related education field. A focus on the recruitment and retention of quality employees targeted reducing turnover, promoting consistent attendance, reducing tardiness, and increasing the education level of entry-level direct service providers in a private day school for children with autism and other developmental disabilities. Implementing policies on tardiness and attendance, standardizing the interview process, and offering tuition assistance and BCBA supervision cultivated the work ethic and inherent motivation required for peak performance. Standard employee record data measured policy effectiveness. Results indicate decrease in turnover in the first 90 days of employment, sharp declines in tardiness and use of unscheduled leave, and increase in entry-level employees with advanced degrees or pursuing degrees in a related education field.

Research shows that monitoring and improving the performance of direct care staff is difficult and time consuming. An on-going outcome management program has been proposed and implemented to evaluate the performance of direct care staff in a private day school. Key variables thought to be imperative for good performance were objectively defined and monitored. As staff performance was monitored a scheduled feedback loop was created along with a quality assurance review from administration. A multiple baseline design across staff members was used. Some of the variables being measured include intensive teaching procedures, attendance, tardiness, data entry, documentation, natural environment teaching, student progress and involvement in weekly team meetings. In addition to the performance of direct care staff, the program was also developed to identify the quality of treatment each student receives throughout the school year. Results indicate improvements among staff performance and ability to identify quality of treatment. Discussion will include involvement of supervisors and administration, difficulties of data collection and quality of education and treatment of students.

Due to the typically less structured methods of natural environment teaching and/or incidental teaching, monitoring and improving these skills can be challenging to supervisors. Natural environment teaching is a complex skill that is typically less structured than conventional teaching methods and calls for some form of "finesse", or skill, to be effective. Currently, natural environment teaching is one of the key indicators within an overall staff performance monitoring system. For the current study, the natural environment teaching was re-defined and re-trained using a simple six step training procedure. A multiple baseline design across staff was used to evaluate engagement during natural environment teaching. A momentary time sampling method was used to measure direct care staff's execution of the natural environment teaching skill and student engagement in functional activities. Changes needed within the evaluation process and difficulties of data collection will be discussed along with future research possibilities to enhance natural environment teaching skills.

With the rapidly growing nature of the field of behavior analysis, it is more important now than ever that a comprehensive model of supervision be made available to guide potential behavior analysts toward certification. Commonwealth Autism service has developed a competency based model of supervision that is results-driven and provides measurable tasks broken into content areas based on the Behavior Analyst Certification Board Third Edition Task List. Learning units place the competencies into a curriculum that is based on level of difficulty. Each unit includes specific competencies from different content areas, suggested readings, checklists to measure competency completion and additional activities to assist with the thorough completion and understanding of the competencies. Together, these materials and tools provide a comprehensive guide to successfully completing BCBA and BCaBA supervision in preparation for the BACB certification exam. After completing all units, supervisees will leave this process with a portfolio of permanent products, extended knowledge of field-relevant information, and practical experience in the application of each task list item.

Presentations within this symposium will highlight the application of systematic behavioral technology and an adherence to data-based decision making both at a global and an intervention specific level. Best practice demands adherence to data-based decision making. This paradigm applies to both global aspects of care such as program outcomes and specific interventions targeting specialized client needs. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) technology should guide and inform practice at every level. The included presentations will emphasize how standardized procedures built upon a data-driven decision making framework can improve the educational outcomes of children with intellectual disabilities such as autism. This framework can provides guidance to administrators and practitioners resulting in positive outcomes for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Practitioners in the autism field are frequently occupied by several questions to which there are few answers: what types of programs or curricula can support learners with autism, what settings support these models, and how can mandated education services be effectively coordinated with evidenced based applied behavior analysis (ABA). Further, parents often choose between the education offered in their local district or developing and paying for a home-based ABA program. For any program to be effective, it must meet the educational and behavioral needs of its learners. The Vista School, a publicly funded school in Pennsylvania, has successfully developed a model that braids education and medical funding in order to deliver effective and intensive treatment to children and adolescents with significant forms of autism. Effectively engineering learning environments for children with autism is a complex and dynamic process. Effective tools, system support and competency-based staff training represent several program components necessary for effective center-based autism programs. Specific suggestions of how to combine education and ABA through curricula, staffing models, training and supervision models will be presented. Outcome data for The Vista School will be reviewed as support for the efficacy of the model.

Systematized use of trial based functional analysis (TBFA) procedures provides significant benefit to behavior analysts in the field. Delineating the function of problem behavior is imperative to the development of effective behavioral programming, however, most methods employed in applied settings do not reflect best practice. Oftentimes, professionals may rely on questionnaires, review of data, and observations which do not always provide accurate information regarding variables maintaining behavior. The preferred method includes conducting an experimental functional analysis. Functional analysis technology is not a new phenomenon to the field; it is simply a set of procedures that have not easily translated to daily practice. The technology is often viewed as costly. Traditional methods require lengthy sessions and a segregated location to perform the analyses. An innovation of traditional functional analysis procedures is trial based functional analysis. Whether due to lack of knowledge, training or systematization of procedures, TBFAs are not frequently utilized. TBFA has several advantages over analogue and brief analyses for clinical application in applied settings. TBFA procedures can be applied quickly, with minimal training, take place in the classroom placement and produce reliable results. Procedures for developing, applying and analyzing TBFAs will be reviewed in detail.

Independent toileting skills are essential to personal independence, well-being, self worth and social integration. Independently performing toileting skills is often deficient for persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Current research has not identified the necessary and sufficient treatment components, including dimensions of these components, which reliably result in positive toileting outcomes for individuals with ASD. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of the Toilet Training Treatment Protocol (TTTP) and the Toilet Training Readiness Assessment Inventory (TTRAI) developed at The Vista School. The TTTP applies research-based behavioral technology to behaviors hypothesized as essential to independent toileting. The TTTP, using behavioral intervention techniques, teaches critical toileting behaviors; following accidents/incontinent episodes, correction procedures over-teach toileting skills building behaviorally fluency. Prior to receiving the research protocol, participant skills are assessed on the TTRAI which determines a level of toileting readiness. The relationships between component skills and teaching methods will be discussed. Authors will introduce a standardized, yet individualized, data-based decision making model. Treatment and assessment data will be presented in support of the TTTP.

By quantifying trend, variability, and immediacy effects, the standard celeration chart (SCC) improves clinical decision making, especially for behavior interventions in natural settings. Behavior analysts typically rely upon baseline logic and visual inspection of data presented in equal-interval graphs to make clinical decisions. Baseline logic calls for a pattern of responding that exhibits relatively little variation in its measured dimensional quantities over a period of time. Baseline so defined is often difficult to achieve when interventions are conducted in natural settings which often include powerful variables that produce identifiable but uncontrollable variability. By deriving bounce, the SCC permits quantitative measurement and comparison of variability before and after clinical intervention, thus measuring rather than controlling variability. Similarly, post-treatment changes in celeration and the immediacy of behavior change can be measured and compared to pre-treatment measures. By using uniform dimensions and standard measurements, the SCC facilitates comparisons of response rates across subjects, times, and locations. The SCC is a tool available to behavior analysts to improve the reliability and precision of clinical decision making by objectively and saliently revealing significant clinical change.

This symposium will include four research papers reporting the efficacy of a variety of social and communication interventions designed for students and older individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The first paper will report the results of a single-case multiple baseline design across students with three children with ASD, two of whom were taught to use script phrases in inclusive settings with pre-kindergarten typically-developing peers. The second paper will report the results of a single-case multiple baseline design across behaviors during which a typically-developing middle school student implemented a script intervention with her peer with autism. The third and fourth papers will report the results of meta analyses. One will discuss results of implementation of augmentative and alternative communication systems relative to participant characteristics, including age and diagnostic categories. The final paper will report the results of implementation of point-of-view video modeling with individuals with ASD. Presenters include university faculty and doctoral students.

Individuals withautism spectrum disorderhave difficulty initiating and responding to social interactions with peers and adults and/or spontaneously communicating their needs. These social deficits may become a challenge to successful inclusion of students with autism in general education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a visual script intervention to facilitate preschool children with autism's initiation of play interaction with typical peers. A multiple baseline design across three participants, with two AB series and one control data series was used.

Children with autism often require intensive remediation to improve communication skills. Currently, many such students attend general education classes or have opportunities to interact with their typically-developing peers throughout the school day; however, these students often have difficulty communicating with their peers with autism due to lack of responsiveness and poor reciprocity. This study investigated the effectiveness of a peer-mediated intervention during which a middle school student implemented scripted phrases with her peer with autism during leisure activities. Five research questions were addressed within this research study. Did scripted communication phrases prompted by a peer during leisure activities increase the number of appropriate communicative phrases for an individual with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? Did the individual with ASD's interest and happiness during leisure activities with peer interactions improve as more phrases are learned? Did the individual with autism generalize the use of scripted phrases to interactions with other peers? What effect did the intervention have on the communicative phrases used by the peer during the sessions? Did the individual with ASD continue to use the scripted phrases when the visual prompt was faded? This research is complete and results and discussion will be presented.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who cannot speak at all or not intelligibly are frequently taught to use aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The majority of the research on the use of AAC with individuals with ASD has been single-case research studies. This investigation involved a meta-analysis of the single-case research on the use of aided AAC with individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), investigating the differential impacts of AAC by participant characteristics. An effect size measure, the improvement rate difference (IRD) was used to analyze 24 single-case studies. Two research questions were investigated concerning (a) the impact of AAC interventions on individuals diagnosed with subcategories of ASD and co-morbid conditions, and (b) the effects of AAC interventions on individuals in different age groups. Results indicated that participants with ASD and no additional diagnoses had better outcomes than others and that participants with ASD and developmental disabilities outperformed participants with ASD and multiple disabilities. Further, both preschool and secondary-aged participants had better outcomes than elementary-aged participants.

Video modeling has been demonstrated to be an efficacious intervention for improving a variety of skills for individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The intervention, which is based on the theory of imitation and social learning typically involves the target individual viewing a video-recorded scene of a model performing the target behavior for the purpose of eliciting imitation of the target skill. Point-of-view video modeling, however, is a unique implementation of video modeling as the video is recorded from the viewpoint of the participant. One advantage of point-of-view modeling is that it eliminates extraneous stimuli. The participant views the environment or a model's hands performing a task. This study explores the evidence base of point-of-view video modeling with individuals withautism spectrum disorderby means of a meta-analysis of improvement rate differences for each participant in the identified studies. Preliminary results indicate a combined improvement rate difference of .78 (p <.000), 90% CI [.72, .82]. The magnitude of effect, replicability of results, and maintenance of acquired skills due to the implementation of this intervention will be discussed. In addition, participant characteristics, skills addressed, and additional intervention components will be discussed.

Disruptive behavior, a common occurrence following traumatic brain injury, can impact all aspects of an individual's life and prohibit progress during the rehabilitation process. In an effort to further investigate how other providers in the continuum of care assess and manage challenging behavior a nationwide survey of acute rehabilitation hospitals was conducted. The first study will present a review of data from 1,224 completed surveys received from 160 different hospitals and will discuss implications the results may present for behavior analysts. The second study designed to investigate the use of reactive strategies in comparison to proactive and preventative strategies will present results from a re-analysis of a subset of the survey data. Finally, the third presentation will discuss the apparent lack of clear, concise, and widely adopted standards of treatment for practitioners working with patients who have experienced brain injuries and are demonstrating problem behavior. Implications for further research and practice will be discussed.

Traumatic brain injury affects approximately 1.4 million Americans each year. Irritability, impulsivity, decreased attention, problems with perseveration, and lack of insight are common following brain injury. The objective of the current study was to survey acute rehabilitation treatment settings to identify specific behaviors seen in this setting, protocols in place, and interventions currently used by therapists and staff. An 11-question survey was developed to assess the types of difficult behavior observed in acute rehabilitation treatment settings. The frequency of these behaviors, challenges in dealing with difficult to manage patients with brain injury, techniques staff rated as successful or unsuccessful, whether training related to behavior was provided, and what protocols were in place to deal with challenging patients were assessed. Over 3,000 surveys were distributed to acute rehabilitation hospitals across the United States. Of these, 1224 surveys from 160 different hospitals were completed and returned. Results indicated the most troubling categories of problem behaviors were irritability, inappropriate verbal responses, refusal of treatment and physical aggression. Survey respondents indicated that one-to-one supervision and family intervention were the most successful interventions utilized. Discussion regarding needs for education in treating challenging behaviors following brain injury in varied rehabilitation settings will be provided.

