Association for Behavior Analysis International

This is an annual ABAI Business Meeting where the leadership of the Association will provide an update of on-going activities and major developments in the Association. Attendees will learn from ABAI's president the direction of the ABAI Council and from the ABAI's CEO the status of finances and administration. Attendees will also hear from the board coordinators including Science, Education, Practice, Program, Membership, Affiliated Chapters and Publications.

When ABA services in a developing country are so limited the need for creating services that are ethical and include best practices are essential. During this panel the audience will learn the steps involved in the process of building an ABA center in the Dominican Republic through a partnership with the Global Autism Project. One of the main objectives in creating local services through an international partnership is to ensure the sustainability of services and the ability to building capacity in the professional field of ABA. Critical components such as the importance of remote supervision provided by a BCBA both in a clinical and administrative setting, therapist training, family intake process and center policies, will be shared with participants. Since autism knows no borders, anyone providing services in an under-served community with the desire to learn and build capacity can very well become a service provider with the right plan and support.

Given the critical nature of behavioral intervention and its growing application across populations and countries, training behavior analysts in culturally competent practice is an ethical imperative. Culturally competent behavior analysts: 1) understand that their own cultural conditioning affects personal beliefs, values, and attitudes; 2) know their ethical responsibility to be knowledgeable about the world views of individuals and groups of differing cultures; and 3) build skills in using culturally appropriate communication, assessment, and intervention. Although the topic of culturally competent services has circulated for a while, anecdotal data demonstrate that professionals in our field report their initial or ongoing training has been inadequate to achieve these required practice standards. Currently, there exist few research-based resources of self-measurement and skill building with respect to culturally competent services. This panel discussion will explore culture competency and include data from a needs assessment of Board Certified Behavior Analysts. From this discussion we aim to better define the current state of culturally competent practice and outline what training, continuing education, and/or practice frameworks would support behavioral intervention across cultures. This is an initial step toward a larger discussion about what tools and strategies are required for culturally competent practice.

Green driving in this study is defined as hard acceleration and braking, excessive speeding, and hard turns. These measures were tracked by GPS, accelerometers, and gyroscopes. A combination of prompts and goal setting was effective in increasing green driving behavior across three participants.

Video modeling has proven to be an effective teaching procedures across a number of skills. This study compared two different methods of implementing video modeling (first person and third person view) to teach car seat installation. Results suggested that both methods were effective in teaching undergraduates to install car seats.

The past 35 years have seen a growing recognition of the importance of linking basic and applied research in order to develop effective behavioral treatments and establish the generality of basic behavioral relations. This coordinated effort has come to be known as translational research. The most common approach is to translate basic research findings into behavioral technologies that are often novel and of benefit to human problem behavior in applied settings. The first study utilizes behavioural economics to examine stimuli that are functionally similar and functionally dissimilar. A competing stimulus and brief substitutability assessment were conducted and the results from the assessment were used to inform treatment for mouthing, disruption and self-injurious behavior in a five-year old boy. The second study examined obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is characterized by recurrent and ritualized acts that often have no social behavioral function. These behaviors commonly co-occur with anxiety. We used mild reprimands to suppress compulsive behaviors in a 16 year-old male diagnosed with OCD. Both these studies highlight the benefit that translational research can have on improved clinical treatments for serious behavior disorders.

The aim of this panel is provide an opportunity for commentary on and discussion of the works of Dr. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy as a follow-up to her address as the 2015 Presidential Scholar. Dr. Hrdy's scholarly works pertain to intellectual domains of considerable relevance to the behavior analytic community, including anthropology, primatology and evolutionary theory. Of particular interest to our members are her views on the nature of motherhood and its role in the evolution of the human species, including the evolutionary origins of empathy and mutual understanding. The panelists will offer behavior analytic commentary on various features of Dr. Hrdy's views as presented in her address and other works, with opportunity for discussion with the author.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

The rigor of online education in the field of applied behavior analysis has often been challenged. It is common for professionals to believe that face to face interaction is necessary to provide good educational outcomes. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology offers on ground, blended and online educational options for our certificate and MS in ABA programs. These programs have been aligned to allow for direct comparison of results. Several comparative measures will be presented in an effort to determine if program delivery affects student outcomes. The used of learning management system and assessment software to measure outcomes across a variety of variables will also be discussed. Plans for the longitudinal effects of program delivery have been established.

As school districts, especially those in urban settings, face the challenge of retaining novice teachers and better preparing all teachers for delivering instruction in fully inclusive classrooms, induction programs have become an integral ingredient in meeting this challenge. Effective induction programs have been shown to include mentoring, observation, and feedback, all of which can now be enhanced by utilizing evolving technologies and thereby making their delivery more available in a greater variety of settings. This study examines the utilization of Bug-In-Ear (BIE) Bluetooth technology for novice teachers in an urban elementary school setting using a single case design across participants, and the results support implementing this technology. The research questions that were developed to examine the effectiveness of supporting novice teachers utilizing BIE Bluetooth technology were: (1) Does immediate teacher prompting by an instructional coach via BIE Bluetooth technology increase the average rate of specific positive feedback given to students by the teacher? and, (2) Given an increase, to what extent does the increased average rate of specific positive feedback sustain during the maintenance phases of BIE?

Many entering students are unprepared for college math, and developmental math courses delay graduation and deplete financial aid. To address this problem, Board Certified Behavior Analysts in the Department of Learning Skills lowered the typical student:teacher ratio in developmental math classrooms from 35:1 to 4:1 by training psychology graduate students to teach algebra in exchange for supervising their certification hours. The graduate students learn precision teaching, explicit instruction, and behavior analytic techniques for classroom management, and they make data-based decisions on a daily basis. Supervisors collect and analyze longitudinal data to monitor the math students' progress through required math courses. Central to the treatment package is the diagnosis and remediation of cumulative dysfluencies in prerequisite math skills related to fraction operations. Other components for the algebra students include a flipped classroom using teaching videos provided by the National Repository of Online Courses and a workbook that incorporates continual review and progressive difficulty. Training for the graduate students includes weekly data-sharing and training meetings, and continual modeling and supervision by the on-site behavior analyst and certified mathematics teacher.

Teachers are often responsible for implementing evidence-based interventions in regular education classrooms with support from pupil service teams, however; past research has shown that in many cases interventions are not implemented with integrity, thus limiting conclusions regarding a student's response to intervention. Although research indicates that provision of scripts, performance feedback, and reinforcement are useful at increasing implementation integrity, their effects vary across teachers. In the present study, a brief experimental analysis (BEA) with a reversal was used to identify the most effective method for increasing the integrity with which 4 regular education teachers implemented a DRA procedure using verbal praise as a reinforcer for student on-task behavior. An extended analysis using a multiple baseline design across teachers was then conducted to assess the predictive validity of the BEA. Student on-task behavior was also observed to determine its relationship to teachers' levels of implementation integrity. Results showed the BEA to be an effective and valid means of identifying an effective support method for 3 of the 4 teacher-student dyads. Although task engagement increased for all students to above 90%, it correlated with implementation integrity for only 2 of 4 dyads. Implications for future research and clinical practice will be discussed.

This presentation presents the results of an experimental research study conducted in a second-grade classroom, which included students with behavioral problems. The study examined the effects of a function-based social skills intervention program on the disruptive behavior and academic performance of four male students identified at risk for school failure. A social skills instruction with a self-monitoring strategy comprised the intervention program. Results of the study showed a positive functional relationship between student behavior and intervention program. Student off-task behaviours were reduced by at least 53% during classroom observation period. Student academic performance improved by at least one letter grade. Effect sizes were strong. Presenters will address the educational implications of the study and they will provide information on (1) the importance of function-based interventions in classroom settings and (2) the implementation steps followed to develop effective social skills instruction and self-monitoring system. Research study limitations will also be addressed.

Children with and without disabilities may encounter feeding difficulties. This difficulties can include but are not limited to food selectivity by texture, color, and manner of presentation. Feeding difficulties may also include rigidity related to the feeder and/or meal time location. This session will provide a discussion of the issues related to the provision of behavioral feeding services to children with and without disabilities. The first speaker will identify some of the barriers to behavioral feeding programs. She will then identify strategies for reducing the response effort for parents. The second speaker will discuss the importance of individualizing the assessment and intervention process. For example, various medical assessments may be needed prior to the onset of services. Additionally, parents and children have distinct preferences that should be considered when selecting intervention components. Finally, planning and ensuring generalization and maintenance of feeding skills is critical. Thus, the third speaker will identify strategies that have been used successfully to promote both maintenance and generalization. The discussant will summarize the issues and facilitate question and answers from participants.

In the process of completing a master's thesis on behavioral feeding, the author encountered several risks to the therapy process. This paper will present the study, identify the risks encountered, discuss how to prevent and address risks, and discuss strategies for future research.

This author coordinates an outpatient behavioral feeding clinic. She will identify strategies used to address maintenance and generalization of acquired feeding skills. Case studies will be used to illustrate the effectiveness of intervention as well as maintenance and generalization.

Although researchers often discuss how the brain produces behavior, it is also true that behavior and experience influence the brain. Dr. Adcock's research has shown that distinct motivational states can be elicited by expectation of reward or punishment, and influence learning and memory via distinct brain systems. These different motivational states correspond to differential activity and connectivity in brain circuits implicated not only in motivation but also in learning and memory. This selectivity in memory mechanisms, in turn, determines whether the information in memory is detailed versus general or flexible versus rigid. Dr. Adcock's recent work has shown that people can self-induce activation of in neuromodulatory systems capable of broadly influencing brain function and thus shaping learning during therapy--a finding with implications for the treatment of mental illness.

Clinicians and basic scientists.

Although in recent years an increasing number of single-case studies have focused on teaching language skills to children with autism using Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior, the majority have concentrated on establishing primary operants at the single-word level. Nevertheless, from 2 to 3 years of age, typically developing children naturally demonstrate generalized and multiply controlled verbal behavior, including autoclitics: They are, for example, able to provide full-sentence answers to novel questions about ongoing and past events, to describe their own experiences, and to respond to a diversity of novel instructions. One of the greatest challenges currently facing applied behavior analysts remains, therefore, how to teach such complex verbal behavior to children with autism. This presentation will propose that contemporary analyses of multiple control (Lowenkron, 1998; Michael, Palmer, & Sundberg, 2011) offer a conceptually coherent practical basis for the development and curricular organization of procedures to meet this challenge. A program of instruction will be presented in which language objectives are organized along a continuum of increasingly complex stimulus control, and discussion thereby provided of how best to move from establishment of basic vocabulary in primary operants to mastery of complex verbal conditional discriminations across both primary and secondary operants. Special emphasis will be placed on the role of autoclitic frames and intraverbal control in teaching generalized question answering at the tact and intraverbal level and as means of avoiding the discrimination errors that commonly result from teaching specific individual responses to specific individual questions.