Following traumatic brain injury doctors respond following the medical model to save the lives of the patients they treat. This crisis-response approach to treatment is typically continued to treat problem behavior that presents during hospital admission. However, reactive responses to severe problem behavior may in fact shape more severe problem behavior during that hospital admission which may make them more difficult and more resistant to behavior change in settings following discharge. A re-analysis of data obtained through a nationwide survey about challenging behavior of 160 acute rehabilitation hospitals will be presented. Statistical analysis using T-tests and ANOVA's were completed to understand how staff from the surveyed hospitals approached and responded to challenging behaviors of the patients they treat. Specifically, responses to challenging behavior of a reactive nature were compared to proactive strategies to prevent problem behavior. Responses regarding reactive strategies were reported more frequently than proactive strategies. However, proactive strategies were perceived to be more likely to be effective. Suggestions for how to change responses to problem behavior in hospital settings will be presented. Quantitative and qualitative data will be discussed.

Over the past 30 years, many assessment and treatment techniques have been developed to assist in the rehabilitation of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Publicly accessible websites such as those for the Brain Injury Association of America and the Center for Outcomes and Measurement in Brain Injury have position papers and assessment tools describing accepted interventions. However, one of the most commonly cited areas of concern for this population, challenging or maladaptive behavior, lacks any widely accepted national guidelines, assessment tools or scales, protocols, position papers or outlined standards of care and treatment. The apparent lack of consensus regarding assessment and treatment across the continuum of care in recovery from a TBI raises many questions for treating professionals, patients, and their families. What is considered and recognized as problem behavior? Where would a practitioner or other stakeholder turn to locate standards for treatment? How does the medical model conflict with behavioral principles? Which practitioner should address the difficult behavior? How can increased research and publication be accomplished to assist in developing standards? An argument for establishing easily accessible guidelines outlining the best practices or national standards for the treatment of problem behavior in the TBI population will be provided.

In the controversy over the use of rewards in educational settings, the overjustification effect has been used as an argument against the use of rewards. The overjustification effect is said to occur when rewards are provided to a learner for engagement in an activity, and when the rewards are subsequently removed activity engagement decreases to a level below that of initial baseline levels (i.e., prior to providing the rewards). Some have interpreted this decrease in engagement as a destruction of the learner's intrinsic motivation. The aim of the current set of studies was to identify the conditions under which the overjustification effect does and does not occur. To this end, the relative preference value of the instrumental task and reward was manipulated in the first study, tangible rewards were presented for activity engagement when only one or multiple preferred activities were available in the second study, and socially mediated reinforcement and/or automatic reinforcement was arranged in the third study. Based on a review of 39 published studies the extent to which the overjustification effect was demonstrated in the context of providing reinforcers for adaptive responding to persons with intellectual disabilities is presented in the final study.

The overjustification effect is commonly used as evidence in arguments made against the use of rewards with children in educational settings. The purpose of this study was to extend the literature on the overjustification effect by using single-subject methodology to assess the effects of relative preference between the instrumental task and the reward in the prediction of the overjustification effect. Two conditions in which either a relatively higher or lower preferred reward was presented contingent on task engagement were alternated in an alternating treatments design. Evidence of the overjustification effect was present with only one participant in the condition in which a lower preferred reward was provided contingent on a higher preferred instrumental task. Interestingly, a punishment effect was observed during the contingent reward phase prior to the removal of the contingent reward. A comparison of past methodologies and the current methodology used to evaluate the overjustification effect are compared and discussed.

The utility of reinforcement-based procedures has been well established in the behavior analysis literature. The overjustification effect is one popular criticism of programs that use tangible rewards. Rewards are frequently delivered in school settings and include grades, stickers, and star charts. The overjustification hypothesis suggests that the delivery of an extrinsic (socially mediated) reward contingent on engagement with an activity that occurs at some level without apparent socially mediated reinforcement will result in a reduction in the amount engagement of that activity from baseline levels when discontinued. This study evaluated the effects of delivering tangible reinforcers contingent on engagement with preferred age-appropriate leisure activities on the amount of engagement after reinforcement was discontinued. The participants were children in first grade and undergraduate students. Tangible reinforcers were delivered for engaging with the preferred activities under different conditions, for example with one or with several items available at the same time. The results did not support the overjustification hypothesis; however they suggest that extended exposure to a preferred item may have effects that look superficially similar to the overjustification effect.

When a socially mediated reinforcement contingency is withdrawn, performance may under some circumstances decrease below the levels at which it would have been maintained in the absence of the history with the contingency. This phenomenon has been termed the overjustification effect. The present study built on an unpublished experiment described by Neuringer (2003), in which the overjustification effect was demonstrated when automatic consequences of behavior were withdrawn by blocking, supporting a negative contrast interpretation of the effect. Typically developing preschool-age children participated. The target behavior was engagement with drawing materials. During sessions, participants had access to drawing materials and two other similarly preferred activities. In Experiment 1, following baseline, preferred food was delivered contingent on drawing. When food was subsequently withdrawn, two of the three participants' engagement decreased below baseline levels. In Experiment 2, food was contingent on drawing in all three phases, and automatic consequences of drawing were manipulated by providing functional versus nonfunctional drawing materials. When functional materials were withdrawn, only one of the three participants' engagement decreased below baseline. Experiment 3 uses modified drawing materials and a modified response definition to address possible reasons why the effect was not observed reliably in Experiment 2.

The use of reinforcement contingencies for children has been at the forefront of the overjustification controversy. Numerous experiments and meta-analyses have been conducted to date, but the debate on the detrimental effects of reward persists. In the current study, we examined overjustification effects in the context of providing reinforcers for adaptive responding to persons with intellectual disabilities. A literature review produced 39 data sets meeting criteria that included: (a) responding during an initial no-reinforcement phase could be compared to a second no-reinforcement phase; and (b) each reinforcer assessment data set included a reinforcement phase with a clear reinforcement effect. Effect-sizes were calculated for general effects and moderator variables. In general, overjustification effects were equally as likely to occur or not occur. Secondary analysis revealed that (a) overjustification effects were more likely when responding occurred at relatively higher levels in the absence of reinforcement and (b) levels of responding were significantly higher immediately after reinforcement than they were immediately prior to reinforcement. Analysis of each of the moderator variables proved non-significant. The results are discussed in the context of prior studies on overjustification effects and with regard to the relevance of such effects for educational endeavors with children with intellectual disabilities.

Differential reinforcement is a common behavior change strategy used in schools. This symposium will present data on the utility of differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (in the form of point cards), differential reinforcement of low rates, and differential reinforcement of other behavior. In addition to demonstrating how these strategies may be used in school settings, the symposium also will address issues surrounding the implementation of these interventions, including scaling up, behavioral contrast, and mechanisms underlying behavior change.

Point-card interventions, also called daily report cards and home-school notes, have a robust history for decreasing problem behavior and enhancing academic success. Although such interventions often are developed individually-specific target responses, reinforcement schedule, etcetera for each child, recent research suggests that point cards might be used as well as a Tier II intervention within a comprehensive, multi-tiered model of support. In such a system, point cards are delivered similarly across all students receiving the intervention, thus reducing the response effort required by school staff. A growing body of work documents the utility of such school-wide interventions for decreasing problem behavior and enhancing academic skills. To date most of this research has focused on children with attention-maintained problem behavior. Further, most studies document effects with one or a few children. In this presentation we (a) document extensions of point-card interventions nested within a school-wide intervention for children whose problem behavior is escape-maintained and (b) illustrate outcomes across multiple schools in several districts implementing these Tier II interventions.

We evaluated the effectiveness of full-session differential reinforcement of low rates (DRL) on three primary school children's rates of requesting attention from their teacher. Using baseline rates of responding and teacher recommendations, we set a DRL schedule that was substantially lower than baseline yet still allowed the children access to teacher assistance. The DRL schedule was effective in reducing children's requests for assistance and approval, and the teacher found the intervention highly useful and acceptable. The possible mechanisms accounting for behavior change using full-session DRL schedules will be discussed.

This investigation evaluated the likelihood of obtaining behavioral contrast in an untreated classroom, when reinforcement conditions where changed in a treatment classroom. A functional analysis suggested that three middle-school students' challenging behaviors were maintained by attention. During baseline, inappropriate comments spoken by each student were recorded across two classrooms "A" and "B." Following baseline, a differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO) and extinction procedure was implemented in classroom "A," while baseline continued in classroom "B." As the levels of inappropriate comments decreased in classroom "A," levels in classroom "B" declined for two of the three participants, although the reinforcement rate maintaining the challenging behavior in classroom "B" remained constant (i.e., baseline conditions). Finally, the DRO and extinction procedure was implemented in classroom "B" resulting in further reductions of inappropriate comments. Thus, behavioral contrast was not observed in classroom "B" for any of the participants.

Training and motivating staff members to implement educational, behavioral, and administrative procedures is important in residential educational facilities. Administrators and families rely on direct care staff members to teach and take care of students, so it is critical that staff members are well-trained and motivated to correctly implement these programs. This symposium includes three research studies which sought to improve staff training of an administrative procedure (i.e., signing students in and out) and an educational program (the picture exchange communication system; PECS). These studies also evaluated the effects of providing reinforcement to staff contingent on completing these procedures. The first study evaluated whether staff members' low compliance with the sign in/out procedure was an issue of poor training or poor motivation, and attempted to increase compliance accordingly. The second study evaluated a school-wide behavioral skills training package for teaching staff to implement PECS and found that staff members benefited from all components of the training package. The third study evaluated the effectiveness of positive reinforcement alone, negative reinforcement alone, and the two in combination at increasing the number and variety of PECS trials completed by staff. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research will be discussed.

Procedural compliance with required paperwork is necessary for agency, state and federal education reporting guidelines. Proper and timely adherence to these procedures yields the most accurate information. While this does not directly affect the student population, it may affect agency funding, community standing and agency work duties. This study evaluated whether a procedural compliance issue (regarding a single paperwork requirement of physically signing all students in and out as they come and go) was a motivational or knowledge based problem (i.e., a matter of reinforcement versus appropriate training). A reversal design will be implemented to evaluate the contributions of reinforcement and training to improving staff adherence to this procedure. This study will also investigate whether a school-wide memo or online training is more effective for training staff. A comparison design across units will be used along with social validity questions for this training phase. The final phase will assess durability as well as the overall success with compliance using the two training methods. Results will indicate whether low adherence was due to poor training or poor motivation and will aim to increase compliance accordingly. Inter-rater reliability will be calculated for at least 30% of days via permanent product data.

There is limited research on how to train staff members to implement the picture exchange communication system (PECS; Frost & Bondy, 2002) with students. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of various components of a behavioral skills training package to teach staff to implement Phases I-IIIB of PECS. All staff members in three classrooms were required to watch a series of online trainings that included didactic material and video models. Staff from two of these units then met individually with a PECS trainer to demonstrate correct implementation of these phases. Staff members from all three units were then observed in vivo implementing PECS trials with students. Following 3 days of PECS implementation of each phase with no in vivo feedback, modeling and feedback from PECS trainers was provided to improve staff members' implementation. Data indicated that staff who merely watched the online trainings implemented most steps correctly in the classroom, but staff who watched the online trainings and completed a return demonstration implemented more steps correctly. All staff benefited from in vivo modeling and feedback from PECS trainers. Interobserver agreement was calculated for at least 30% and was high. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research will be discussed.

Implementation of the picture exchange communication system (PECS) typically decreases after staff training is completed and ongoing consultation ceases (Howlin, Gordon, Pasco, Wade, & Charman, 2007). In the current study, formal training was conducted with all participating staff members and PECS was implemented throughout a residential educational facility. Staff members were given the expectation that 40 picture exchanges would be made during both school and residence hours. The daily average of staff implementation and collected data varied across six classrooms/residences and were all significantly below the expectations. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of a school-wide reminder of the expectations, positive reinforcement alone (i.e., biweekly incentives and individual staff recognition), negative reinforcement alone (i.e., avoiding additional training and meeting with administrators), and a combination of the two at increasing the number and variety of PECS trials completed by staff. Using a reversal design, it is expected that one or more reinforcement procedures will be effective at improving staff members' implementation of PECS trials. Inter-rater agreement will be assessed for at least 30% of permanent product data collection. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research will be discussed.

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is often recommended as a first line of treatment for various symptoms (e.g., self-injury, aggression, social withdrawal, language and communication delays, etc.) associated with mental retardation, autism, and other developmental disabilities. It is also recommended most frequently for a variety of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) disorders including autism spectrum disorders, mental retardation, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and conduct disorder (Rush & Frances, 2000; National Research Council, 2001). In addition, positive, long-term outcomes have been reported in the literature when strategies recommended by Stokes and Baer (1977) were incorporated into ABA-based intervention programs including teaching in and across an individual�s everyday environments (e.g., home, school, etc.) and involving parents as change agents (Sturmey & Fitzer, 2007). This symposium will discuss various ways to involve parents or teachers in ABA-based interventions. Specifically, parents or teachers were taught skills such as embedded instruction, prompting, consequence delivery, data collection, data analysis, et cetera to assist with skill building or behavior reduction.

In 2001, the National Research Council (NRC) outlined several intervention program characteristics identified in the literature as contributing to successful outcomes for individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. However, it may be difficult to incorporate many of the NRC's recommendations into services delivered through a federally funded Part C early intervention system. The Early Intensive Treatment Program (EITP) was a pilot project aimed at identifying methods that could be used to integrate the NRC's recommendations into Louisiana's Part C intervention system (i.e., EarlySteps). Five parent-child dyads participated. Using behavioral-skills training (e.g., Sarokoff and Sturmey, 2004), parents were taught to use behavior-based intervention strategies (e.g., prompting, consequence delivery) to teach several individualized skills to their child. Parents also were taught to embed intervention into naturally occurring daily routines and activities. Data were collected on parent's use of the intervention strategies and child progress towards intervention goals. Outcomes indicate that parents were able to successfully employ behavior-based intervention strategies to teach targeted skills to their child within daily routines and activities.

Many parents of children with autism would like to play a role in their child's skill development, but they have few resources or opportunities to learn effective teaching techniques. Parent SkIP (skills intervention program) is a 9-week summer program designed to train parents of children with autism or other developmental disabilities to teach their children a variety of functional skills. The purpose of this paper is to describe the training program and its outcomes. Nineteen parents participated during the summer of 2010. After selecting several different targets from nine skills domains (e.g., attending skills, self-care, communication), the parents participated in a combination of large group and one-on-one training sessions. Instructors taught the parents how to deliver effective instructions, how to use and fade prompts, how to identify and use reinforcers, how to manage problem behavior, and how to monitor their children's progress. Data were collected on the baseline and post-training performance of each parent, as well as the percentage of targets that were mastered by each child. The outcomes indicate that parents learned to effectively teach their children, that these skills generalized across a variety of targets, and that the parents were highly satisfied with the training.

Observation of behavior in the natural environment can be beneficial in guiding treatment decisions. Unfortunately, there are a number of factors which can make data collection in such situations difficult. Video recording of the behavior is often used when direct observation is not possible. However, this solution also provides its own set of difficulties. Continuous video recording often produces a substantial amount of unnecessary footage to be scored. Alternatively, video recording initiated once problem behavior occurs, fails to capture the relevant antecedent events. As a solution to both problems, software was developed to allow caregivers to signal when the target behavior occurred. Unlike discrete recording, the signal prompts the video recording system to store the footage captured just prior and following the signal. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of this video recording system by comparing the footage the caregivers signaled to the corresponding hours of continuously collected video. Specifically, the accuracy of caregiver collected footage and missed occurrences of the target behavior were investigated. Strategies for increasing the accuracy of parent collected footage were explored.

Research has shown increased rates of skill acquisition for students when teachers were trained not just to record acquisition data but also to analyze and use these data to make programming decisions according to a set of predetermined rules (Sharpe, Hawkins, & Ray, 1995; Keohane & Greer, 2005). In the present study 8 classroom teachers from both rural and metropolitan public school districts were trained by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst in methods of implementation and data collection associated with discrete trial training. The teachers were also trained to make data based decisions according to specified rules for making changes in program targets and for adding or fading prompts used during teaching. Data will be presented showing the types of teacher decision making errors made and what effects these errors had on students' rate of skill acquisition. Finally, some suggestions for reducing teacher errors will be presented.

Analysis of the conditions under which emergent verbal behavior is established is crucial in developing educational interventions to facilitate generative verbal skills. The empirical research presented as part of this symposium outlines a variety of procedures investigating verbal repertoires and emergent responding. May & Dymond present an evaluation of an intraverbal training procedure on the emergence of a range of complex novel intraverbals in typically developing young children. Research by Lepper, Petursdottir, Peterson, & Carp evaluated the effects of collateral response training on the acquisition of listener responding and the emergence of tact and intraverbal repertoires of preschool-age children. Ribeiro, Kobari-Wright, Vicars, Miguel, & Goyos investigated the role of naming on abstraction in four children with autism and one diagnosed with an intellectual disability. Finally, Garca-Asenjo & Prez-Gonzlez investigated how verbal capabilities are related to complex visual perpective taking, and describe the effects of a verbal training procedure on the emergence of perspective taking skills. In sum, the symposium provides a comprehensive range of empirical studies on the advances in a highly educationally relevant domain.

The present study evaluated the emergence of untrained intraverbal responses following vocal intraverbal training with three typically developing children. Children were taught relations involving city names, country names, and names of famous landmarks, where vocal naming served as either stimuli or responses. Following initial baseline training in city to country (e.g., "Name the country that Dublin is in." ["Ireland"]) and landmark to city ("Name the city that Croke Park is in." ["Dublin"]) relations, repeated test probes revealed that not all untrained relations emerged for all participants. In a multiple baseline across participants design, we evaluated the effect of a training intervention on the emergence of complex intraverbals. The intervention consisted of explicit training with conditional/contextual stimuli present in test probes, which were not present during the training phases. Specifically, participants were trained to state "landmark" in the presence of the two landmark contextual cues involved in training. Once mastery was demonstrated across both contextual cue landmark training and the maintained baseline relations, test probes were repeated. Preliminary results suggest that vocal intraverbal training may facilitate the emergence of complex intraverbals.

The establishment of listener behavior (for example, via auditory-visual match-to-sample training) does not reliably result in the emergence of untrained vocal-verbal behavior among young children. The present study evaluated the effects of including collateral echoic response requirements in listener training trials. Three typically-developing preschool-age children participated. An adapted multielement design was used to compare the effects of two conditions on listener behavior acquisition and the emergence of novel tacts and intraverbals. In the standard listener training (LT) condition, participants were trained to point to a visual stimulus given a spoken Japanese word. In the collateral response training (CRT) condition, participants were required to echo the spoken Japanese word before being given the opportunity to make a selection response. Three Japanese words were taught in each condition, and tacts and intraverbals were probed throughout training. Once the mastery criterion was met in both conditions, the evaluation was repeated with new stimulus sets for two participants. The results did not indicate that CRT reliably enhanced either acquisition or the emergence of tacts and intraverbals. A second experiment will evaluate the effects of interspersing listener trials with tact trials on the emergence of intraverbals.

This study investigated the role of naming on abstraction, and verified whether participants would respond as listener and speaker to novel combinations between properties of pictures, and to the isolated properties after the establishment of naming relations to three combinations. Four boys with autism, and one with intellectual disability, ages between three and 12, participated. Stimuli were three patterns, three geometric shapes, and nine combinations between them, presented in two sets, A (dictated words) and B (pictures). Initially, all relations were pretested. Then, listener relations training to three combinations was introduced through matching-to-sample tasks. Criterion was followed by a tact test for the three combinations, and listener relations and tact posttests for the six novel combinations, and for the patterns and shapes separately. Three participants showed the emergence of tacts, suggesting the presence of naming, and the emergence of listener relations and tacts for the novel combinations and properties. By contrast, two participants who failed to tact the three combinations also failed to respond accurately during the listener relations posttests for novel combinations. These results suggest that naming may facilitate the emergence of abstraction, and contribute for the development of an economical procedure for teaching verbal behavior in applied settings.

Complex visual perspective taking (CVPT) consists of responding differentially according to the visual perception of oneself and another person when both people are seeing the same object from different perspectives. The goal of this study was to identify the necessary skills to show CVPT. First, we analyzed 3 response tasks of the CVPT (verbal, picture selection, and object selection) with five 3-year-old children. Three children succeeded on the verbal task, one child met the criterion on the picture selection task, and none succeeded on the object selection task. Two children who did not succeed on the verbal task received a verbal probe; then, they showed the emergence on the verbal task, and one of them on the remaining selection tasks. Thereafter, four children received a verbal procedure based on interspersing trials of the verbal task with trials of one of the other tasks, without differential reinforcement. All children showed the emergence of the remaining selection tasks that they failed initially. Thus, we found that CVPT is essentially a verbal capability that can be induced with careful verbal behavior procedures that involve probes.

It is widely believed that consciousness itself, that Holy Grail of science and philosophy, will soon be given a neural explanation. And yet, after decades of research, only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious-how it gives rise to sensation, feeling, and subjectivity-has emerged unchallenged: we don't have a clue. In this lecture I propose that we've been looking for an explanation of consciousness in the wrong place. Rather than being something that happens inside us, consciousness is something we do. An outmoded and unproductive philosophy has held the science of consciousness captive. It is time to free ourselves and move toward a better understanding of ourselves. In this lecture I lay out the basic argument of my recent book Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (Hill and Wang 2009).

B. F. Skinner's teaching machines are often described as revolutionary, yet controversial, contributions to education in the archives of education and psychology literature. Less credit has been given to Dr. Skinner's substantial impact on contemporary and emerging accountability practices in education today. Namely, the significant impact on the development of modern assessment models employing interrupted time series analysis techniques to measure students' acquisition, mastery and generalization of instructional content. Various iterations of single-case experimental designs have been used in the design and implementation of behavioral treatments for children with low-incidence handicapping conditions for many years. Only recently has this approach begun to gain widespread acceptance in the general education setting. This presentation will highlight the origins of the response-to-intervention (RtI) model in the United States in the context of the identification of children with disabilities. Discussion will also focus on more recent developments in the education arena involving the use of interrupted time series data to frequently monitor progress, rapidly modify instruction, and maximize teacher and learner effectiveness in the classroom. The foundation for these remarkable developments in accountability in American education today was made possible through Dr. Skinner's seminal and enormously creative approach to measuring the behavior of organisms.

The basic principles of effective behavior change are relevant to work with any and all species, and insight garnered from experience in arranging environments and contingencies to support change can benefit applied behavior analysts no matter the species. The concept behind this symposium was to share snippets of practice found to be fundamental to effective and humane behavior change. The symposium provides three strategies for use in behavior management and behavior change in applied animal behavior. The first talk highlights the core principles of effective, humane teaching and behavior management methodologies. The second presentation discusses various models of behavior assessment and how combining strategies while preserving the fundamentals of functional assessment can benefit behavior analysts working in applied animal behavior. The third presentation discusses best practice while shaping behavior, drawing from experience and science to instruct the shaper in how to manage criterion increases to avoid frustration and how to observe and reinforce approximations arising from the natural variation in any operant class.

Hidden in the word PARROT are six core principles of effective, humane teaching strategies and behavior management: power, approximations, reinforcement, repetition, observable behavior, and teaching opportunities. These principles are relevant to working with all species of animals from domestic to exotic, captive and free ranging. Understanding each principle and arranging the environment to reflect them affords animals the best possible chance of achieving behavioral health and sustaining lifelong relationships with their caregivers.