Research in the area of intensive behavioral intervention continues to examine methods to improve learning outcomes for individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Especially in the area of early intervention, many questions remain unanswered about the types of children for which certain procedures may be most beneficial. An emerging area of research aims to improve or refine the efficiency of teaching procedures. Presenters in this symposium will provide data from four studies conducted through university autism centers. The first study examines the extent to which pre-arranged stimulus sets produced untrained relations (learning without explicit teaching). The second study systematically evaluates the extent to which multiple exemplar training (MEI) using videos can lead to rule derivation. The third study compares two variations of the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on novel vocalizations. Finally, the fourth study examines the effect of generalized imitation training on functional speech acquisition during Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) Training. Dr. Caio Miguel will provide remarks as our discussant.

Individuals with autism often have difficulty attending to multiple features in a compound stimulus (e.g., pictures with multiple objects, words with multiple letters, or signs with multiple symbols). This restricted attending can be detrimental to learning. Participants were 4 children with autism who had low to intermediate accuracy scores (49-84%) on a computer-presented simultaneous matching-to-sample (SMTS) task with compound stimuli. Sample stimuli had 2 elements (e.g., pictures of a chair and tree), the correct comparison was identical to the sample, and each incorrect comparison had one feature in common with the sample (e.g., chair and sun, airplane and tree). A tabletop sorting-to-matching procedure was used to teach compound SMTS. There were 5 steps in the procedure, and an additional prompted scanning step was imposed if progress stalled. The first step required the participants to sort 3 single pictures; subsequent steps gradually changed the task requirements until it simulated the compound SMTS task. Following mastery of the sorting-to-matching procedure, the participants were retested on the computer-presented compound SMTS task; accuracy improved (93-99%) for all 4 children. This procedure illustrates one way to expand attending to multiple features of a complex stimulus.

While video modeling has been demonstrated as an effective procedure, it is often difficult and time-consuming. Research has also shown that children can learn through characters and that gaming can help facilitate executive function skills. With the intent of developing a game that could potentially teach social skills to children with ASDs, a series of studies were completed to determine naturally occurring social behaviors in neuro-typical and ASD children (n=24), assess usability of a new ABA-based video game (n=16), and assess the feasibility, potential effectiveness, and generalizability through single-subject research (n=12). Data obtained through each phase drives the development and changes are made as the data indicates is necessary through an iterative development process. Observational data helped to establish the behaviors to target. Video modeling, embedded discrete trials, prompt fading, thinning of reinforcement, and naturalistic behavioral interventions are the procedures used. Animated peer models are used in the game with real childrens voices in the social scenes to enhance generalization. Data from the iterative process, a demonstration, and initial findings will be presented from all 3 studies. Implications for increasing accessibility, motivation, and data efficiency will be discussed, as well as potential impact on cost for existing social skills programs.

Children diagnosed with pediatric feeding disorders present with a variety of difficulties such as food refusal, difficulties advancing texture, and restrictive diets. In the treatment of these disorders, a number of consequent procedures have been shown to be effective. Given the heterogeneity of the population, further advancements in targeted procedures to improve outcomes are necessary. This symposium will present data that exemplify innovative treatments that improve outcomes for these children. The first investigation evaluates a skill training protocol to increase oral-motor skills and improve the consumption in one child. In the second investigation, the authors evaluated the influence of response effort, quality of reinforcement, and the interaction of these two dimensions on advancing texture in a small child. Study 3 examined the utility of telehealth in training parents to implement interventions to treat food selectivity. Results suggested this may be a suitable method for training parents to expand their childrens diets. The final investigation evaluated the impact of positive reinforcement in the treatment of feeding disorders and began to identify for whom the inclusion of this treatment component was beneficial. These studies will be discussed in terms of variables that influence the development of empirically derived treatments for pediatric feeding disorders.

Since the inception of behavioral economics in the early 1980s, the intersection of behavioral science and microeconomic principles has yielded novel insights into health-related behaviors and their promotion. Early applications primarily explore the abuse liability of pharmacological agents in nonhumans. However, as behavioral scientists began translating behavioral economics outside the operant chamber, researchers and policymakers soon discovered that behavioral economic principles and applications could be taken to scale to inform public health policies and preventative healthcare. This symposium highlights cutting-edge applications of behavioral economic principles and procedures to health decision making. The presentations featured in this symposium range from basic decision making studies on episodic future thinking regarding cancer to applications of mindfulness to alter delay discounting of food. Despite the novel applications across each of the four presentations, a common thread unifying these studies is the reliance on discounting processes and assays to evaluate health decision making under uncertainty or in the face of intertemporal tradeoffs common attributes in most real-world health decisions. These use-inspired studies underscore the translational utility of behavioral economics for health promotion and advancing the fields understand of healthy decision making.

Discounting analyses have robustly contributed to our understanding of clinical disorders such as addiction, problematic gambling, and obesity. Importantly, individuals rates of discounting predict the progression of addiction and the success of addiction treatments. That success suggests that discounting analyses may help predict health behavior in other clinical populations. For example, individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) frequently have low levels of medication adherence. Predicting which individuals will have adherence difficulties may help direct treatment resources to those that need it the most. The current study developed a novel probability discounting paradigm which assessed the effects of differing probabilities of medication efficacy and side effects in a sample of MS patients whom typically were (n=35) or where not (n=35) adherent with their treatments. Discounting was both different across groups and was predictive of group membership, even when accounting for other MS related variables (fatigue, depression, etc.).

For single-case researchers in autism and their audiences it is critical to stay informed on current advances and issues related to research synthesis of single-case designs (SCDs). This presentation will highlight the current status of three ongoing debates: 1. Critical appraisal: Evaluating the quality of SCDs is crucial for research synthesis and documenting evidence-based practice. Seven different checklists and evaluation scales have recently emerged for this purpose. The strengths and weaknesses of each will be discussed alongside the results of a field trial comparing their performance on assessing study quality. 2. Selection of effect size metrics: Controversy exists as to which techniques are most appropriate to analyze between-phase differences in SCDs and derive meaningful effect size estimates. Two general strategies have been proposed: Regression approaches versus non-overlap metrics. Advantages and disadvantages of each will be outlined and scenarios will be described when one approach is preferable over another. 3. Mixed methods synthesis: Autism researchers are increasingly confronted with heterogeneous forms of research evidence including both quantitative and qualitative designs; these can be combined using a mixed methods approach. Staying abreast of these recent methodological advances will assist with the production of high quality syntheses of autism treatment research.

For children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) including autism spectrum disorder, intervention participation is mediated by caregivers, necessitating increased awareness by researchers about how to support parents as interventionists and the effects of parent implemented interventions on child outcomes. WWC 2010 standards for single-case research (SCR) designs recommend reporting multiple effect size estimates alongside regression estimates and visual analysis and researchers are increasingly doing so. We are unaware of any comparison of effect size estimates for parent implemented interventions. The 55 SCR studies for the current analysis were selected from a recently completed review (1997-2013) of parent implemented interventions for children, birth to twelve years of age, with IDD. Following coding of demographic variables, intervention procedures, and social validity outcomes, Tau-U, NAP, and R-IRD were applied to each case. 3 raters independently used visual analysis procedures to evaluate data. Pearsons r was calculated to determine agreement between estimates and visual analysis. Effectiveness of parent training on treatment fidelity and of parent implemented interventions on child outcomes will be discussed. Data analysis will be finished before May. This review offers information on the relative utility and efficaciousness of effect size estimates when applied to parent implemented interventions.

A number of clinics exist worldwide that employee functional analysis-based treatments for severe problem behavior. This presentation will describe the organization and outcome data from a pediatric outpatient clinic at Upstate Medical University. Unique to this clinic is the fact that all services are provided within the constraints of psychotherapy current procedural terminology (CPT) codes. One facet of this method of billing is that all psychotherapy CPT codes are time-limited (e.g., 60 min) which could impact a number of client-related factors such as response to treatment and cancellation rates. We will discuss clinical procedures that have been developed to address these issues while maintaining the technical requirements of the functional analysis process. Case examples will be provided to illustrate the utility of the model. We will also provide outcome data on the types of problems addressed, diagnostic profiles of clients, cancellation rates, and percent reduction in problem behavior (presently over 90% reduction relative to baseline levels of problem behavior). These outcomes will be discussed in terms of factors to consider for clinic development, program evaluation, and client retention.

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) is a commonly used treatment for severe problem behavior displayed by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The purpose of the current study was to expand on the existing literature on NCR by reporting outcomes achieved with 28 applications of NCR as the primary treatment across consecutive cases with severe problem behavior using a collective case series to minimize selection bias. Participants ranged in age from 5 to 33 years and had intellectual and developmental disabilities. 14 application were for behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement, 13 for behavior maintained by social reinforcement (i.e., attention, escape, tangible), and one for behavior with unknown function (i.e., inconclusive FA). Results suggest that the effectiveness of NCR may in part be determined by behavioral function. NCR resulted in a 90% or better reduction in problem behavior for only 7 of 15 cases in which problem behavior was maintained by automatic reinforcement. In these cases, additional treatment components were added to bolster effects. In contrast, when NCR in isolation was applied to socially maintained behavior, the result was a 90% or better reduction for 12 of 13 cases. Results suggest that NCR is an effective treatment for socially maintained problem behavior.

The behavior analytic literature indicates multiple effective interventions to address pediatric feeding disorders (Milnes & Piazza, 2013; Sharp, Jaquess, Morton, & Herzinger, 2010). While the breadth of published interventions affirms that clinicians are developing effective treatments to progress children diagnosed with feeding disorders toward age-typical eating, these published studies provide information on only a small percentage of the children being treated. Furthermore, while there are a few published reviews summarizing which interventions clinicians are using to successfully treat feeding disorders (Volkert & Vaz, 2010), these reviews do not provide information about the totality of successful interventions used in their clinics. Success could be indicated by decreases in enteral feedings and disruptive mealtime behavior or increases in oral intake and integrity when transitioning to caregivers feeding (i.e., rather than a trained therapist). Thus, to contribute to our understanding of successful interventions for pediatric feeding disorders, we preliminarily evaluated outcomes for 46 children from a well-established Midwestern pediatric feeding disorders clinic, which included evaluation of the interventions we used to treat each child. These data may assist in bridging the gap between science and practice in determining which interventions are successful and used most often by clinicians to treat pediatric feeding disorders.

Recent empirical and conceptual developments (e.g., Wasserman & Frank, 2005; Urcuioli, 2008) have suggested that the failure to observe derived relational responding in nonhuman subjects is the result of procedural artifacts. Procedures that preclude the development of these artifacts have begun to produce reliable evidence of associative symmetry in pigeons. This symposium brings together from four different laboratories investigating derived relational responding with nonhuman subjects. Stancato & Vaidya present a review of investigations of derived relational responding with nonhuman subjects and identify experimental procedures that correlate with successful nonhuman demonstrations of derived relational responding. Galizio and colleagues present data on rats performance on the go/no-go task and document failures on symmetry trials despite highly accurate performance on tests for generalized identity matching. Velasco and Tomanari present results suggestive of emergent transitivity and equivalence with pigeons with signal durations serving as sample stimuli and the nodal stimulus. Finally, Swisher and Urcuioli arranged procedures expected, by Ucuiolis theory, to lead to emergent reflexivity without a history of identity matching. The data collected so far are consistent with these predictions.