Behavior analytic assessment and treatment design in applied animal behavior management includes descriptive and, when possible, functional analysis of the target response. Clinical animal behavior assessment, a term coined by practitioners of veterinary medicine, acknowledges a role for behavior analysis but places that role in the area of treatment; assessment is reliant on diagnosis by recognition of constellations of responses identified in a diagnostic catalog. Traditionally, practitioners within each of the two schools have considered their approach to assessment incomparable, and have actively avoided all other approaches. Behavior analytic practitioners, however, may benefit from a familiarity with the clinical diagnostic protocol and its taxonomic identification of species specific responding and, thereby, establishing operations. Such knowledge may help inform response analysis and subsequent functional assessment of the target responding.

As the technology of behavior change become more widespread, it is not unusual for animal behavior professionals to find the details of best practice in the human applied behavior analysis (ABA) literature. In several well-respected college textbooks differential reinforcement of successive approximations (AKA shaping) is described as a procedure in which the teacher raises the criterion to move the learner from one approximation to the next. What is not well described is how to get the learner to offer the next behavioral criterion. Withholding reinforcement for previously reinforced approximations relies on triggering frustration-induced variability, that is, surfing the extinction burst. In the case of shaping, animal trainers have articulated best practice by putting the onus on the trainer to observe and reinforce the next approximation from the natural variation in any operant class and to reduce the criterion before frustration occurs. This approach to shaping will be discussed.

Interest in Skinner's third level of selection (the cultural level) has grown substantially during the last 2 decades. During that period the primary emphasis has been on theoretical and conceptual work. Building on that base, the cultural analytic sub-discipline has recently moved increasingly toward applied work. Both conceptual and applied cultural analysis are represented in this symposium, but all of the papers have an applied emphasis. In his paper, Dr. Richard Rakos follows reports on how advances in cultural analytic science have refined his earlier analyses, supporting "humane capitalism" as the most promising direction for cultural stability and survival. Recognizing the need for environmental sustainability for cultural survival, Dr. Mark Alavosius discusses an extension of the work of the Cambridge Center for Behavior Studies in accrediting sustained and effective behavioral safety programs within corporations. He outlines plans for an accreditation program to recognize corporate achievement in promoting environmentally-friendly ("green") behavior. Dr. Joao Claudio Todorov then will report on a UNESCO-funded project intended to arrange metacontingencies promoting peaceful relations in schools in Ceilandia, a satellite city of Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil. This project collaboratively engages community institutions and organizations in a replication of the cultural analytic PEACE POWER strategy. Finally, Dr. Mark Mattaini will outline behavior analytic and cultural analytic principles underlying constructive noncooperation, a powerful strategy for nonviolent resistance to, and liberation from, oppression.

Skinner (1971) argued that cultures that survive are "good." Over 20 years ago, I (Rakos, 1988, 1989) suggested that socialism, unlike capitalism, was an unstable socioeconomic-political system because it established environmental conditions that were incompatible with behavior theory. Today, with capitalism's actual triumph over socialism, the question becomes what version of capitalism-laissez faire or highly regulated-does behavior theory predict will be stable and survive-and therefore be considered as "good?" An analysis of behavioral principles and concepts suggests that cultures that survive will balance individual and social interests (i.e., reinforcements), and thereby promote both industrious and cooperative behavior as well as a varied mix of secondary reinforcers. The degree to which balanced interests are related to cultural survival is compared to the cultural impact of unbalanced individual interests by examining several recent large-scale cultural phenomena, including the 2008 recession. I conclude that balanced interests, like those found in regulated capitalism, promote cultural stability; thus a "humane" capitalism that promotes social as well as individual interests is more likely to survive as a culture and be understood as "good."

This paper describes development of an accreditation program to recognize corporate achievement in promoting environmentally-friendly behavior. Many corporations increasingly emphasize their stewardship of the environment. Usually this entails adoption of eco-friendly processes and technologies; in some cases it involves promotion of "green-behaviors" by employees and/or consumers. Increasingly companies and their products are labeled as "green" but often criteria to support such claims are poorly defined. Accreditation and recognition of these initiatives might strengthen commitment to the environment and responsible behavior by industry leaders. The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (CCBS) is a non-profit organization promoting the application of behavior analysis towards amelioration of social problems. Currently the CCBS accredits sustained and effective behavioral safety programs within corporations. This safety accreditation process might be revised and extended to "green behaviors" and prove fruitful for promoting environmental protection. Challenges to this systematic replication include measuring "green behaviors" within large corporate systems, detecting effects on the environment, benchmarking sites, and recognizing potential externalities such "green behaviors" might entail. Solutions likely require evaluation of organized units within industries ("green teams") that target environmentally damaging behaviors, seek alternative "green behaviors," apply systemic interventions to promote them and assess impact.

All public schools (89) of Ceilândia, a satellite city of Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil, were offered the possibility of participating in a project intended to promote peaceful relations in the schools. To do that, a Forum was established through invitations made to business leaders, school principals, and community leaders belonging to nongovernmental organizations, civic associations, churches, federal and local officials and the school police. On August 5 and 6, 2010, during a workshop organized to present the project; Mark Mattaini presented his “Peace Power” project, which was commented by Sigrid Glenn, Ingunn Sandaker, and Telmo Eduardo Peña Correal. The attendees then had time to question the presenters. As a result of the workshop most of the invited attendees and/or their organizations decided to work within a permanent forum supervising the work in the schools. Teachers and students of the courses of Psychology, Education, Administration, Interior Design, Journalism, Publicity and Law are participating in the work with one school that accepted the invitation and was selected by the Forum to be a pilot project. The Forum will choose adequate aggregate products and orient university teachers and students on how to help establish interlocked behavioral contingencies to better reach those aggregate products. In this presentation, Dr. Todorov will report on results thus far.

Mohandas Gandhi often indicated that nonviolence was "a science," and he appears to have meant this literally. Consistent with this vision, in this paper, I will outline and apply principles of behavioral systems science, an emerging data-based approach to understanding the dynamics of complex cultural systems, to the practice of constructive noncooperation (Gandhi's "constructive programme"). Although Gandhi emphasized that constructive action was the most important and potent of nonviolent strategic options, constructive alternatives have been the least developed in the literature of nonviolent resistance. History, however, generally supports Gandhi's assertion. A reconceptualization of constructive noncooperation in behavioral systems terms suggests that rigorous analysis of Havel's "living in truth" and Gandhi's "truth force" may be both possible and practically useful in challenging oppression and supporting human rights. Such analysis moves beyond existing largely ad hoc understandings of effective nonviolent struggle, and suggests directions for real world experimentation. Given the enormous human costs and poor record of sustainable success for violent strategies of resistance, insurgency and rebellion, the rigorous exploration of alternatives is a critically important emphasis for applied cultural analysis.

The current symposium includes four papers addressing current practices or refinements in preference and reinforcer assessments. The first presenter will review data from a survey that was completed by 406 individuals who serve individuals with developmental disabilities. The author will discuss current practices among clinicians and educators for identifying reinforcers and potential barriers to conducting preference assessments across professions. The second presenter will review data on preference stability of four different preference assessment methods. In addition, this author will discuss levels of problem behavior that occurred across assessments for individuals with socially maintained problem behavior. The third presenter will review levels of participants responding when tokens or edibles are delivered under varying schedule requirements. The author will discuss the relative reinforcing effects of tokens versus edibles during varying progressive-ratio and fixed-ratio schedule values. The forth presenter will review data on the effects of brief sampling on preference and operant performance when controls for response effort and stimulus control are and are not used. The author will discuss whether the findings suggest that establishing operations (EO) effects attributed to sampling may be a function of response effort and stimulus control.

Research has demonstrated that reinforcers identified by conducting pre-treatment stimulus preference assessments (SPAs) can be used to teach new skills and to decrease problem behavior. Although applied researchers utilize SPAs prior to treatment, it is not clear whether practitioners in applied settings use SPAs on a regular basis. The purpose of the current investigation was to distribute a survey to determine the degree to which SPAs and other methods of reinforcer identification are implemented in agencies serving individuals with disabilities. A total of 406 individuals completed the survey. Our findings suggest that the majority of clinicians and educators rely exclusively on indirect means of identifying reinforcers (e.g., parent or caregiver interviews). Individuals with certification in behavior analysis were much more likely to use at least one published SPA (89%) than non-certified professionals (34%). The percentage of respondents who reported using at least one type of SPA varied across terminal degree possessed: behavior analysis, 89%; psychology, 77%; and special education, 44%. Individuals who worked in public schools were much more likely to rely exclusively on indirect assessment methods than individuals in other settings. Barriers to conducting SPAs and potential weaknesses in training curricula across professions are discussed.

We extended previous research on the relative utility of preference assessments by comparing the preference stability and problem behavior across four different preference assessment methods. Four individuals with an autism spectrum disorder, who exhibited problem behavior maintained by social reinforcement, participated in this study. We used a multielement experiment design to compare outcomes across four different preference assessments, including the paired-stimulus (PS), the multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO), the free-operant (FO), and the response-restriction (RR) methods. We conducted each assessment at least four times. Preference stability was rarely observed consistently, with only one of four participants showing consistently stable preferences across methods. Across participants, preference stability was observed most often during the PS preference assessment and was observed least often during the FO preference assessment. Results showed that the PS method was more likely to evoke problem behavior among the four participants. The implications of these findings for determining the most appropriate preference assessment method for individuals who exhibit problem behavior maintained by social reinforcement will be discussed.

Tokens are often used in academic classrooms to maintain responding during periods of delay. However, few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of tokens under a range of differing response requirements. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate levels of responding emitted by individuals with intellectual disabilities, under two forms of varying schedule requirements, with and without tokens. Following the establishment of tokens as conditioned reinforcers, the relative effects of tokens and the edible reinforcers for which tokens could be exchanged were evaluated under two kinds of progressively increasing schedule requirements: progressive-ratio schedules and fixed-ratio schedules of varying values. Although the results were mixed, generally, the edible reinforcers supported greater levels of responding than tokens exchangeable for those edible reinforcers across a range of response requirements.

Sampling (exposure to a reinforcer prior to a session) has been shown most often to function as an abolishing operation (AO) in that (a) selections of the stimulus decrease during a subsequent preference assessment or (b) responding maintained by access to the stimulus as a reinforcer subsequently decreases. However, establishing operation (EO) effects have been reported in two studies when sampling was brief rather than extended. Closer examination of these studies suggests that procedures coincidental with the sampling condition may have been responsible for observed results. The present study first examines the effects of brief sampling on preference and operant performance and subsequently examines the effects of sampling with and without controls for effort and stimulus control to see if establishing operation (EO) effects attributed to sampling are a function of these latter variables. Results obtained thus far show that sampling does not increase selection of low-preference items over high-preference items. Mixed results have been observed with selection of high-preference items over other high-preference items.

Preference assessment methodology is a well-researched and established behavioral practice for individuals with a wide variety of disabilities. Although a large amount of literature supports the use of preference assessments with individuals with developmental disabilities, several empirical questions are still present that warrant further inquiry. This symposium will assess the current body of preference literature, present an investigation of the use of a moderate category in preference assessments, investigate the utility of brief mulitiple stimuli without replacement (MSWO) assessments, and assess preference for language used during instruction. All studies were completed with individuals with autism or other developmental disabilities. Implications for practice and potential directions for future research will be discussed.

Since 2002, the body of literature examining choice interventions and preference assessments for individuals with severe to profound disabilities has grown substantially. This paper is an extension of the Lancioni et al. (1996) and Cannella et al. (2005) papers and reviews 50 studies conducted between 2002 and 2010 that were divided into five categories: (a) effectiveness of various preference assessment formats and methodologies, (b) comparisons of specific components of preference assessments, (c) underlying mechanisms of preference, (d) effects of choice on behavior, and (e) staff and participant training. Findings from these studies support previous research findings in that choice was an effective intervention for changing behavior, reinforcers were identified for individuals with severe to profound disabilities using preference assessments, and participants were taught to make, and staff were trained to provide, choices. Other major findings highlight some mechanisms that underlie preference and provide insight into some nuances of the various preference assessment methodologies. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications on practice related to individuals with severe to profound disabilities and suggestions for future research are provided.