Marketer and consumer behavior are closely interconnected. They are mutually reinforced and entail literal exchange. The primary purpose of the theory of the marketing firm (TMF) is therefore to retain customers profitably. In such a scenario, for an organization to be successful, it has to adopt a consumer-centric approach for which a thorough knowledge of consumer behavior is mandatory. The Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) was developed to explain consumer choice behaviors in affluent environments. It is an elaboration of the three-term contingency and matching applied to the context of economic behavior. In this symposium we will discuss recent theoretical developments and empirical analysis in online behavior analysis from the standpoint of the BPM and TMF. The symposium starts with a theoretical paper on the inter-relationships between a firm and the collective behaviors of consumers. The second paper extends the discussion to the current digital marketplace where the authors emphasize the importance of studying online consumer behavior from a behavioral perspective and explore the contingency categories from the view point of the digital marketer. The third paper extends the BPM to Facebook marketing using alternating treatment designs and the final paper explores the impacts of advertisements on social media marketing.

Social network advertising is a term that is used to describe a form of online advertising that is distributed through social networking sites. This study investigates the impact advertisement in social media has on a target segments behavior, and to investigate whether there is a difference in the response to different type of advertisements. A Norwegian drug helpline service that provides the public with information about alcohol, drugs and substance abuse, wanted to enhance traffic to its website. Their target segment is mainly youths interesting in and experimenting with drugs. A pre-study of focus group interviews were conducted to identify the use of social media within the target segment. After this, a social networking advertisement campaign was arranged according to ABAB research design. Referring traffic from Facebook to the website of the case organization was measured during the first week with no advertisements running (A). The second week, six advertisements were published on Facebook and the traffic was measured (B). The advertisements were then withdrawn in the third week (A), and in the forth week the same advertisements as in week two were published on Facebook. Results show that traffic to the website was higher in the weeks with advertisements running (week 2 and 4), compared to the weeks without advertisements (week 1 and 3). In addition, results show differences in responses to different advertisements. Discussion of the results are given in relation to verbal behavior, rules, and rule-governed behavior. Implications for marketers as well as suggestions for future research are given.

Functional behavior assessment is essential to the effective treatment of problem behavior and includes indirect informant assessment, descriptive assessment, and functional analysis. Functional analysis is the only experimental method of identifying the function(s) of problem behavior but may require extensive time and resource. An indirect informant assessment that accurately identifies the function of problem behavior would facilitate more immediate, effective treatment of problem behavior. To date, findings on the validity of existing tools have been mixed with most studies indicating only a small to moderate correlation between the results of experimental analyses and informant assessments. One reason why these informant assessments may not correlate well with functional analyses is because all items on the tool are typically weighted equally even if certain items might be more predictive than others. A technology-based assessment might address this problem by allowing researchers to a) examine the specific questions that correlate most strongly with functional analyses results and b) create scoring algorithms that incorporate empirically derived weightings of individual items. The mini-Functional Behavior Assessment (mini-FBA) is an online informant assessment tool composed of 16 questions designed to identify the extent to which a problem behavior is maintained by attention, access to tangibles, escape, or sensory stimulation. Presented findings will assess the validity of this tool by evaluating the degree of correspondence between the results of the mini-FBA and a subsequently conducted functional analysis. Individual item analyses will be calculated to determine optimal item weightings to produce a maximally predictive tool. Data collection is ongoing with eight completed participants and one additional participant in progress at the time of submission. Findings will be discussed in relation to implications for efficient clinical practice in assessment and treatment of problem behavior.

The current study extends previous literature by applying the functional analysis methodology to problem behaviors associated with transitions for children with developmental disabilities across both home and classroom settings. Four participants were exposed to variations of transitions including activity initiations and terminations, non-preferred activity initiations, and terminations, each with and without a location change, and finally a location change with no presented activities. Results indicated that location change was a major contribution to problem behaviors during transitioning from activity to activity for three out of four children. Given that transitions between tasks my be difficult for yound children with developmental disabilities, the ability to transition smoothly can assist learning time and create a stress-free environment in any setting. Therefore, conducting a functional analysis to identify the maintaining variables during transition times should be done in the applied setting. Further extension of the functional analyses is suggested to create intervention plans based on the findings to reduce problematic behaviors. Intervention results will also be presented and discussed.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder and presents as a complex and often puzzling category of conditions. This research evaluates Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT), one of the most popular non-validated treatments for ASD, by comparing the effectiveness to Behavioural Intervention (BI) in altering challenging behaviour. Two studies were carried out to evaluate the effects of SIT and BI on challenging behaviour maintained by environmental variables and automatic reinforcement. Study 1 used an AB counterbalanced group design across 10 participants to compare SIT and BI on behaviours maintained by various functions. Study 2 used a multiple baseline across participants to compare the effects of SIT and Sensory Integration techniques delivered within a behavioural intervention package. The outcome of Study 1found that SIT was not effective at reducing behaviours maintained by environmental variables (e.g., escape from demand, access to tangibles and attention). In contrast, the findings for Study 2 suggest that SIT was somewhat effective in reducing behaviours maintained by automatic reinforcement, and the Sensory Integration techniques were more effective when delivered within the framework of a Behavioural Intervention package.

Behavioral economics is a productive blend of behavioral principles and micro-economic theory. Behavioral economic research has revealed that the concepts, principles, and methods that economists conventionally apply to decision-making at the population level have important parallels at the individual level. Armed with this understanding, behavior analysts gain a variety of useful analytic tools with potential for enhancing instructional and therapeutic arrangements. In this tutorial, Dr. IserGuillermo DeLeon will describe some basic tenets of behavioral economics, what one needs minimally to grasp its relevance for practice. He will then review and discuss studies, some from the behavior analytic literature and some from his own work, that show how these tools have been used to enhance our understanding of functional relations and improve our outcomes in work with people with autism spectrum disorder.

BCBAs, BCaBAs

1. Participants will be able to explain basic behavioral economic concepts that include the law of demand, demand elasticity, substitutability, complementarity, and the impact of open vs. closed economies.
2. Participants will be able to discuss how these concepts map onto common behavioral interventions to address the instructional or therapeutic needs of persons with ASD.
3. Participants will understand what demand curves can offer beyond more conventional methods of gauging relative reinforcer effectiveness.

As the incidence rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) continue to rise, innovative delivery models for wide-scale dissemination of effective, empirically validated treatments for ASD are urgently needed. Early Intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) has been firmly established as one of the most effective treatments for young children diagnosed with autism; however, intensive time commitments required by traditional Lovaas model EIBI (i.e., up to 40 hours per week) and a shortage of trained professionals are barriers to accessing effective treatment. An alternative EIBI delivery model that has grown in popularity involves the treatment model based specifically on Skinners analysis of verbal behavior (VB). Although there has been little outcome research evaluating VB as a treatment package directly compared to other interventions, single-subject studies have suggested that VB may be able to produce outcomes similar to the Lovaas model in fewer hours of direct treatment delivery. Further, disseminating EIBI through parent training programs has great potential to conserve resources while increasing access to empirically supported intervention. This symposium will explore critical issues in the dissemination and evaluation of the VB delivery model, including the design of competency-based training to improve treatment fidelity and the development and evaluation of a parent-implemented VB intervention.

ABA-based early interventions for autism have not traditionally been designed for parent-implementation. Parent-implemented interventions for ASD offer multiple advantages, and a number of non-behavior analytic, developmental interventions for ASD have distinguished themselves from ABA-based interventions by explicitly centering on parent-implementation. Non-behavior analytic, parent-implemented developmental interventions have also been the focus of multiple randomized clinical trials (RCTs), and despite mixed outcomes, contribute to an increasing volume of ASD intervention research in disciplines outside behavior analysis. To pilot and prepare for RCT evaluation, a 16-session adjunctive, parent-implemented treatment for young children with ASD based on Skinners analysis of verbal behavior was developed and manualized. The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Program Placement (VB-MAPP) and Sundberg and Partingtons (1998) Teaching Language to Children with Autism or other Developmental Disabilities were adapted for parent implementation and served as the basis of the treatment manual. Preliminary pilot results indicated that a parent-implemented intervention based on Skinners analysis of verbal behavior produced gains in joint attention and verbal behavior, as well as decreased levels of problem behavior post-treatment. In this presentation, the process of developing, packaging, and piloting a parent-implemented behavior analytic intervention for preschool children with ASD will be discussed, and preliminary outcome data presented.

Converging evidence suggests that 5-HT2AR agonist psychedelics (classic hallucinogens) may hold a future in addiction treatment. Observational studies have reported addiction recovery associated with the ceremonial use of 5-HT2AR agonists (mescaline, dimethyltryptamine) by indigenous cultures. A meta-analysis of randomized studies from several decades ago showed that administration of 5-HT2AR agonist lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in alcoholism treatment resulted in significantly less alcohol misuse than randomized control conditions, with a large effect size (odds ratio ~2). Research with 5-HT2AR agonist psilocybin in nonaddicted individuals shows effects suggestive of antiaddiction efficacy, including positive behavior change as assessed by experimentally blinded community observers, increased personality openness, and high ratings of personal meaning at long-term follow ups. In a recent open-label pilot study of psilocybin as an adjunct to cognitive behavioral smoking cessation therapy in 15 treatment-refractory participants, 80% showed biologically verified smoking abstinence at 6-month follow-up. Although not definitive, these results are substantially greater than typical treatments. Another recent pilot study suggested safety and efficacy of psilocybin as an adjunct to Motivational Enhancement Therapy for alcoholism. This presentation will review this research, describe ongoing randomized trials, and discuss potential behavioral mechanisms.

Applied and basic behavior analysts interested in research on the use of hallucinogens in the treatment of addiction.

From a behavioral perspective, depression is a summary label for a set of responses emitted in a context, not an internal (neurobiological or psychological) defect within a person. As such, depressive symptoms should be treatable by changing environment-behavior interactions and the context in which they occur. Behavioral activation (BA) is a well-developed approach to treating depressive symptoms in adults with an emerging literature for adolescents. The goal of BA is to promote contact with positive reinforcement by engaging clients in focused activation strategies to counter passive avoidance/withdrawal and to increase goal-directed and values-guided behavior. The tutorial will briefly review of major components of BA, including: (1) the rationale and model of depression; (2) mood and activity monitoring; (3) conducting a values assessment; and (4) scheduling pleasurable, mastery-related, and values-based activities.

Anyone interesting in the seeing the application of behavior analysis to depression, a common mental health problem. Also attendees, particularly students, who may have broad applied interests.

The passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 increased the opportunities for learners with intellectual disabilities (ID) to receive postsecondary education. Benefits of the postsecondary education for leaners with ID include better employment opportunities, increased financial security, and general well-being. It is critical that educators should address the academic skill deficit of learners with ID at the postsecondary education setting. Reading and study skills are the two areas essential for success at the postsecondary level. Unfortunately, these are the two primary areas learners with ID struggle with. The symposium will include two experimental studies on effective academic interventions for young adults with ID at a postsecondary education setting. The first study will investigate the effects of a reading intervention on narrative comprehension skills of young adults with ID. The second study focuses on teaching a four-step guided note-taking strategy on information retention of young adults with ID. We will discuss the implication of the findings in the context of designing and delivering effective academic interventions for young adults with ID.

Friends and colleagues of William Abernathy will gather to celebrate his life and his many contributions to the field. Dr. William Abernathy received his doctorate in I/O psychology from The Ohio State University and taught at Ohio University. He was an associate professor of psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University and vice-president of performance systems at Aubrey Daniels, International. Dr. Abernathy developed and coordinated a new master's degree in I/O psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University. Prior to joining Southeastern, he was the president of Abernathy and Associates in Memphis, TN. Dr. Abernathy authored three books: The Sin of Wages, Managing without Supervisors, and The Liberated Workplace—Transitioning to Walden III. He also published numerous articles in academic and trade publications, was an associate editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, a board member of The Cambridge Center, and recipient of the International Association for Applied Behavior Analysis Outstanding Contributor Award, plus Outstanding Contributor Award by the Organizational Behavior Management Network. Dr. Abernathy passed away in early March 2015. Behavior analysis has been enriched by Dr. Abernathy's lasting contributions, which shine as an exemplary model of rigorous and socially important behavior science.

This presentation will delineate the evolution of a University sponsored fieldwork experience program adhering to the parameters outlined by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). The strengths and challenges associated with the growth of the program, as well as the fluid nature of BACB supervision guidelines will also be discussed. Mechanisms by which to adequately train and oversee supervision by adjunct faculty members will be shared. Two applied studies will be presented as an evaluation of skill acquisition for graduate ABA students within classroom and experiential learning opportunities. The first will discuss the Behavior Analyst Certification Boards (2012) identification of the translation of technical language as a competency for certified clinicians and involved a component analysis of a treatment package aimed at the assessment and training of behavior analytic consultation skills. The treatment package involved observation of targeted skills and a self-study (personalized system of instruction) task. The second study presents data supporting the use of a Foundational Knowledge Tool designed to relate concepts to applied practice. The Tool, utilized within core courses, allows tracking of topography-based responding associated with Foundational Knowledge content and its relation (linkage) to other Task List Content (i.e. Fundamental Elements of Behavior Change). Once growth in topography-based connections (intended to represent clinical use/applications of the concepts) was shown, an exam measuring student ability to relate the content to scenario-based multiple-choice questions (intended to represent a national certification exam) was administered. This study evaluated the correlation between use of the Tool and outcomes on selection-based exams.

Self-talk is a ubiquitous human phenomenon. We all have an internal monologue that we engage in. Yet, surprisingly little research has examined the role that self-talk plays as a regulatory mechanism in adults. In this talk, Dr. Kross will review findings from an interdisciplinary program of research, which suggests that the language people use to refer to the self during introspection--i.e., whether people use nonfirst person pronouns and their own name or first person pronouns--consequentially influences how they think, feel, and behave under stress. Discussion will focus on the potential practical implications of this research and important future research directions.

Functional communication training (FCT) is a differential-reinforcement procedure that involves the delivery of the reinforcer maintaining problem behavior contingent on an alternative communication response. Tiger, Hanley, and Bruzek (2008) found FCT to be the most commonly prescribed function-based treatment for problem behavior. As a result, a large portion of the literature on the assessment and treatment of problem behavior surrounds techniques to improve FCT. This symposium was designed to showcase some of the recent advancements in FCT. Kelley and colleagues investigated how noncontingent reinforcement disrupts both response acquisition and maintenance during FCT. Mitteer and colleagues evaluated a pre-assessment that predicts performance under two types of FCT schedule-thinning procedures. Ghaemmaghami and colleagues compared two approaches for programming delays to reinforcement during FCT schedule thinning. Niebauer and colleagues examined the role of stimulus control in mitigating the resurgence of problem behavior during extinction. The overall theme and implications of these studies will be discussed and summarized by Dr. Linda LeBlanc.

Response-independent reinforcer delivery (in the form of noncontingent reinforcement; NCR) is a procedure commonly used to decrease levels of problem behavior. As a primary effect of this intervention, response-independent reinforcer delivery abolishes motivation, abates responding, and weakens the functional relation between behavior and consequences. Secondary effects may be undesirable in some cases. For example, some studies (Goh, Iwata, & DeLeon; 2000; Marcus & Vollmer, 1996) showed that response-independent reinforcer delivery treated problem behavior but also might compete with acquisition of an alternative response. In the current study, we extended previous research by (a) showing that response-independent reinforcer delivery competes with both response acquisition and maintenance and (b) extending the generality of the findings by including both basic and applied arrangements.

Fisher, Greer, Querim, and DeRosa (2014) found that when functional communication training included multiple schedules of reinforcement (mult FCT), individuals who were unable to discriminate between the multiple-schedule components engaged in exceedingly high rates of the functional communication response. Response-restriction (RR) procedures were later shown to prevent this problem while maintaining low rates of problem behavior. In the current investigation, we evaluated three childrens successive- and simultaneous-discrimination abilities prior to evaluating Mult FCT or RR FCT. For one child, we conducted Mult FCT and RR FCT concurrently, albeit in separate contexts, and found the assessment accurately predicted the childs discrimination performance during each treatment. For the other children, we used the discrimination-test results to guide the selection of RR FCT to quickly teach the simultaneous discrimination and reduce problem behavior to near-zero levels. Results are discussed in terms of how selecting treatments matched to each individuals skills may be advantageous when evaluating treatments for problem behavior.

Despite being proven successful as a treatment for reducing problem behavior, functional communication training (FCT) does not address what happens to problem behavior during times in which functional communication responses go unreinforced. Previous research has shown that periods of extinction following FCT produce resurgence of problem behavior (Mace, et al., 2010; Volkert, Lerman, Call, & Trosclair-Lasserre, 2009), and such periods of extinction are likely when caregivers implement FCT. The current study evaluated whether establishing strict discriminative control over the FCR with the use of a multiple schedule mitigates the resurgence of problem behavior. With three children who engaged in problem behavior, the effects of a multiple-schedule FCT intervention was evaluated when discriminative stimuli were present or absent during a rigorous extinction challenge developed from Nevin and Shahans (2011) Equation 7 of behavioral momentum theory. Results for one child are compared to rates of problem behavior predicted by Nevin and Shahans (2011) Equation 7. Results are discussed in terms of how stimulus control can offset resurgence of problem behavior during periods of extinction.

Societal-level challenges, including wasteful and dangerous personal and cultural practices and the erosion of caring and compassion, demand solutions that promote positive and widespread changes in behavior. Applied behavioral science (ABS) offers a promising foundation from which to address important societal issues such as excessive resource consumption, unsafe personal and workplace behaviors, and a generalized increase in the coarseness of human interactions. Importantly, interventions to improve these cultural-level problems require large-scale applications. Furthermore, successful and sustainable changes in cultural practices require the establishment of self-perpetuating systems that promote the spread of prosocial behavior change by incorporating processes that encourage members of the culture to not only engage in prosocial behavior but to recognize and reinforce the prosocial behavior of others. An example of this type of programmatic approach to large-scale behavior change is the Actively-Caring-for-People (AC4P) movement, which incorporates antecedent, consequential, and self-management strategies encourage, maintain, and generalize prosocial behavior. This symposium will presents four examples of behavioral interventions designed to improve behavior in the areas of: bicycle safety, environmental sustainability, and the spread of compassionate and caring behaviors throughout entire communities. Each presentation incorporates a large-scale AC4P perspective, which has the potential to impact large numbers of people worldwide.

The Actively Caring for People Movement (AC4P) aims to apply principles derived from behavioral science to increase and maintain acts of kindness on a large scale. Although behavior change occurs at the level of the individual, widespread application and adoption across many individuals is necessary for a cultural-level impact of programmatic approaches to prosocial behavior. The current project evaluated dissemination of AC4P in a university campus and the local community. A community forum was held, at which the principles underling AC4P were presented and the AC4P program was described. Approximately 600 people attended the forum, and each received either one or two individually-numbered AC4P bracelets and was encouraged to register their bracelet number on the AC4P website and pass it on to someone engaging in kind acts. Bracelet numbers, as well as AC4P stories, were recorded and tracked on the AC4P website. Bracelet registration continues to evaluate the effects of subsequent contacts with forum attendees as well as additional organized, community-based activities at which bracelets will be distributed.

The trial-based functional analysis (FA) is a practical variation of traditional FA methodology in which brief experimental trials are embedded into an individuals regularly scheduled daily activities. Although relatively understudied, existing research suggests that trial-based FAs can be valid and accurate assessments of commonly studied topographies of problem behavior such as aggression, property destruction, and stereotypy. However, no research to date has outlined variations of trial-based FA methodology appropriate for the assessment of behavior problems that pose unique challenges to valid analysis (i.e., noncompliance). In Study 1, we propose one such variation and evaluate correspondence between trial-based and traditional (multi-element) FAs of the noncompliance of two children referred to an outpatient behavior clinic. In Study 2, we evaluated the validity of Study 1 results by incorporating trial-based FA outcomes into effective function-based interventions. Interventions included a combination of functional communication training (FCT) and mand extinction in two-component compound (i.e., multiple or chained) schedules of reinforcement. Results of both studies provide preliminary evidence indicating that the proposed modifications to trial-based FA methodology may be useful when identifying the function(s) of noncompliance.

The research to practice gap has been a persistent problem in special education classrooms. An abundant number of effective interventions for improving student outcomes have been identified across decades of empirical research; yet most teachers select practices based on their own preferences and experiences (Cook & Cook, 2013; Cook, Tankersley, & Landrum, 2013). Despite federal laws mandating that teachers use evidence-based teaching practices, most teachers select interventions based on their own preferences and experiences (Cook & Cook, 2013; Cook, Tankersley, & Landrum, 2013). Not relying on scientifically proven methods deprives students with disabilities of the effective instruction that they so desperately need (Vaughn & Dammann, 2001). In order to close the achievement gap between learners with special needs and their typically developing peers, it is imperative to address the glaring disconnect between research and practice (Burns & Ysseldyke, 2009). Bringing evidence based teaching practices into real classrooms can be accomplished by coaching novice teachers, providing them with self-monitoring strategies, and collaborating with them to produce research based on their students needs.