Three children with mental retardation and/or autism participated in a study evaluating the reinforcing effectiveness of moderate- and low-preference stimuli. Nine multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessments were conducted assessing tangible and edible stimuli. The items categorized as moderate- and low-preference using the Ciccone, Graff, and Ahearn (2005) point weighting scoring method were reassessed. The items ranked high-, moderate-, and low-preference from the assessments were then evaluated during the reinforcer assessments. An alternating treatments design was implemented and data were compared to baseline using an A-B design. Two participants' responding increased as the low-, moderate-, and high-preference reinforcement contingencies were implemented. For one participant, the moderate- and high-preference stimuli produced responding at 100%. One participant had minimal responding relative to baseline across all three stimuli. This study extends previous research by demonstrating the MSWO is an effective and efficient technique to identify reinforcers.

Preference assessments have been demonstrated to be effective for identifying reinforcers for individuals with severe disabilities, but it may be possible to shorten the assessment methodology to improve efficiency while maintaining accuracy. Previous research has demonstrated the efficacy of a brief multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment (MSWO; e.g., Carr, Nicolson, & Higbee, 2000). The purpose of this investigation was to compare MSWO formats to determine if reinforcers could be reliably identified with shorter assessments for three individuals with severe disabilities. Specifically, five-, three-, and single-session formats were compared to determine if reinforcing items were identified with the shorter assessment formats. Subsequent reinforcer assessments indicated that for one participant, a reinforcer was identified with each assessment format. Data for the other two participants indicated a reinforcer was identified only with the five-session assessment.

Preference evaluations have been used to determine children's preferences, for reinforcers, consequences and even preferred instructional strategies. One area that has yet to be evaluated is children's preference for language of instruction. A concurrent chains method was used to evaluate children's preference for English vs. Spanish instruction. Three colored (blue, green, and yellow) micro switches were used to represent English Instruction, Spanish instruction and control (no language) followed by a preferred reinforcer after instruction. Children were taught the chains for each micro switch through exposure trials. During choice sessions all three switches were placed in front of the child and the child was allowed to choose a switch which then initiated the chain associated with that particular switch. Results are presented and implications for person centered planning and instruction is discussed.

Direct measurement has long been a cornerstone of applied behavior analysis as a science and as a professional practice and is frequently considered the gold standard of behavioral assessment. Direct observation is characterized by human observers scoring the interactions between a target individual and their environment in accord with written operational definitions of each event. It is taken as a given that error will be introduced as a function of both human and methodological factors. The current set of studies was designed to evaluate the accuracy of human collected direct observation data.

The quality of measurement in natural and applied sciences is generally assessed and assured through calibration studies. Applied behavior analysts have typically relied on interobserver agreement to perform that task, although the inadequacy of that approach alone for the purpose has long been acknowledged. We demonstrated some of the basic features of calibration using observer-measured rates of free operant responding from ten 10-min calibration samples on video. Five observers were experienced with continuous recording to laptop computers, and five were novices. Their results were compared with reference values (i.e., known rates of responding in the samples) using linear regression. Rates of responding in the samples varied between zero and 8.0 responses per minute. Observer's accuracy was measured graphically from regression lines, and precision was estimated from plotted 95% confidence intervals for prediction. The measurements of four experienced observers and one novice across the range of rates were accurate to one decimal place and within+/- 0.1 responses per minute precision. Continuous recording of responding can be highly accurate and precise, we concluded. Additional research is recommended to investigate further the conditions under which high quality data on the basic dimensions of behavior can be obtained from direct observational recording.

Interobserver agreement (IOA) indices of 80% or higher are often treated as evidence that direct observational measurement methods are both accurate and reliable. That assumption is flawed, however: accuracy and reliability are different aspects of measurement, and IOA indices reveal nothing about either (Johnston & Pennypacker, 2009). We compared accuracy, reliability, and IOA indices for measurements recorded by four observers. Each observer recorded data on three videotaped samples of a 5-step behavior chain. Those recorded values were compared to (a) true values (i.e. an expert's careful recording of the samples) to evaluate the accuracy of each observer's measurement; (b) values recorded a week later on the same sample by the same observer to evaluate intraobserver reliability; and (c) values recorded independently by another observer for the same sample, i.e., standard IOA. As shown in the table that follows, in 10 of 20 instances where IOA indices would have been considered acceptable for publication purposes (> 80%), accuracy scores were below 90%. In no instance was accuracy 100%. Accuracy scores were higher than IOA scores in 15 of 24 instances. Thus it would be wrong to conclude anything about the accuracy of the recorded data from the IOA indices in any of those instances. In 4 instances where an observer's measurements were highly accurate (> 90%), IOA scores were < 80%, probably because the values recorded by the other observer in the pair were not very accurate. In those instances, inferences about the effect of an independent variable on the behavior likely would have been reasonably sound if they were based on the data recorded by one observer in the pair, but not the other observer's data. A similar lack of correspondence was found among intraobserver reliability, accuracy, and IOA scores within observers. These findings illustrate the necessity of evaluating all aspects of measurement, and raise serious questions about conclusions drawn by researchers and practitioners where IOA was the only aspect of measurement that was evaluated.

Teachers often serve as data collectors for the problem behavior of referred students in their classrooms; yet, the accuracy of teacher data collection has rarely been directly assessed. Momentary time sampling (MTS) may be a potentially useful option for teacher data collection because it does not require continuous monitoring, but rather requires the teacher to score the occurrence or non-occurrence of targeted behaviors at given instances. Research has shown that the smaller the interval between observations, the less methodological error will be introduced into MTS. However, the use of short-interval windows requires additional effort on the part of the teacher, and data collection becomes potentially more susceptible to competition with the teachers other responsibilities. It is not clear based upon previous research to what extent human error influences the accuracy of MTS data. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate the amount of methodological, human, and total error introduced during MTS data collection within both a highly controlled experimental context, in which the duration of occurrence was determined, and two naturalistic classroom settings. In addition, data regarding teacher's preferences for each MTS interval were also collected as a measure of social validity. In highly controlled settings, results demonstrated that the amount of methodological and total error tended to increase as the MTS interval became longer and that human error was observed to be low across all MTS intervals. Results from data that were obtained within a classroom reveal a similar pattern.

Clinical and educational consultants working in schools are rarely capable of directly observing problem behavior continuously during the school day. Those that rely on direct observation will typically conduct observational samples (e.g., 3, 15-min observations per day) with the hopes that those observations are representative of performance during the remainder of the day. No research of which we are aware has determined the quantity of duration of observations that should be conducted to identify an adequately representative sample. In the current study, we continuously observed the problem behavior of 4 referred students during their entire school day for one week. We then randomly extracted observational samples from these observations to determine both the frequency and duration of observations required to correspond to the total observation.

Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of behavioral intervention for childhood autism, a number of questions remain about how to maximize the assessment and effects of reinforcement. The present data-based symposium will address the following topics: the effects of praise as a reinforcer, developing conditioned reinforcers, evalating the reinforcing effects of novel items, and using video during stimulus preference assessment.

Descriptive praise has been widely recommended as a reinforcement strategy for learners with disabilities. However, the strategy has received little research attention and what little research exists is not particularly supportive. In the present investigation, descriptive and general praise were evaluated during language instruction with four children with autism spectrum disorders. Neither strategy was consistently differentially effective, with or without additional forms of reinforcement.

Although conditioned reinforcers are used in many behavioral intervention programs for individuals with developmental disabilities, little research has been conducted with this population to determine optimal methods for producing conditioned reinforcers. The current study employed a multiple-probe design across stimuli with three children with autism to evaluate the effects of a discrimination training procedure on the reinforcing effectiveness of arbitrary stimuli. Specific procedures were incorporated to increase methodological rigor (i.e., use of new response, reinforcer and neutral stimulus assessments) and enhance differential responding (i.e., alternation of SD and S-delta trials). For all three participants, responding in the SD condition increased briefly during all evaluations and remained low in the S-delta condition. Recommendations for future research on methods to increase the duration of these effects are provided.

Indirect preference assessments are often used to identify a pool of familiar, highly preferred stimuli for further direct assessment. As a result, direct preference assessments typically exclude stimuli caregivers are unfamiliar with and which the individual has had little or no contact. The inclusion of novel stimuli in a preference assessment allows for the identification of diverse preferences; increasing the number and variety of potential reinforcers. This study evaluated preference for (a) staff-reported high preference stimuli, and (b) experimenter-selected novel stimuli in a paired-stimulus preference assessment with young children with autism. Results of the paired stimulus preference assessment revealed preference for novel stimuli. A progressive-ratio reinforcer assessment was then conducted comparing the top ranked novel stimulus and staff-reported high preference stimulus. Results indicated that novel and reportedly high preference stimuli were equally effective reinforcers when presented concurrently, but that novel stimuli produced higher break points than reportedly high-preference stimuli when presented in a single operant paradigm.

The identification of potent reinforcers is vital to successful behavior intervention programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. Research indicates that systematic preference assessments more effectively identify reinforcing stimuli than caregiver or teacher report. However, most research on preference assessments has been limited to the evaluation of edible or tangible stimuli. Different kinds of social interactions (e.g., verbal praise or tickles) also may function as reinforcers; however, it is challenging to assess preference for these kinds of stimuli. Social interactions may not have an associated tangible item, and are not easily represented in the traditional 2D or 3D format. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using video clips to represent social reinforcers in a preference assessment for preschoolers with autism. In Experiment 1, we are evaluating the correspondence between object-based and video-based paired-stimulus preference assessments of toys. In Experiment 2, we are examining the extent to which a video-based paired-stimulus preference assessment of social interactions accurately identifies effective reinforcers for preschoolers with autism, as indicated by a progressive-ratio schedule reinforcer evaluation.

The term procedural integrity refers to the implementation of an intervention as intended (Codding, Feinberg, Dunn, & Pace, 2005) or as the inter-observer agreement measures on the occurrence or non-occurrence of the independent variables (Billingsley, White, & Munson, 1980). High procedural integrity involves an experimenter measuring what they intended to measure, or implementing a treatment plan exactly as it was intended. The current symposium addresses the issue of procedural integrity with respect to data entry, behavior plan and task analysis implementation. In the first study examined group emails as the mode of feedback as intervention for improving data entry of student lessons by teachers. In the second study examined which components of a previously researched treatment package may be vital in contributing to teacher skill acquisition with respect to implementation of behavior plans. In the final study we examined the use of self scoring staff performance using a videotape and a pre-made data sheet to use when conducting a task analysis while attempting to determine if scoring ones own performance on video is an effective tool for boosting implementation of a task analysis and if those effects would maintain for 40 minutes, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week and 1 month.

Performance feedback is the most effective tool for maintaining or producing procedural integrity. Feedback delivered can be verbal, graphical, or video (Reid & Parsons, 1995). Public posting has been effective to modify target behaviors in various settings' education, health services and sports. Within the technology and social networking age, many people rely on communications via electronic media such as email. One aspect of performance feedback not yet fully explored is the effectiveness of emailed feedback. Although considered private, emails sent to a group of individuals could be considered public posting. The use of email potentially provides supervisors with an effective time saving method of providing feedback. The present study evaluates the effectiveness of group e-mails on the summary of lesson data for twenty three students across three residential classrooms. Data summary were collected using the Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia and the Data Analysis and Reporting Tool on the occurrence of a stimulus introduced date. Weekly e-mails were sent to all members of the team. Group e-mails resulted in an increase in data summary information for all three teams. The effects of increasing levels of intrusiveness of the e-mail content are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

The level of procedural integrity (the systematic implementation of an independent variable as written and defined) can influence the outcomes of a behavioral intervention and/or skill acquisition (Wilder, D.A., Atwell, J., & Wine, B. 2006). Modeling, didactic training, written instruction, performance feedback, public posting and role playing have all been used in an attempt to improve procedural integrity. Unfortunately, these options are both time consuming and require a skilled trainer to implement. The current study is a component analysis of a previous study in which the researchers found that a procedural integrity treatment package resulted in improvements for 18 of 21 participants. The intervention consisted of participants scoring a pre recorded video of their implementing a behavior program. In the current study researchers examined possible component effects of the treatment package in order to determine if all aspects of the intervention were necessary to produce socially significant improvements in procedural integrity.

Procedural integrity is described as the systematic implementation of an independent variable as written and defined; different levels of procedural integrity influence the outcomes of a behavioral intervention and/or skill acquisition (Wilder, D.A., Atwell, J., & Wine, B. 2006). In light of this, the effectiveness of a task analysis program may be influenced by the integrity with which that program is implemented. The current study assessed the effects of video-taping staff member implementation of a task analysis procedure followed by that staff member watching the video and scoring their own performance on a pre-made data sheet. Initial baseline data was recorded on participants implementing the task analysis procedure prior to intervention. Staff members were then videotaped implementing the task analysis and were also required to watch the video while scoring their own performance. Following the scoring of the video, follow up observations were conducted at 40 minutes, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week and 1 month following intervention for the applicable group.

Despite years of reigning alone as a research based treatment for children with autism, applied behavior analysis (ABA) remains underutilized. The famous and influential proponents of fad treatments in autism seem to be winning the battle, while people with autism are losing the war. Professional referrals, parents' perceptions, and representations of ABA in printed media (e.g., text books, magazines, and newspapers) influence these treatment choices and perceptions of ABA. Despite these influences, behavior analysts must remain ethical.

Parents of children with autism have been faced with many challenges in identifying and selecting effective treatment options for their children. The history of autism treatment has been plagued with ineffective fad therapies which misuse parents' and children's time, energy, and monetary resources. This paper identifies several influences to parents' decisions to adopt fad treatments (e.g., referral sources, media, or scholarly sources) and proposes the need for a multifaceted dissemination strategy for applied behavior analysis.

The famous and influential proponents of fad treatments in autism appear continuously in print media through magazine covers, newspaper articles, and popular books. Beautiful faces, eloquent words, and misrepresentations discreditapplied behavior analysis (ABA)and support fad treatments. This presentation will offer a glimpse into the print media's representation of ABA to the general public and to students.

Rather than ushering in a new age of science, the 21st century seems to have brought a significant expansion of superstitious beliefs, magical thinking, and the frauds that go with them. Unconstrained by concepts such as validity, reliability, rationality, logic, evidence, or ethics, anti-science and pro-fad beliefs have proliferated in the media and internet. Thus emboldened and enabled, seemingly everyone from well-meaning enthusiasts to opportunistic scam artists has targeted autism with an energy previously unseen in the history of medical pseudoscience. In the face of this, we not only see parents and other professionals persuaded to reject applied behavior analysis (ABA) in favor of non-science-based treatments, members of our self-consciously scientific profession, behavior analysis, are seen adopting the same questionable and disproven methods. Having had the advantages of more than a century of psychological science, it is no longer possible to accept that any popular notion about behavior problems or their treatment is likely to be as good as any other. To be ethical, we must be empirical. Thus, to be empirical is not just to have a practical advantage. It is a moral obligation for behavior analysts, and must extend beyond making decisions about contingencies of reinforcement to all aspects of professional behavior.

This symposium reviews developments in stimulus control research with relevant implications for practitioners working with students diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities. The first paper extended the work conducted by Debert et al. (2007). The acquisition of conditional relations and the emergence of derived relations were compared using three different procedures: go/no-go, go/no-go with a yes/no component, and match-to-sample (MTS). Three typical adults, ages 23-25, participated. Results indicated that alternatives to MTS procedures were effective in teaching conditional discriminations. The second paper used paper-and-pencil format to compare MTS and sorting procedures. Conditional relations among abstract stimuli were established, and tests for the emergence of equivalence were conducted. Two typically developing adults participated. The relations among AB and AC stimuli were trained using MTS and sorting procedures, and tests of BA and CB relations were conducted. Results indicated that sorting was an effective procedure. The third paper made use of an alternative to table-top presentation of MTS procedures. A student with a history of failure to acquire conditional relations among stimuli was exposed to a computer program presenting auditory-visual MTS tasks. Successful acquisition of the relations was later generalized to the classroom environment.

Match-to-sample procedures (MTS) are often implemented to train conditional relations and to test for emergent relations among arbitrary stimuli. In 2007, Debert, Matos, and McIlvane evaluated if a single-key procedure (go/no-go) could be an alternative to the traditional MTS procedures to teach conditional discriminations and to test for emergent relations in humans. The current study replicated and extended Debert et al. The acquisition of conditional relations and the emergence of derived relations with abstract stimuli were compared using three different procedures: go/no-go, go/no-go with a yes and no component, and MTS. Three typically developing females, ages 23-25, participated in visual-visual tasks during a series of table-top presentations. AB and BC relations were directly trained, and AC and CA relations were tested. All participants demonstrated the emergence of new, untrained relations with all three procedures. The current results replicated the findings of Debert et al. and extended previous findings by evaluating a go/no-go with a yes/no component which may serve as an alternative method to the traditional MTS. Additionally, the current study provided a comparison across all three procedures for each participant.

Match-to-sample procedures (MTS) are often implemented to train conditional relations and to test for emergent relations among arbitrary stimuli. In 1997, Eikeseth, Rosales-Ruiz, Duarte, and Baer evaluated the efficacy of using written instruction as an alternative to MTS to train conditional relations among stimuli. Smeets, Dymond, and Barnes-Holmes (2000) replicated Eikeseth et al. and introduced a sorting procedure to test for the emergence of equivalence relations among stimuli. The current study extended Smeets et al. further by using a paper-and-pencil format to compare MTS and sorting procedures. Conditional relations among abstract stimuli were established, and tests for the emergence of equivalence were conducted. Two typically developing adults were taught the relations among AB and AC stimuli using MTS and sorting procedures. Once baseline discriminations were established, tests for equivalence (BA and CB) were conducted under extinction. Preliminary results indicate that one participant demonstrated equivalence relations among stimuli with both procedures, however learned baseline discriminations faster with the sorting procedure. The second participant demonstrated equivalence only when baseline discriminations were established using the sorting procedure. The results so far indicate that sorting may be a procedure as effective as MTS for teaching conditional discriminations and establishing equivalence classes among arbitrary stimuli.

The current study evaluated an alternative protocol for teaching auditory-visual discrimination of letters of the alphabet to a 15-year-old boy diagnosed with autism. The discrimination consisted of an auditory visual matching-to-sample (MTS) with a three-letter array presented as comparison. Attempts to teach the discrimination using many of the standard protocols (i.e., time-delay prompting) in the classroom resulted in no progress and an extensive failure history (237 sessions over 7 months). Errors consisted of location bias, comparison bias, or consistent wrong sample-comparison selections. An alternative teaching MTS protocol using a computer was used. Training started with three letters presented in blocks of 12 trials and the first two trials of each block prompted. Over successive sessions, prompted trials and number of trials per block were faded. Results showed that a criterion of 90% independent correct responses across 3 consecutive sessions was achieved after 45 sessions. Learning immediately generalized to the classroom. A multiple baseline design was used to teach remaining letters of the alphabet. Issues concerning experimental control and application will be discussed.

Behavior analytic procedures can improve outcomes for children who engage in challenging behavior or display skill deficits. The impact of these procedures increases when they are implemented with high levels of integrity by individuals who have extensive contact with the child. The current series of studies examines barriers to improving fidelity and strategies that can be used to teach caregivers to implement procedures with high levels of treatment integrity.

Treatment integrity data are essential to drawing valid conclusions in treatment outcome studies. Such data, however, are not always included in peer-reviewed research articles. The purpose of the current study was to gain a better understanding of why treatment integrity data are lacking. This presentation will describe results of a study that replicated the methodology of Perepletchikova and Kazdin (2009) wherein authors of 210 treatment outcome articles published in four journals from 1995 through 2008 were surveyed. The Barriers to Treatment Integrity Implementation Survey-Revised covered five domains of barriers to addressing treatment integrity. Results indicated that (a) lack of theory and specific guidelines on treatment integrity procedures; and (b) time, cost, and labor demands were identified as barriers to assessing treatment integrity. Participants did not report lack of appreciation of treatment integrity, lack of general knowledge about treatment integrity, or lack of editorial requirements to be barriers to its implementation.

The present study utilized behavioral skills training to teach parents how to conduct ABC recording, write a summary statement based on the data collected, and make appropriate treatment choices. Eight parents participated in one 3 hour class in which a trainer used instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback to teach these three skill sets. Prior to class, during class, directly after class training, and 1 to 2 weeks following class, the participants viewed videos showing a problem behavior serving a different function in the context of a parent child interaction. The percentage of correct responding for each dependent variable (ABC recording, summary statement, and treatment choices) was calculated and baseline and post-treatment scores were compared via a multiple baseline across participants design. The results showed an increase in the percentage correct for most skills for most participants. These results show that it is possible to teach parents to conduct a functional assessment and chose proper treatment strategies.

A variety of staff training procedures can be used to train teachers, parents, and paraprofessionals to implement discrete-trial training (DTT) procedures. Although these procedures have been demonstrated to be effective at increasing accurate implementation of DTT procedures, the amount of time necessary to increase performance of these skills to acceptable levels is unclear. It may be relatively time-intensive to train individuals who have no prior experience with DTT. The purpose of the present study was to train paraprofessionals in a special education classroom to implement DTT using a combination of video modeling, rehearsal, and performance feedback. Three paraprofessionals participated in a 1-day training during which the components of DTT were taught. The paraprofessionals met the mastery criteria (i.e. 90%) for all of the skills during the 1-day training. Follow-up data collected following the training and 3 months after training showed that skills generalized and maintained.

Schools serving children on the autism spectrum face tremendous challenges due to the broad needs that must be addressed to appropriately serve this population. Children, adolescents, and young adults with very different skills and developmental needs receive educational services within a specialized school setting. For example, a growing number of students face severe difficulties with anxiety, which undermines their ability to benefit from instruction and develop the social skills that are essential to long-term success outside the school setting. All children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face challenges in communication and, as a result, schools must be prepared to provide evidence-based treatments with fidelity in this domain. In addition, irrespective of the level of developmental functioning, behavior problems may occur for any individuals with ASD as they try to manage the expectations placed on them by schools. This may be particularly challenging when a school system is very large. This symposium focuses on identifying and implementing strategies that improve and innovate services in a large school with special emphasis given to the domains of emotional difficulties, communication, and behavior.

Schoolwide positive behavior supports (SWPBS) has primarily been applied in public school settings and programs serving students with emotion/behavioral disorders. SWPBS is intended to provide a framework that results in all students within the system getting access to evidence-based practices for instructional and behavioral goals. This process involves taking a look at systemic variables that can support this goal. Thus, there is nothing incompatible in PBS with intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) programs. This presentation examines how the PBS model fits with a school having a rich history of providing IBI for students on the autism spectrum. The fit between PBS and IBI was first examined through a comprehensive needs assessment. The needs assessment resulted in a number of recommendations such as developing a school-wide and classroom-wide plan for improving student successes. The importance of helping staff understand the central role a student's individualized behavior support plan plays within PBS is reviewed.

Many individuals on the autism spectrum have difficulty managing anxiety. Because of deficits in communication-which can be especially impaired in anyone under situations of distress-staff does not always recognize the symptoms of anxiety in this population. This presentation addresses the need to provide appropriate services to individuals on the autism spectrum with respect to anxiety. The process of developing appropriate services began with a comprehensive needs assessment of one of May Institute's largest schools. It was determined that although many staff recognize the need to provide appropriate services to address emotional needs (e.g., cognitive behavioral intervention), they were not certain how best to obtain these services. As a result, few students were receiving these services. Development of a strategic process for increasing access to appropriate behavioral health services was developed. Recommendations included providing in-service training to staff, ensuring appropriate resources were available to provide these services to all students who would benefit from them, and the development of a team to manage this process. Like all other programming occurring in the school, a plan was put in place to collect data and to integrate these services into the student's overall educational program. Both the process for making these recommendations and the challenges in implementing these changes will be reviewed in this presentation.

Individuals on the autism spectrum experience different challenges when attempting to communicate with others. Day treatment programs must often be prepared to serve students that require picture exchange communication system (PECS) or augmentative communication and alternative (AAC) devices to communicate their needs. Schools must also ensure that are addressing the communication needs of students who communicate through speech but experience difficulties in the realm of social pragmatics. This presentation examines the process for assessing and developing plans to address the needs of all students with communication challenges within a large day treatment program. Assessment began with a thorough needs assessment. As a result of staff interviews, a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportinities and Theats), a review of records, and observations, a number of limitations were identified and recommendations were forwarded. This process resulted in an effort to help staff better understand the relationship between communication and behavior problems and the necessity of demonstrating treatment fidelity regarding the communication strategies employed.