Evidence-based practice in education is a recursive problem-solving framework special educators can use to address academic and behavioral targets. Once teachers have (a) identified concrete objectives, they can (b) select, (c) adapt, and (d) implement scientifically supported technologies, and (e) use progress monitoring data to evaluate student response to intervention and inform instructional decisions. This chain of operant, problem-solving behaviors (i.e., evidence based teaching practice) can and should be explicitly taught to novice teachers so that they are prepared to effectively and efficiently improve student outcomes. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of coaching special education student teachers to engage in evidence-based practice. A multiple baseline design across teachers was used to evaluate the effects of coaching on targeted pupil outcomes in special education and inclusion classrooms. Teacher fidelity data and student measures will be reported, and implications for novice teachers, teacher educators, behavioral consultants, and researchers will be discussed.

This study examined the effects of a graphic organizer intervention package on the quality and quantity of persuasive writing of three middle school students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The students novice classroom teacher identified written expression as a priority need for her middle school students with autism, collaborated with a research team to identify an appropriate evidence based intervention, and implemented the intervention while receiving on-going guidance and support from the research team. The intervention included a 3-day training which consisted of explicit instruction on the components of a persuasive essay, modeling and guided practice of graphic organizer completion, and translating graphic organizer notes into a draft. Following training, the students independently completed graphic organizers and wrote persuasive essays throughout the post intervention condition. A multiple baseline across students design demonstrated the intervention package was functionally related to improvements in writing performance as measured by total words written, correct writing sequences, and analytical rubric scores.

Phonemic awareness is critical for the development of proficient reading and spelling skills. Word box instruction is a direct instruction approach to teaching phonemic awareness skills and has been demonstrated to be an effective intervention for struggling readers (e.g., Devault & Joseph, 2004; Joseph & Maslanka, 2002; Joseph, 1999; Keesey, 2012; McCarthy, 2008). As students pronounce each phoneme in a word, they slide a marker (e.g., coin, poker chip) into a picture of the box with that phoneme. This study examined the effects of word box instruction on the outcomes of three at risk first graders. The word box instruction intervention was planned and implemented by a novice teacher in collaboration with a research team. A multiple-probe across participants design demonstrated a functional relation of word box instruction on students reading and spelling performance. Additionally, two of the three participants demonstrated evidence of maintenance and generalization of reading and spelling outcomes.

An evidence- based science of teaching is required in order for all students in inclusive and general education classrooms to meet current standards for proficiency across major subject areas. Interacting with storybooks and text, interest in peers and learning new concepts , and a tendency towards exploring new ideas and vocabulary are all identified as foundational benchmarks in the New York State Common Core Standards. We report on three experiments targeting these areas. The first study tested the effects of the establishment of conditioned reinforcement for observing books on the rate of acquisition of novel textual responses. In the second study, the experimenters tested the effects of teaching students to chorally respond on the acquisition of observational learning capabilities. The experimenters in the third study investigated the role of peer modeling and observed contingencies on question- asking in preschoolers. The results of all three experiments showed functional relations between the implementation of the independent variables and increases in the target behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for students' success in general and inclusive educational settings.

I tested the effects of conditioning books on rate of acquisition of novel textual responses for 17 participants with and without developmental delays (2.4 to 5.4 years old). The independent variable was the establishment of books as a reinforcer. The dependent variable was the rate of acquisition of novel textual responses. A non-concurrent multiple pre- and post-intervention probe design was used. Participants acquired conditioned reinforcement for books through textual operant discrimination training, stimulus-stimulus pairings, or conditioning books through peer observation. The rate of acquisition increased from 1.6 to 7.25 times as a function of acquiring books as a conditioned reinforcer.

We sought to measure curiosity in special and general education preschool students by measuring the number of questions they asked about unknown items or pictures across four contrived conditions. We identified students who did not ask any questions about unknown items or pictures during the baseline probes, and then provided them with opportunities to observe model peers receive approval and tokens for asking questions about unknown pictures on a computer. The results showed a functional relation between the treatment procedure and increases in questions asked by the participants, and are discussed in terms of eliminating not knowing as a reinforcer.

The establishment of covert academic behavior is essential for the development of fluent reader and writer repertoires. One experiment determined the relationship between silent and oral reading fluency and comprehension among adult and elementary-aged fluent readers. A subsequent study identified a procedure to teach comprehension when reading silently. The procedure established covert speaker-as-own-listener repertoires for participants with language delays. The induction of a covert speaker-as-own-listener capability may result in more efficient reading and potential for long term academic success and the development of socially acceptable behavior

Despite the common use of errorless procedures, occasional errors will inevitably occur during instruction within Discrete Trial Training (DTT). Therefore, empirically testing and validating error correction techniques used in DTT is important for the development of best clinical practices. In the current paper, we empirically compare error correction procedures for teaching receptive identification in three learners with autism spectrum disorder. For each learner a try again procedure was utilized in the context of a three-choice discrimination task. This procedure allowed a learner to make up to two additional attempts to respond correctly, without prompts, after making an error. For each learner, this procedure was compared to a previously successful error correction procedure: either, 1.) a prompted follow-up trial or 2.) the delivery of corrective information (i.e., this is the _____) without the requirement of a follow-up response. We found that the more effective error correction strategy was idiosyncratic to each learner. Implications for individualizing error correction procedures across learners with autism spectrum disorder and developmental disabilities will be discussed.

The majority of research in Applied Behavior Analysis has substantiated that learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) acquire skills most rapidly in a one-to-one teaching format referred to as discrete-trial teaching (DTT). While DTT is an essential instructional model for learners with autism, it may not, over time, provide students with ASD the skills necessary for life success. Moreover, as the incidence of ASD has increased (e.g., by 30% in the last two years), it is predicted that in 5 years, 122,493 students with ASD will turn 22 nationwide, requiring 48,015 caregivers at a cost of 3,623 million dollars annually. Additionally, the new nation-wide Employment First initiatives have drastically decreased and will eventually eliminate sheltered work environments that have been available for more severely impacted people with disorders. We need to consider preparation for next environments to be a primary obligation of our service provision. Working in groups, working independently, and working with minimal and reduced supervision must be explicit goals for learners with ASD. Additionally, we must develop creative and cost-effective ways to teach, support and monitor adults with ASD in community and employment settings.

Addiction is characterized by continued drug use despite its adverse consequences, and by its chronic relapsing nature. Frequently, this continued use is assumed to result from drugs being over-valued, i.e., drug use being less elastic. In other words, in those who are addicted, increases in price decrease drug use less compared to those who are not addicted. Similarly, relapse is frequently assumed to be precipitated by drug-paired stimuli that, through pavlovian conditioning, elicit increases in motivation to take drugs. While these assumptions may be true, other equally viable alternatives exist. For instance, excessive drug use may result from the unconstrained demand for drug being relatively high, i.e. greater amounts of drug being consumed when it is available at no cost, in those who are addicted. Similarly, drug-paired stimuli may precipitate relapse not because these elicit increased motivation for drug taking, but because these stimuli elicit other behaviors that make drug taking more likely or set the occasion for behaviors that result in drug taking. Surprisingly, the empirical base for deciding among these assumptions is extremely limited, especially given how these assumptions shape our investigations into and our treatment of addiction.

Basic and applied behavior analysts interested in drug addiction.

This symposium will provide empirical evidence on best practices when delivering clinical behavior analytic services to disordered gamblers. Current behavior analytic gambling literature shows an overall increase in publication trends, with minimal evidence on behavioral treatment. Behavior therapies including Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy have been shown to be effective forms of therapy for reducing gambling behaviors. While there is minimal research to date on behavioral therapies for disordered gambling, little is known about the success and or failures of treatment goals supporting abstinence or harm-reduction treatment models. For instance, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been shown to be an effective treatment for reducing gambling behaviors, yet little research has been conducted on using brief or automated versions of treatment. Similarly, little treatment research has identified mediating variables that impact gambling behaviors such as inter-trial interval or self-report ratings on happiness indexes. Further, limited knowledge exists on the clinical utility of preference and reinforcer assessment on gambling behaviors. Therefore, this symposium will cover these critical clinical topics and provide emerging evidence on successful treatment assessment and outcomes when providing behavioral interventions for disordered gamblers.

Video prompting has been shown to be an effective instructional method to teach an array of tasks to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In this symposium, three studies will be presented on the use of mobile technologies to teach vocational and leisure skills to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. One study compared the effects of self-directed video prompting versus in-vivo instruction when teaching vocational skills, the second study examined the effects of self-directed video prompting when teaching daily living skills, and the third study examined the use of video prompting in the acquisition of leisure skills. In addition to data, presenters will discuss implications and directions for future research in this area.

Try to picture all that's known about biology and behavior: Genes, epigenetics, neurophysiology, operant and respondent principles, hormones, history ... and much more. Like other sciences, ours has always been part of a grand interdisciplinary effort, and the biobehavioral system is large and complex indeed. Developmental Systems Theory attempts to encompass everything, including the many complex, nonlinear interactions across all levels. The operant principles in which behavior analysts specialize have proved to be an important part of the empowering flexibility in the larger system. Our work on the benefits of enriched environments, the causes and treatments for autism spectrum disorders, the surprising flexibility of "instincts," and rehabilitation for victims of stroke and traumatic brain injury, to name a few examples, are all part of much larger efforts. In turn, system interactions are critical influences on our own work. Scientists always knew a better understanding of the full nature-and-nurture system would bring surprises, and this tutorial will show how the reality has exceeded expectations.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

1. To describe developmental systems theory.  At the conclusion of the event, participants will be able to explain how DST encompasses the entire biobehavioral system, including many complex, nonlinear interactions across all levels. 
2. To show how operant and respondent behavior principles play a critical role in developmental systems theory.  At the conclusion of the event, participants will be able to describe how behavior principles influence and are influenced by the other system variables.
3. To show the philosophical similarities between behavior analysis and developmental systems theory, including for example anti-reductionism.  At the conclusion of the event, participants will be able to describe these similarities.  Participants will also be able to describe the value to behavior analysts of understanding and contributing to developmental systems theory. 

A response class is a set of behaviors that each have different forms, but are maintained by the same or similar consequences (Catania, 2013). Although these behaviors have a common effect on the environment, the probability of their occurrence might not be equal (Baer, 1982). They commonly occur in a hierarchy that escalates from less severe to more severe. The implications of RCH's are vast, with behavioral interventions often relying on this information to dictate treatment. The current symposium includes three presentations that address various aspects of RCH's. First, Joelle Krantz, B.A., will discuss a basic laboratory model targeted to modify an existing response class, preventing problem behavior from persisting during lapses in treatment integrity. Adam Brewer, Ph.D., will then discuss an RCH computer simulation program, assessing response patterns during extinction, after functionally equivalence low-effort responses are no longer reinforced. Finally, Danielle Tarver, M.S., will discuss clinical applications and uses of RCH assessments in determining the functions of individuals behaviors and treatment.

Opportunities to gamble are increasing at very high rates. National and international casinos are developing faster than we have ever seen before. New laws in the U.S. are opening doors for online casinos and states have already adopted online lotteries. While the future of the gaming industry is clear, how behavior analysts will be involved is a bit murkier. A cohesive understanding of gambling, in its many forms, permits we behaviorists to be better prepared to address societal concerns regarding problem gambling as well as to permit students alternative routes to study behavior change. This Multi-SIG symposium combines talks on ethical, clinical, and experimental analysis concerns regarding the future of gambling research and treatment. An emphasis is placed on how multiple areas of interest come together to support these endeavors while striving to make an impact on the gaming industry and its resultant behavioral effects.

Gambling criteria endorsement was investigated in two large archival gambling datasets. Dataset one contained responses from 4,349 clients attending specialist problem gambling services in Victoria Australia from 1997 to 2002. Dataset two contained responses from 12,521 people from 105 countries who responded to an on-line gambling survey advertised on a popular gambling website from June to December 2007. The exact same principal component clustering of criteria was found in both datasets using; the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV Pathological Gambling Disorder criteria categorised using the National Opinion Research Centre Diagnostic Screen (NODS) for gambling problems taxonomy (dataset one), or the same number of the actual NODS criteria (dataset two). Further, both datasets reported similar hierarchical clustering of criteria (see Figure 1). These results suggest that the gambling experience categorised by the NODS taxonomy is multi-dimensional, and these experiences approximate the phenomenology of substance use disorders. Specifically, the gambling experience has three phases; initial use and development of a problem (Escape, Chasing, and Lying), problematic behaviour (Loss of Control, Preoccupation, Withdrawal, and Tolerance), and the experience of negative consequences for others (Bailout, Risked Relationships, and Illegal Acts). These results have important implications for disordered gambling assessment and treatment.

This symposium was organized by the Behavior Analysis and the Arts Special Interest Group. It will include presentations by leading behavior analysts who are known for structural, functional, and/or theoretical analyses of equivalence classes and class formation, transfer and transformation of functions, and other behavior that emerges without direct conditioning (derived relations). Fields will present an analysis of artistic categories that focuses on generalized equivalence classes, function transfer among class members, and linked perceptual classes. For example, he will suggest how such classes allow people to recognize that the same artist produced different paintings and how paintings by different artists can be classified within the same style of artistic expression. De Rose will also focus on derived relations, framing a contribution of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges as a quasi-behavioral analysis of inter- and intra-individual variability in art appreciation. McIlvane will also consider behavioral variability in expression and appreciation of art. He will present a quasi-theoretic analysis that emphasizes variability of stimulus control and reinforcement relations across different consumers of artwork and also within the same individual at different times. All presenters will address how behavior analyses of the arts can be useful in educating students about both areas.

The paintings of a given artist and its related information will be viewed through the lens of generalized equivalence classes, function transfer among class members, and linked perceptual classes. The picture produced by a given artist (A), its’ name (B), the artist’s name (C), the era represented by the painting (D), and a defining characteristics of the painting (E) can be viewed as the members of the to-be-formed ABCDE equivalence class. Once formed, all of them will have become related to each other, and a student should then state the era, artist’s name, and characteristic of the painting, on request and without direct training, showing the transfer of informational function among the members of the art-based equivalence class. Also, new paintings by the same artist (A’) should be identified as such, along with paintings from the same era by different artists (X’), without direct training. Some of these outcomes will be illustrated with data obtained from undergraduates majoring in Psychology. Finally, sometimes two sets of works by the same artist are not recognized as being by that artist. The two can become related by forming a linked perceptual class with them. Art-based education by equivalence-based-instruction will be considered.

Engaging students at the college level is important, and implementing behavioral principles in various student settings to facilitate student engagement is underexplored. Engagement in courses by college students is linked to higher achievement in the classroom (Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2008). Additionally, undergraduate psychology students who are involved in activities outside their classes report high academic related satisfaction and academic achievement (e.g. Astin, 1993; Strapp & Farr, 2010). This symposium will discuss the engagement of undergraduate students in academia both in and out of the classroom. The first presentation will discuss the relation between GPA and the time of the semester that students choose to participate in research studies, and explain the implications for experimental research. The second presentation will review methods that were used to bring behavioral analytic principles into the classroom. The final presentation will discuss the implications of using a contextual behavioral analysis of student persistence to address student engagement.

Ensuring that the behavioral sciences produce the improvements in human well-being that we all hope for requires that many more people understand and appreciate the knowledge about human behavior and society that have accumulated in the past 50 years. In The Nurture Effect, Dr. Anthony Biglan has tried to communicate to a broad audience of scientists and nonscientists how the behavioral sciences have accumulated programs, policies, and practices that can have great benefit in improving well-being. Taking an evolutionary approach, he will describe the development during the past 50 or so years of our understanding of operant learning and symbolic processes, as well as the principles involved in the recent evolution of capitalism. In the first section of the book, he describes the contextual principles that are, in his view, the foundation for the progress that has been made. In the second section, he describes family, school, peer, and clinical interventions that have solid evidence of benefit in the prevention and treatment of virtually all of the most common and costly problems of human behavior. But our progress in improving well-being will be limited if we fail to change the trajectory of modern capitalism so that its practices benefit everyone. In the third section, he describes the current problems with our system in terms of the contexts that have selected harmful business practices and economic policies. In the fourth section, he describes what can be done to ignite a movement that influences our societies to adopt the programs, policies, and practices that make all of our environments more nurturing.

A variety of career paths exist for individuals with conferred master?s or doctoral degrees in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and related disciplines who currently possess or are in pursuit of Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) certification. These paths can lead to practicing in a variety of settings, including clinical environments (e.g. hospitals, outpatient clinics), schools, daycares, consulting firms, and homes. Additionally, although children with developmental and intellectual disabilities are generally the focus of such services, this skill set can be applied to a variety of populations to increase appropriate behavior and decrease inappropriate behavior, teach new skills, and improve an individual?s quality of life. Career paths ranging from practicing in a clinical setting with children with pediatric feeding disorders, pursing a Ph.D. degree in ABA, and practicing in a school setting will be discussed by the panelists. Following this, opportunities to ask questions and further discuss career options will be provided.

The purpose of this symposium is to present different perspectives on teaching behavior analysis in introductory psychology classes. The two papers will discuss ways to approach the teaching of behavior analysis to introductory psychology students, including elucidating certain advances in behavior analysis that may not be well known and that may be pique students' interest, and ways to teach critical thinking skills (i.e., a verbal repertoire) that will lead students more naturally to an appreciation of, if not affinity for, behavior analysis.

Mathematical principles of reinforcement is theory with three main tenets: motivation, association, and constraint (Killeen & Sitomer, 2004). Reinforcers create a heightened state of arousal in which organisms are more likely to emit behaviors, those behaviors that precede and predict reinforcers are coupled to the reinforcers and more likely to occur in the future, and the overall limit on behavioral output constrains the amount of aroused behavior and previously coupled behavior. Mathematical principles of reinforcement provides an account of behavior that is different than the typical strengthening or value based accounts of reinforcement. This panel will discuss the basics of mathematical principles of reinforcement, research implications of the theory, and where to take the theory next.

Following Peters (1983) and others observations of childrens emerging speech patterns, prefabricated constructions have supplanted the words and morphemes approach of the Chomsky-era, and earlier views. This effort, as addressed by Tomasello (2003), emphasizes a usage-based view which is dependent on the effect of adult audience (as communicative intention) on the childs emerging speech, and is clearly distinct from paradigmatic analyses (relying on verb-noun distinctions, etc.) of formal grammatical and syntactic analysis. Current and recent views in this field have also advanced the notion of discriminative functions as cues, replacing the 'rules' of grammar and syntax. While requiring frequent translation from their child centered focus, the major empirical findings are easily related to the radical behavioral view of Skinners Verbal Behavior. Another relevant post-Chomsky literature has reemphasized language diversity among the thousands of literate and preliterate speech communities. The idiomatic nature of speech (and gestures) has been the subject of several books by linguists such as McWhorter (2014) and Deutscher (2010) which discard the rule-governed and formal systems of fifty years ago. These more current views seem to share many points with the functional analysis proposed by Skinner in 1957 and later works.

There are a significant proportion of drug users who do not finish your intervention. Often users leave the intervention before the first month of treatment, when they have not received the expected benefits with the procedures. Therapists behavior has influence in the users behavior. The aim of this study was to describe the relationship between the therapists behavior and users treatment attendance after a one session of brief counseling using motivational interviewing. We worked with 8 therapists (87.5 % female) aged 22 to 43 years old and 8 men aged 18 to 57 years old who used marijuana, cocaine or tobacco, at the public institution created to prevent drug abuse. We used a sequential behavioral coding system in motivational interviewing that includes 20 behavioral categories. We obtained a reliability of 0.83 through kappa index and we performed a sequential analysis. The results showed that 80% of users that received the brief counseling attended at one additional treatment session and therapists behaviors consistent with motivational interviewing were more likely to be followed by users behavior descriptive. By understanding the behavior performed by the therapist and his connection with users attendance we will hope foster the behaviors that increase adherence to treatment of users substance.

A two-year old child with typical development was referred for consumption of only baby food and yogurt mixed with water. His parents fed him these smooth foods by spoon. He refused to drink from a cup, bottle, or straw and consumed only liquids mixed with smooth foods. His table foods were limited to cheese balls, angel hair pasta, crackers, and pretzels. In the past, he drank from a bottle until the nipple broke and he refused all further liquids. Due to his reliance on watered-down food to meet his hydration needs, he was seen in an intensive outpatient feeding program for 11 days. This child was treated with a parent-led shaping procedure for his adipsia. His food selectivity was treated with Plate A-Plate B, which involves reinforcement of novel food consumption with preferred foods. Results showed the stimulus fading procedure increased acceptance and consumption of liquids from a cup. In three baseline sessions, he consumed no liquids for his parents. For the last three meals of treatment, his average per meal consumption for his parents exceeded five ounces. Using the Plate A-Plate B intervention, his consumption of novel table foods increased from 0 to 36.

Stimulus stimulus pairing (SSP; Sundberg et al., 1996) and mand training (Tincani et al., 2006) are technologies that have proven effective in increasing vocalization in children with autism. Teaching manual signs and gestures for this population is also effective not only in symbol acquisition but also in related outcomes such as speech comprehension and production (Schlosser and Wendt, 2008a). In the current study, three children with autism aged between 4.5 and 5 with low vocal-verbal repertoire of between 0 and 2 syllables were undergoing sign mand training in conjunction with SSP and vocal prompting procedures. Acquisition of vocals was improving only marginally, therefore a prompt delay was introduced (Carbone et al, 2010) to test if that would be more effective in inducing vocalization. Vocals were emitted under relevant motivating operations and with vocal models in the very first session of prompt delay intervention by two participants and after 4 weeks by third participant. Over a 4 months period of continued training, all three participants acquired additional 9-14 novel sounds or word approximations prompted or independent.. At 4 week follow up, the specific vocal sounds had generalized to a total of 24-56 vocals including other operants, namely, tacts, echoics and intraverbals.