The Tools for Positive Behavior Change curriculum is a competency based behavioral training curriculum developed and refined by a team of behavioral analysts and university researchers. The curriculum was designed to include the most effective behavioral interventions using teaching methodologies that evaluate not only content knowledge but application of that knowledge in real world settings. The Tools curriculum was implemented within the State of Florida in an effort to decrease placement disruptions within the child welfare system and to increase reunification between biological parents and their children. Although most heavily researched in its use within the child welfare system, given the broad scope of application and the individualized practice and coaching included in the curriculum, the Tools have use for a variety of individuals who have the potential to be change agents in their given home and community settings. This symposium will describe and show promising outcome data regarding the application of the Tools curriculum across a wide range of individuals including teachers, parents of children with autism, and therapists working in the community with individuals with developmental disabilities.

From 2001-2008, the Behavior Analysis Services Program (BASP) provided training, consultation and in-home services to Florida's foster care system. In 2008, financial support for BASP ceased. Fortunately, some privatized foster care agencies re-allocated monies and continued this service. Professional Crisis Management Association (PCMA) wanted to expand the scope of the training to include caregivers responsible for people with disabilities. In honor of Dr. Glenn Latham and BASP, the curriculum was revised to meet the needs of parents, teachers and direct care staff of this population. This presentation will discuss training modifications and how the BehaviorToolsTM training is spreading throughout the United States. A randomized clinical trail is being conducted to evaluate the effects of Behavior Skills Training [BST (i.e., BehaviorTools)] and Psycho-Educational Training (PET). Samples of individual and group data will be provided with regards to outcomes for parents of children with autism. Preliminary results suggest parental stress decreased following training versus the control group whose parental stress remained constant. However, parents who attend the BST training also experienced improvements in parenting skills and child behavior while the parents in the PET training and control group produced no such improvement in either parenting skills or child behavior.

Prior research suggests that booster trainings might be effective in improving the maintenance of skills gained from behavioral parent training [taught within a behavioral skills training model (BST)]. However, there is no known research on the effectiveness of booster training on the maintenance of skills gained by teachers after BST. In this study, analogue and in-situ pre-assessments were conducted with three teachers following an initial behavioral "tools" training which occurred several months previously. Results showed decreases in skill level occurred from the initial training. Therefore, a 3 hour booster was conducted with each individual teacher using a multiple baseline design across teachers. Following the training, analogue and in-situ post assessments were conducted with each teacher to determine if skill levels increased and generalized to the classroom setting. Results showed the booster training to be effective in raising teacher scores as measures of performance of skills learned in the training to higher than those before the training. Some scores were even higher than the post-training scores of the initial training. Generalization probes also indicated that the teachers were using the skills in the classroom with students.

This Cross-System Behavioral Training Collaborative was a project designed to increase the number of behavior analytic techniques being used within the state supported systems of South Dakota. The Essential Tools for Positive Behavior Change, a competency based behavioral training curriculum developed and refined by a team of behavioral analysts and university researchers in Florida, was used to teach these skills to agents of change who do not have a behavioral analytic background. Although the Tools curriculum has been most heavily researched within the child welfare system, it has also been used to train caregivers, teachers, and residential staff of children and adults with developmental disabilities. Because of the broad scope of application and the individualized practice and coaching, the Tools was taught using a train-the-trainer model for use with direct care staff, educators, parents, and therapists. Course participants attained scores between 0% correct and 100% correct on tool usage prior to completing the training. As a group, the trainers-in-training class increased from 53% to 94% pre- to post- assessment (pre-test range: 34% to 69%; post-test range: 88% to 100%). Their subsequent classes showed similar levels of improvement from pre to post score assessments.

This symposium will present three studies by graduates of the MS program in applied behavior analysis in the Department of Psychology at California State University. Each study investigated a different aspect of the analysis of verbal behavior. The first study used a multiple-baseline design to examine whether a Lag 3 schedule of reinforcement could produce varied intraverbal responding in a child with autism. Results showed that using progressive lag schedules, three novel responses were acquired and used according to the schedules in place. The second study compared echoic and tact prompting procedures on the acquisition of intraverbal behavior in three children with autism and showed that although both procedures were effective in establishing intraverbal relations in the 3 participants, fewer trials to criteria were required when the echoic condition was in place. The third study looked at the effects of joint control and the role of response mediation on the sequencing behavior of five typical adults using an unfamiliar language. Results showed that all participants acquired the sequencing response in fewer trials and maintained accurate delayed responding when the component responses necessary for joint control were directly taught, and that when the self-echoic mediation component was blocked, accurate responding deteriorated.

Past research has shown that reinforcing novel behaviors can increase the number of different ways that an animal behaves (Pryor, Haag, & OReilly, 1969; Goetz and Baer, 1973). However, it was not until more recently that Neuringer introduced the concept that variability was an operant in and of itself, and could be reinforced (2002). More specifically, variability can be taught and strengthened using a Lag-x schedule of reinforcement, in which x refers to the number of previous responses that the current response must differ from in order for reinforcement to occur (Page & Neuringer, 1985). The purpose of this study was to extend the only known study of a Lag-x schedule with intraverbal responses from human subjects (Lee, McComas, & Jawor, 2002), by increasing the lag criteria and accounting for methodological errors. The participant was a 7-year-old male with autism. A multiple baseline across lag criteria was used to show that multiple responses could be acquired and systematically varied using the lag schedule of reinforcement. Results showed that using progressive lag schedules, three novel responses were acquired and used according to the schedules in place.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two prompt procedures on the acquisition of intraverbals in children with autism. A multielement design was used to examine the relative rates of acquisition of intraverbals with each prompt procedure. Follow-up data was collected to assess any differences in maintenance. Both echoic and tact prompt procedures were effective in establishing intraverbal relations in three children diagnosed with autism. Fewer trials to criteria were required when the echoic condition was in place. Child preference was also assessed through the use of a concurrent chains arrangement. One participant demonstrated a preference for the echoic prompt procedure. The other 2 participants did not show a clear preference.

Various studies on joint control (e.g., Lowenkron, 1984, 1988, 1989) have demonstrated the importance of response mediation by training collateral overt responses (i.e. hand signs, mechanical representations of orientation, and lengths of lines) in order to make these responses observable. However, more recent studies have evaluated the self-echoic component of joint control without training collateral overt responses in order to make the tasks more authentic. (Lowenkron, 2006). The purpose of the current study was to replicate procedures used by Gutierrez (2006) by experimentally demonstrating the effects of joint control and particularly the role of response mediation on the sequencing behavior of five adults using an unfamiliar language. The present research extends the study by Gutierrez (2006) by comparing the effects of joint control training with a prompt and fade procedure on the acquisition of a sequencing task, as well as testing the effects of each procedure on delayed sequencing behavior. Results indicated that all participants acquired the sequencing response in fewer trials and maintained accurate delayed responding when the component responses necessary for joint control were directly taught. Furthermore, when the self-echoic mediation component was blocked, accurate responding deteriorated in 4 out of 5 participants. The results support the existence and necessity of the components.

For the most part, the primary verbal operants are distinguished by their antecedent controlling variables (e.g., motivating operations, discriminative stimuli). Certain verbal operant teaching procedures may occasionally result in erroneous stimulus control such that skill acquisition or maintenance is impaired. This symposium will include four studies evaluating potentially disruptive stimulus control effects during instruction of echoic, tact, mand, and listener repertoires with children with atism spectrum disorders.

Manding is typically the first verbal operant that is taught in early behavioral intervention programs. A relevant motivating operation (MO) must be present in order for a mand to occur, however, initial manding is typically taught using procedures that involve the simultaneous use of a number of different prompts (e.g., verbal antecedent "What do you want?") in addition to the presence of an MO (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). Though many studies have shown the effectiveness of these procedures, failure to fade the additional antecedents could theoretically impede spontaneous manding in the future. That is, the learner may acquire the verbal antecedent as a discriminative stimulus and may only request items after someone has asked them what they want. The purpose of the current study was to compare two procedures for teaching mands. A progressive time delay procedure was used to teach two children with language delays to mand for preferred items. A verbal antecedent "What do you want" was used in one condition and compared to a condition that included only the presence of the MO. Data show that the addition of the verbal antecedent did not impede mand acquisition or spontaneous mands following acquisition.

According to a strict Skinnerian perspective, the antecedent condition during tact training should involve only the presentation of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus (SD_ (at least during the initial stages of training). However, a common clinical practice is to also present to the learner a verbal instruction such as "What is this?" The present study evaluated forchildren with autism the effects of two different antecedent conditions on tact training and maintenance: visual stimulus versus visual stimulus + question. During tact training, one of the participants learned tacts faster under the visual stimulus + question condition; by contrast, another participant learned tacts faster when under the visual stimulus condition. During maintenance testing, newly acquired tacts from both training conditions were evaluated in the absence of instructor questions. No differential effects were observed for our first two participants. Finally, newly acquired tacts were also assessed in the natural environment. For one participant, no tacts were emitted and for another all of the trained tacts were emitted (irrespective of prior training history). Additional data from two other participants will also be presented.

Echolalia is common in children diagnosed with autism and may interfere with the development of functional language. When teaching an echoic repertoire, it is common to include the discriminative stimulus (SD) "say" with a targeted word or sound. For some children, appropriate stimulus control is established during this process and the child emits only the correct word or sound. For other children, appropriate stimulus control does not develop and the SD "say" and targeted word are echoed. The cues-pause-point (CPP) procedure has been effective in decreasing echolalia and increasing specific correct intraverbal responses in adults with mental retardation. The current investigation replicated the CPP procedure with a child with autism to establish appropriate stimulus control over echoic responses. Results indicated that echolalia of the SD "say" decreased and correct responding increased for all targets. A component analysis revealed that all components were necessary for correct responding.

Clinicians utilize two main approaches for teaching listener skills (i.e., receptive labeling) in early intervention programs: the simple/conditional and conditional only methods. Recent research demonstrated that the conditional only method was a more efficient teaching procedure than the simple/conditional method (Grow, Carr, Kodak, Jostad, & Kisamore, in press). Results also indicated that faulty stimulus control occurred more often during the simple/conditional method. The authors noted that the use of a least-to-most prompting procedure may have facilitated the establishment of faculty stimulus control. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend the Grow et al., study by comparing the simple/conditional and conditional only methods using an errorless prompting strategy (i.e., progressive time-delay). The study employed an adapted alternating treatments design to compare the teaching approaches. Two children aged 4-years-old participated in the study. The results replicated the findings from the Grow et al., study in that the conditional only method was a more efficient teaching method for teaching listener skills. The results are discussed in terms of the implications for current teaching practices in early intensive behavior intervention programs.

The panel will discuss the ideas presented in Alva Noe's lecture, and will include the author's response and questions from the audience.

The functional analysis (FA) procedures described by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richman (1982/1994) have been shown effective in determining variables maintaining behavior and have since been replicated and extended in hundreds of studies. In the current symposium, four papers are presented on procedural variations of FA and its effects outside of sessions. In the first paper, the authors evaluated the effects of fixed and random session sequences on response differentiation during functional analyses. In the second paper, the authors used multi-hour FA sessions to evaluate the function of behavior following standard-duration FAs that yielded undifferentiated responding. In the third paper, the authors compared the effects of a procedural variation of the attention condition, a divided attention condition, to a typical attention condition to determine whether problem behavior was more likely to occur during the typical or divided attention conditions. In the fourth paper, the authors evaluated whether rates of problem behavior differed following FA sessions relative to rates prior to FA sessions to determine whether FAs produced effects on the rate of problem behavior outside of the context of sessions.

It has been suggested that a fixed sequence of assessment conditions might facilitate differential responding during multielement functional analyses (Iwata, Pace, et al., 1994); however, the effects of condition sequence never has been empirically evaluated. We conducted concurrent, fixed- and random-sequence functional analyses (FAs) for eight participants who engaged in severe problem behavior to determine the relative effects, if any, that sequence may have on assessment outcomes. During the fixed sequence, experimental conditions were conducted in the following order: alone/ignore, attention, tangible (if applicable), play, and demand. During the random sequence, condition order was based on a draw. Results showed that the fixed sequence facilitated differential responding for four participants, whereas results seemed unaffected by condition sequence for three participants. Multiple sessions were required across both analyses-irrespective of condition order for the remaining participant. These results suggest that the fixed sequence should be used when conducting multielement FAs to maximize the proximate influence of establishing operations that are in effect during assessment.