The researchers created a video self-modeling (VSM) intervention for increasing on-task classroom engagement for three elementary school males diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). VSM is a form of video modeling that enables the individual to perform specific, targeted behaviors by watching himself execute a positive behavior effectively. The effectiveness of VSM has been empirically validated by previous studies on youth with ASD, but few studies have investigated its usefulness in improving academic engagement. Numerous studies have shown that engaged time-on-task is directly related to higher levels of student achievement. Similarly, research has shown that off-task, unengaged students struggle academically, resulting in withdrawn, isolated, unmotivated, and failing students. For the purpose of this study, “on-task” is defined as attending to math worksheets by writing or focusing attention on worksheet instructions; raising hands for teacher assistance; or by preparing materials, such as sharpening pencils, opening binders, and putting worksheets away. The strong evidence-base for VSM for children with autism suggests that this intervention may promote appropriate classroom behavior. Results of the intervention, including data collected using a multiple baseline design from baseline to maintenance phases will be presented. Conclusions regarding intervention effectiveness, study implications, and future directions will be discussed.

Ingvarsson and Hollobaugh (2011) found that tact-to-intraverbal-transfer-of-stimulus-control (i.e. a picture prompt) was more effective than echoic-to-intraverbal-transfer-of-stimulus-control (i.e. an echoic prompt) in teaching correct responses to intraverbal questions in three preschool-aged boys with autism. The current study was a systematic replication of Ingvarsson and Hollobaugh with a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome as a participant. A multi-element design with baseline and best condition was used to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of picture prompts presented on an iPad, in vivo picture prompts, echoic prompts presented on an iPad, and in vivo echoic prompts in teaching correct responding to targeted WH questions when utilizing tact-to-intraverbal or echoic-to-intraverbal transfer of stimulus control procedures. Reliability data were collected in 50% of sessions and averaged 96%; treatment fidelity data were collected in 53% of sessions and averaged 99%. Although all prompt conditions eventually were effective (Figure 1), results showed that echoic prompts presented on an iPad were most efficient in terms of trials to acquisition (i.e. 3 consecutive sessions of at least 80% correct responding) in teaching correct responding to the targeted WH questions followed by picture prompts presented on an iPad (Figure 2). A best condition phase with new Wh questions reflected a consistent pattern of acquisition for iPad echoic prompts. Generalization probes for both iPad conditions reflect criterion level performance. Prompting method preference of the participant was assessed via a paired choice procedure; results indicated a preference for the iPad Echoic condition Conclusions and recommendations for future research are presented.

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of vocal and motor distractors on sequencing arbitrary stimuli. Seven undergraduate students were exposed to different sets of stimuli and were given either vocal or motor (hand signs) instructions to sequence them in a multielement design. The effects of tact, echoic/mimetic, and joint control training were evaluated in a multiple baseline design, while distractor tasks were presented in a reversal design. The results indicated that four participants arranged the sets taught vocally and with hand signs in novel sequences after tact and echoic training. Three participants required additional training for the set taught with hand signs prior to accurate novel sequencing. In addition, accurate responding deteriorated in all participants for sets taught vocally and with hand signs, when a vocal distractor task was required. Accurate responding also deteriorated for four participants during distractor tasks that required tapping to the sound of a metronome, but when consistent tapping without the sound of a metronome was used, responding in three participants was not affected.

The manipulation of motivating operations can be an effective intervention component. In this symposium we present research regarding the application of motivating operations in assessment and treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The first paper evaluates the effects of systematically-identified durations of reinforcer access on task completion. Individualized durations of reinforcer access were identified based on the mean latency of satiation. Results indicate that this method can be utilized to identify a precise duration of reinforcer access to influence an evocative effect. The second paper evaluates the effects of a motivating operation-based treatment on escape-maintained problem behavior. After a trial based EO analysis confirmed that problem behavior was motivated by tasks with a low probability of correct responses, a high probably response sequence was successfully implemented to decrease problem behavior and increase skill acquisition. The third paper conducted a parametric evaluation of two variations of the implementation of the behavioral indicator of satiation method. Results identify not only a wide variation in latency to the first and subsequent displays of the behavioral indicator, but also that the selected method influences the abative effect on subsequent challenging behavior. Collectively, studies present innovative uses of the manipulation of motivating operations.

Challenging behavior often occurs when access to a preferred item is restricted. For children with developmental disabilities these challenging behaviors can impede learning opportunities and decrease possibilities for social interaction, which are already severely diminished (Lang et al., 2010). One way to proactively address challenging behaviors is through the manipulation of motivating operations. This study examined behavioral indicators of satiation using the item rejection procedure developed by O’Reilly and colleagues (2009) with differing levels of criteria. All participants were diagnosed with a developmental disability and engaged in tangibly maintained challenging behavior. Specifically, this multi-element single subject research design compared the duration of a tangible session following pre-session access to tangibles. Pre-session access was ended after a participant engaged in one instance of rejection behavior, which was compared to sessions ending after three rejection behaviors were used. Results suggest differences between using one and three rejection behaviors as indicators of satiation. Implications for clinical applications will be discussed.

All behavior analysts should be passionate about the dissemination of behavioral science as a way of creating solutions to important social issues. Traditional methods of sharing scientific information include written documents such as journal articles, but this approach is often insufficient to reach culturally diverse and international groups. We must seek more active and engaged ways of reaching our audiences. Panel members will discuss their personal activities and activism toward creating connections between research, practice, and policy. Examples will include research and practice, sharing behavioral applications in other fields, providing free trainings, creating alternate pathways to BCBA certification, expanding access to supervision and services internationally, cross cultural connections, collaborating actively with groups hostile to behavior analysis, networking with community leaders, translating behavioral information, becoming involved in global initiatives at the World Health Organization and participating in the United Nations. Ideas from the literature will be discussed and audience members will be invited to share the ways they are advancing the science of human behavior. Audience members will leave with new ideas and motivation for sharing our science with multi-cultural populations to change our world.

Throughout the Renaissance, the arts and science were both often practiced by women and men of scholarship of all sorts. The very notion of a "Renaissance Man or Woman," speaks to the idea that today we have somehow lost our way, and expect divergence not integration. It was more common than not, that scientists also were practitioners of some form of painting or artistic writing, and the converse. From Leonardo da Vinci to B.F. Skinner, the two have more often than not been interwoven. The notion that the two are separate endeavors emerged after the Renaissance when science and the humanities diverged, reaching its culmination during and after World War II when C.P. Snow presented his famous Rede Lecture, "Two Cultures." The arts are integral features that create the context within which our practices as research and applied behavior analysts are conducted. Artistic factors also are behavioral variables in our analysis of behavior. They are also uniquely effective in creating the context for socio-cultural conditional learning and discriminations. As we look about us, we are compelled to ask, "Why do artists create art?" "Why can people with severe disabilities often create stunning artistic products while being unable to speak an intelligible sentence?" "Why do so many of us feel artistic activities are uplifting and add a dimension to our lives that exceed those of our science, alone?" "How can the concepts of the arts and sciences be integrated to mutual benefit?" In today's discussion, Dr. Travis Thompson will explore the intrerplay of artistic activities and behavior analytic endeavors, where they intertwine and separate. *The title is from a comment by the first American woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell in the 19th century.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

Historically, youth with intellectual disabilities have poor postsecondary outcomes in the areas of employment, education, and independent living and lack the self-determination skills needed to become self-sufficient adults. Research indicates that the acquisition of skills related to self-determination improve the postsecondary outcomes and overall quality of life, including those with intellectual disabilities. In this study, the Self-determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI) is used to determine the effects of the acquisition and performance of academic and social behaviors of college-age adults with intellectual disabilities in a multiple baseline design across behaviors. A problem solving questioning sequence will be used to teach goal attainment and planning through: (a) identification of the problem, (b) identification of possible solutions, (c) identification of potential barriers, and (d) the evaluation and reevaluation of their results. Generalization of behaviors will be assessed using behavior checklist and the Behavior Tracker Pro app on iPads in the participants audited courses throughout the study.

Contributing factors to discrepancies among independent living for individuals with disabilities compared to those without are barriers in acquiring, maintaining, and generalizing daily living skills. Acquisition of daily living skills allows people with disabilities to meet their own needs without reliance on others. In addition, proficient daily living skills help people with disabilities increase their self-sufficiency and quality of life. Self-directed video prompting, in which individuals independently access prerecorded task instructions, is an innovative method for teaching daily living skills to individuals with disabilities, but generalization effects have been limited in the literature. . Using technology to teach daily living skills can increase participation in the community and improve independence by providing a level of task competence unattainable without these devices. In this multiple baseline across participants study, self-directed video prompting on an iPad using the My Pictures Talk application was used to help three young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a postsecondary program acquire independent living tasks. Generalization tasks that differed by one, two, and three were measured intermittently throughout the study. All three participants demonstrated generalization to the three tasks. . Our working hypothesis was that study participants would demonstrate improved daily living skill performance and be able to generalize these skills to home and community environments.

The purpose of this study was to expand the applied research on establishing generalized equivalence classes to target concept formation. This study compared the effects of using static (i.e., picture) and dynamic (i.e., brief video clip) instructional formats to teach conceptual classes comprised of action word-referent relations. Verbsgiven their transitory, dynamic, and relational naturewere targeted as a conceptual class distinct from other grammatical classes. Instructional design features, including multiple exemplars and fluency criteria, were applied to a computerized match-to-sample procedure in order to target both equivalence class formation and concept formation given 24 actions involving an actor manipulating an object. Five elementary school students, between 5 and 6 years of age, were selected for participation in this study. Participants had no known diagnoses, but performed at below-average levels in both reading and vocabulary at the start of the study. A multiple treatments, multi-probe experimental design was conducted, during which students progressed through six phases of instruction then testing for emergent and generalized relations. The results provided (1) initial information on acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of verbs as concepts; and (2) information on the conditions that are sufficient for establishing generalized equivalence classes comprised of action word-referent relations.

At this event, OBM-interested students will hear about challenges (and successes) faced by women in OBM who are either in academia and/or are practitioners.

The Era of Big Work in which corporations recruited and retained qualified workers, metered productivity over a 40-hour week, and incented workers with total compensation packages is the historic norm for the U.S. economy. After the Great Recession (2007-09) and massive layoffs, predictably many professionals did not return to positions comparable to the ones they previously held because of the slow, protracted economic recovery. Many workers, instead, re-appraised their personal direction and took stock of market factors and emerging trends. They intentionally chose not to return to traditional corporate jobs and have pursued careers as freelancers, independent consultants, and contract workers. In fact, estimates suggest that about 42 million, or one-third of all U.S. workers, fall into this category and that by the end of the decade, the numbers will rise by 40% to 60 million people. These independents are often seen as entrepreneurs as if the label were all encompassing, one-size-fits-all, and their success is determined by the presence--or absence--of some elusive quality or trait. There is an opportunity to view entrepreneurism more broadly and, in doing so, support the journeys of a growing number of individuals in their personal and professional growth.