This study set out to evaluate whether extended exposure to standard functional analysis (FA) conditions would produce differential responding in those cases where a standard FA did not produce differentiated responding. A multiple baseline design was used to assess the effects of extended exposure on response rate and differentiation for 4 participants. All participants were exposed to 3 to 5 standard FA conditions (alone, attention, tangible, demand, and play) in a multi-element design in their homeroom classrooms. During the standard FA, each session was 10-min in length and conditions were rapidly alternated in a standard multielement design. If results of the standard FA were undifferentiated or showed low or zero rates of behavior, participants were exposed to the extended-duration FA protocol. During the extended-duration FA, each session was approximately 50-min in length and conditions were alternated within a pairwise design. Results showed that in some cases, the extended-duration FA produced higher rates of behavior and/or differentiated responding. Results will be discussed in terms of their implications for clinical practice.

A common test condition for behavior maintained by social positive reinforcement is one in which the experimenter appears to be engaged in a task (e.g., reading a magazine) and delivers attention to the subject contingent on each instance of problem behavior (Iwata et al., 1982/1994). In a modified version of the attention condition, the divided-attention condition (Mace et al., 1986), the experimenter engages in conversation with a confederate (e.g., another adult), and diverts attention to the subject contingent on each instance of problem behavior. The divided attention condition may either facilitate discrimination of the contingency (the availability of attention) or strengthen the establishing operation for attention-maintained behavior, resulting in more efficient functional analysis outcomes. The purpose of this study was twofold. We first (Study 1) determined whether behavior, in general, is more likely to be acquired and maintained under typical versus divided-attention conditions. We next (Study 2) determined whether problem behavior is more likely to occur during typical versus divided-attention conditions in a functional analysis.

Although functional analysis has gained widespread use, it is not without limitations. Functional analysis methods have often been criticized for the length of time required during assessment, amount of expertise required during implementation, feasibility of conducting sessions in the natural environment, and difficulty in identifying function for infrequent or cyclical aberrant behavior. In addition, we have frequently heard concerns from caregivers and frontline staff that the purposeful, but brief, reinforcement of problem behavior might result in rates that might last beyond sessions into the natural environment. This potential "side effect" of the functional analysis has never been mentioned in the research literature, nor have the investigators who have almost a decade of experience with the procedure observed it. However, we believe the concern to be a reasonable one and certainly deserving of an empirical investigation. Therefore, the purpose of the current investigation was to determine whether a problem behavior occurs more often after a functional analysis procedure was used.

This symposium challenges applied behavior analysis (ABA) to grow with other technologies, and be truly scientific by accepting the findings and practices of other relevant disciplines, and to think big, and get dirty -- big by serving multiple participants over an extended time, dirty by implementing "among the most difficult. . . applications to carry out" (Lutzker & Whitaker, 2005, p. 582). The schools and child welfare settings provide milieux to fulfill Azrin's challenge to generalize beyond narrow niches, venturing into new topical areas, developing effective, large-scale, multicomponent interventions, which would allow behavior analysis to scale up and be effective in applied settings. (Azrin, cited in Lutzker & Whitaker, 2005). Current research highlights the need for multidisciplinary approaches to change outcomes for students at risk for, or with, emotional and behavioral disorders (Forness, 2005). The multicomponent interventions outlined in this symposium encompass prevention and intervention, at both a "big" and "dirty" level. Both the Comprehensive Intervention for Student and Staff Support (CISS) and Project SafeCare interventions are successfully "thinking big", implementing a hybrid of both clinical applied behavior analytic and OBM-systems technology. Analysis of data indicate that both are producing positive outcomes in their target settings.

SafeCare is an ecobehavioral, evidence-based, home visitation model conducting research and training trainers in 11 U.S. states and the nation of Belarus. It is firmly rooted in the principles and practices of applied behavior analysis. This presentation will provide a history and overview of the model, published single-case research design examples of family behavior change, and large-scale outcome data. Also described will be its train-the-trainer model and the implementation research being conducted to examine a host of variables in the implementation process. Future directions and research plans will be discussed within the context of the development of this line of programmatic research over a 32-year period. The trials and tribulations of conducting such very applied research in very difficult situations will be described.

SafeCare is an ecobehavioral, evidence-based, home visitation model to prevent child maltreatment. Described will be areas of research and enhancements with different technologies aimed at creating new efficiencies and effectiveness in SafeCare dissemination. Presented will be a multiple probe design across settings and replicated across families using a smart phone to reduce the number of intervention home visits for the home safety module of SafeCare. Next, are current efforts to develop a hybrid version of home visitor training, face-to-face combined with online. Our iterative process of from the analysis to early implementation phase, guided by an interdisciplinary team, is illustrated as a suggested path for organizations to gain cost efficiencies in dissemination through reduced face-to-face training time. Also included will be an overarching project to create a virtual portal that will house the online training modules and manage trainee data through the certification process. This will allow for internal efficiencies and data collection to support research. Processes related to conception through development phases will be presented, as well as ongoing research on the use of computer-assisted interventions for fathers.

Federal data indicate little improvement in outcome for students with, or at risk for, emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) since the early 1980s (Bradley, Doolittle & Bartolotta, 2008). Students with EBD make up approximately .96% of the total school age population. However, 51% of these students who are 16 years old and older drop out of high school, amounting to a 74% failure rate for students identified with EBD. While "(t)he very survival of our species depends on how well we educate (Skinner cited in Selinske et al, 1991, p. 107)," the research base indicating that subsequent generations of behavior analysts have risen to this challenge, is relatively limited (Noell et al., 2005). A transdisciplinary team-behavior analyst, school psychologist and child/adolescent psychiatrist--has developed a unique dual-component intervention (Comprehensive Intervention for Student and Staff Support): behavior analytic support framework and system of teacher training, coaching , and performance feedback to improve student behavior and academic outcomes, and ensure implementation fidelity. Outcome data indicate that this system is highly effective in meeting student academic, behavior and mental health needs, and staff needs for training and coaching to ensure sustainability of the system.

School based mental health was highlighted in 2002 where the need to improve access to mental health resources in the school was stressed by the Freedom Commission on Mental Health. The report emphasized that these services are essential to rebuild mental health accessibility for children. This paper presents an overview of a transdisciplinary initiative which focuses on improving the system of support for both students and teachers, through a comprehensive, school-based mental health and behavior analytic intervention. Transdisciplinary collaboration between WashoeCounty School Districtschool psychologists, University of Nevada/Reno (UNR) School of Medicine Child/Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship child/adolescent and UNR, Behavior Analysis Program has created a successful program and system of support, for students with significant behavioral and mental health needs, and their teachers, which has produced positive outcomes - increased student achievement, reductions in significant behavior problems, increased staff satisfaction, and increased staff skill. This program, a component of consultation and inclusion support services, is embedded in best practice in school psychology and school child/adolescent psychiatry, and applied behavior analysis. The presenter(s) will provide an overview, from a child psychiatric perspective, of the collaboration between child/adolescent psychiatry and behavior analysis in supporting students with complex automatically maintained behaviors and significant mental health needs.

Although sexuality is a significant aspect of life for nearly all individuals, it is one of the more understudied topics in behavior-analytic research. This symposium sheds light on both applied and conceptual topics related to human sexual behavior, and it points out the need for future empirical contributions that can be offered by behavior analysts. The authors provide new information related to specific sexual practices and related variables, and review the ethics and effectiveness of interventions used to treat problematic patterns of sexual behavior.

The science of behavior analysis has been applied to a myriad of human behaviors, including those of a sexual nature. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss previous and current research-based interventions used to treat sexual behaviors of both typically developing persons and those with developmental disabilities. The focus will be on interventions that target the reduction of inappropriate sexual behaviors, as well as those that target the increase of social skills related to sexual interests. Presenters will assess ethical standards of these commonly used interventions. Implications for future research will also be discussed.

A recent study by Stockwell and Newman (2009) reviewed and analyzed the content of online fiction and non-fiction erotic stories. The current investigation extends these findings to compare various characteristics of fetish-based erotic video clips of multiple topics. Data collectors reviewed and analyzed a random selection of video clips from a prominent website and recorded the common plot lines observed, topographies of behavior displayed, gender(s) of actor(s) involved, and specific role(s) assumed by each actor. Results address differences in these content areas across video clip categories, and these findings are compared to previous findings of common themes in fiction and non-fiction erotic stories.

Within the past two decades, the fields of neurobiology and neuroscience have made significant advances in the study of neurological differences amongst individuals of heterosexual and homosexual orientations (LeVay, 1991; Savic, Berglund, & Lindström, 2005; Savic & Lindström, 2008). However, the results and interpretation of these studies are often controversial and their interpretations sometimes speculative. Despite the seemingly increasing interest in the neurobiology of sexual orientation, nearly all studies have been performed without attention paid to individuals who identify as bisexual, the most widely-cited research on bisexuality having been performed with male fruit flies (Grosjean, Grillet, Augustin, Ferveur, Featherstone, 2008; Liu, Dartevelle, Yuan, Wei, Wang, Ferveur, & Guo, 2009). However, this research begs the question of whether the neurobiology of animals (including humans) that engage in bisexual behavior represent a product (or mean) of heterosexual and homosexual neuronal and hormonal complexities or a separate population entirely, complete with a unique neurobiological morphology. Furthermore, what should these potential neurobiological results mean to behavior analysts working with non-heterosexual clients, particularly in a therapeutic capacity? Should sexuality-centric psychological complaints necessitate pharmacological and/or biological interventions, or could changes in environmental contingencies sufficiently address these issues?

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 20 and 25 people are killed in dog attacks every year. Most of the victims are children. Although accurate data are difficult to compile, thousands more people are victims of dog bites that range from minor to serious. Many experts believe the majority of these attacks and bites could be prevented with appropriate pro-action. When these cases land in court, otherwise unavailable details of what led up to the incidents unfold. These details are a rich source of information that can be used by experts to develop multi-faceted bite prevention programs and community policies. In this presentation, Dr. Hetts will use her experiences as an expert witness in four fatal cases and numerous serious injury personal liability cases to share how expert knowledge of applied animal behavior and learning contributes to understanding the "why" of these cases, and how such knowledge can form the basis of science-based intervention and prevention.

Building on Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior, Horne and Lowe (1996) provided a detailed account of how aspects of verbal behavior can be learned, particularly naming and categorisation. They outlined how learning the same name for disparate stimuli may establish category relations between these stimuli. Naming is defined as a higher-order bidirectional behavioral relation that combines conventional speaker and listener behavior within the individual. It does not require reinforcement of both speaker and listener behavior for each new name to be established, and it relates to classes of objects and events. In this presentation, I will give a basic introduction to the naming account, and an overview of the Bangor research on naming and categorisation that tested the predictions of the account. Research initially focused on naming and categorization at one level, and was then extended to different levels (hierarchical categorisation). Based on the data, I will evaluate the predictions of the naming account. And finally, I will highlight the implications of the naming account and naming research with typically developing children for verbal interventions in populations with learning disabilities.

Teaching behavior analysis coursework within non-behavior analytic programs is a common and ongoing challenge within the field of behavior analysis. This Professional Development Series event is designed to address topics considered relevant to the professional development of educators within the field of behavior analysis. Panelists will discuss teaching within non-behavior analytic programs, such as special education, disability studies, and rehabilitation studies. Topics will include, but not be limited to, educators working with course content that is incorrectly labeled as behavior analytic, co-teaching with faculty who are not trained in applied behavior analysis, and differences between teaching within behavior analytic and non-behavior analytic programs. Panelists will also address proposing the addition of a BACB course sequence within programs that are not primarily behavior analytic. Finally, panelists will discuss effective collaboration strategies. Special emphasis will be placed on the various ethical considerations faced by educators in this area. All interested graduate students and behavior analysis educators are encouraged to attend.