Problem solving and decision making encompass one of the most important practices in service delivery for behavior analysts. Different options exist for engaging in this process such as Standard Celeration Charts and Equal Interval Graphs. Most service providers use one type of graphing method within their service delivery but this may be because of a lack of training or exposure to other graphing options. The purpose of this panel is to expose students and practitioners to each type of graphing method so they can make informed decisions regarding which method is more appropriate for the services they provide. Panelists will answer questions about the graphing methods they use to engage in effective problem solving and decision making, how they train others to use these graphing methods, and the benefits and disadvantages of these graphing methods. One panelist will focus on the use of the Standard Celeration Chart, one will focus on the use of Equal Interval Graphs, and one will focus on the feasibility of both types of graphs from a practitioner perspective.

Many studies have shown that greater delay discounting of money is associated with drug-use disorders. The Sexual Discounting Task was developed to determine the effect of delay on decisions to use condoms in casual sex contexts. Findings show that sexual discounting is typically hyperbolic, consistent with discounting results across species and outcomes. Data show sexual discounting to be: sensitivity to sexual partner desirability and likelihood of having a sexually transmitted infection (STI); related to self-reported recent sexual risk (contrasting with money discounting); greater in drug-dependent vs. nondependent individuals; and reliable at a one-week interval. Recently examined were the acute effects of drugs associated with sexual risk on the Sexual Discounting Task, including a novel probability discounting variation assessing the effects of uncertainty of STI contraction on condom use. Results suggest that cocaine, methamphetamine, and alcohol increase both delay and probability discounting of condom use. For methamphetamine, this increase was observed only for those individuals for whom methamphetamine increased sexual arousal ratings. These drugs showed no effect in changing money discounting. Collectively, these data suggest that delay and probability discounting are processes contributing to HIV risk behavior. The results also highlight the limitations of assessing discounting with only monetary outcomes.

Psychologists, behavior analysts, practitioners, and graduate students.

With the proliferation of new technology, there are more ways to teach behavior analysis than ever before. Technology allows us to reach students who would not otherwise be able to learn about behavior analysis due to geographical or other barriers. Additionally, technology provides inexpensive alternatives that allow students to have meaningful learning experiences that would otherwise be costly in terms of financial and other resources. The presentations in this symposium will discuss some recent innovations in the use of technology to teach behavior analysis at the post-secondary level, to graduate and undergraduate students in a variety of disciplines and at three different college and university settings in the US and in Mexico. Specifically, we will address the use of technology in online education in behavior analysis at the post-college level, a technology-based functional behavior assessment training protocol used to teach about behavior analysis to non-behavior analysis students, and the use of a readily-available hardware and software solution for student participation in operant conditioning laboratory exercises.

The history of behavior analysis is primarily one of keen attention given to the discrete responses of individual organisms under carefully controlled conditions. From this, we aspire to deal effectively with the totality of behavior under ordinary, undesigned conditions. One of our great advancements in getting to this goal is the matching law, which tells us that various measures of responding are proportional to various measures of reinforcement. This we usually ascribe to Herrnsteins basic experimental work in the early 1960s. Nowadays, however, when we want to prove the general worth of the matching law, we sometimes use it to explain scoring attempts in sports or the behavior of individual children in reasonably typical settings. However, more than half a century ago, in the early 1950s, the Ecological Psychologists were already attempting to relate rates of socially relevant classes of objectively measured behaviorin everyone in an entire cityto various objectively measured aspects of the physical environmentacross an entire city. One of the results of this effort was an anticipation of a matching-type analysis of the participation every inhabitant in a city in all of its response opportunities, as described in Roger Barker and Herbert Wright's lost classic, Midwest and Its Children (1954). The complexity and sophistication of this massive effort, and the attempts of Barker and Wright to graphically and mathematically organize the data, can serve as a lesson to behavior analysts looking to expand the relevance of their work from discrete responses in the lab to everyday behavior of great general import.

One of the main arguments for the defense of metacontingency as a model for explaining social phenomena is that it embraces another kind of selection (cultural selection) beyond natural and operant selection which, despite being emergent on operant processes, would not be reducible to operant selection. Therefore, for being in another level of analysis, cultural selection demands a conceptual framework of its own, hence the metacontingency. Our goal here is to discuss the argument of irreducibility through two models of reductionism: (a) Ernest Nagel's homogeneous reduction, according to which reduction is established when it's possible to derivate the reduced theory from the reductive theory without needing bridge laws; and (b) what we have called pragmatic reduction, which occurs when a theory situated at a lower level of analysis presents more parsimonious explanations as well as better conditions for prediction and control of phenomena supposedly occurring at a higher (emergent) level. Having these two models of reduction as our analytical framework, we will analyze the relations between two dyads present in the discussions regarding cultural selection: (a) individual social behavior and culture; and (b) contingency and metacontingency. We will suggest that although metacontingency seems to be reducible to contingency (and that we can explain social behavior in terms of operant behavior), from that does not necessarily follows that culture is reducible to individual social behavior.

The field of applied behavior analysis has contributed greatly to the wellbeing of children with autism and related disabilities. Problematic behaviors have been reduced, social skills enhanced, and language repertoires established through the use of behavior analytic technologies and teaching strategies. While these successes have helped to improve the lives of children and families, critics of behavior analysis continue to assert that the repertoires established by behavior analytic treatments are narrow, lacking in generalization, and neglectful of important cognitive skills. In particular, verbal behavior approaches designed to instruct language skills have been criticized as lacking the necessary complexity required to develop genuine understanding or fluent conversation. The present panel will address this issue in the context of current research trends, available manualized treatment models, and issues related to the acceptance of behavior analytic treatment. Special emphasis will be placed on moving the field toward contemporary behavior analytic approaches that are designed to increase communication skills beyond elementary verbal operants.

Teaching social safety skills using evidence-based practices in school and community settings has important implications to the overall safety of individuals with developmental disabilities. Social safety skills combine nonverbal communication, social reciprocity, social cognition, and self-awareness. The presenter will briefly review current literature on instructional methodologies for teaching social safety skills through the use of behavior skills training and video modeling. Instructional strategies, as well as general categories that can be used to create a solid base for teaching social safety skills in schools will also be presented. Preliminary data for several individuals with developmental disabilities will be provided consisting of baseline and in situ training of social safety skills. Baseline and in situ training was conducted in the community through collaboration with a local charter high school. The implications of the results will be addressed with particular emphasis on the utility of the teaching procedures by school staff. This study will address critical social safety skills that are necessary for any school age student to maintain their safety.

Monetary reinforcers, or financial incentives, are often effective at increasing physical activity, but are expensive. To facilitate dissemination, costs must be reduced. Deposit Contracts require participants to invest money in a treatment, which can be earned back by meeting goals. We compared the efficacy of a $50 program on walking when either $0 (N=9) or $25 (N=10) had been deposited by the participant. Nineteen healthy adults who were deficient walkers (<10,000 steps/day on average), wore a Fitbit accelerometer during all waking hours for 5-6 weeks. For a 1-2 week baseline, participants reported stepcounts but received no programmed reinforcers. During a 3-week intervention, $1.50 per day could be earned for meeting individualized stepcount criteria, with bonuses ($2.65) awarded for meeting criteria on three consecutive days. In the final week, a return to baseline condition included no reinforcers or goals. Sixteen participants (84%) increased average daily stepcounts by at least 1600 steps/day (> 1mile). Of those with a treatment effect, nine (56%) relapsed to baseline levels of walking when the reinforcer contingency was removed. A RMANOVA revealed significantly higher stepcounts during the reinforcer condition. Monetary deposit amount did not affect stepcounts or sensitivity to the reinforcers.

Psychological flexibility has been posited as a fundamental aspect of psychological well being and as a mechanism of change in clinical behavior analysis. A mid-level term, psychological flexibility is often defined in the clinical context as involving open, ongoing awareness to private events in such a way as to decrease avoidance and facilitate effective, values-based behavior. This symposium includes four papers, each linking mid-level conceptualizations of psychological flexibility with basic behavioral principles. The first paper considers a number of behavioral concepts that seem fundamental to psychological flexibility. The second paper explores how those trained in psychological flexibility tact their experience. The third paper examines psychological flexibility and inflexibility in terms of appetitive and aversive control, and introduces a measure of body image flexibility based on this conceptualization. The last study explores qualities of derived relational responding as indicative of flexibility and inflexibility investigates the IRAP as a tool for predicting inflexibility in certain domains of living.

College students are often faced with a number of transitions across important domains of life. For many students, academic demands, living conditions, financial status, primary relationships and social activities undergo repeated changes during the course of their college education. Psychology of Adjustment is a course designed to teach non-majors fundamental concepts of psychological health. As currently taught, the course includes primarily experiential interventions in which students learn the concepts of psychological adjustment by practicing psychological flexibility in and out of class. Informal student evaluations suggest that these methods not only ensure intellectual grasp of the concepts but also improve students psychological adjustment more broadly. The current qualitative study examines the content of students journal assignments in order to identify ways in which the class impacts psychological flexibility and college adjustment. Preliminary thematic analysis of 157 students journal assignments has revealed the following themes: the identification and clarification of values, observable changes in valued domains of life, the realization that everybody struggles, the awareness of psychological inflexibility and its consequences, willingness to experience painful thoughts and feelings, and gratitude for newfound presence in everyday experience. Implications for future research and course development will be discussed.

Increasing motorist yielding right-of-way to pedestrians in crosswalks reduces the number of collisions between motorists and pedestrians. One very cost effectively technology, which has recently been demonstrated to increase the safety of pedestrians, is the use of a gateway configuration of the in-street yield to pedestrian sign. In the first series of three studies supported by Michigan Department of Transportation examined variables that influenced the efficacy of this sign and determined how to use this treatment most effectively. These studies also examined the effectiveness of various configurations of this treatment that could increase the survival of the treatment in the roadway. In a fourth study supported by the Federal Highway Administration we examined variables related to the efficacy of the countdown pedestrian signal to determine ways to improve their effectiveness. This study examined whether pedestrians could accurately discriminate how much time they needed to cross roadways of various widths, which change interval signal was most clearly understood by pedestrians, and pedestrians with low vision uses countdown pedestrian signals. These studies will inform the use of these technologies across the country.

This study examined whether sign message contributed to the effectiveness of the gateway configuration of the in-street sign at two sites using a reversal design. The percentage of driver yielding right-of-way to pedestrians was consistently low at both sites during baseline conditions. The installation of the gateway configuration increased the yielding to very high levels. The use of the gateway treatment with blank signs. signs that only contained the background reflective yellow green material produced only half as much yielding as the treatment with the sign message present. These data show that the results could not be explained entirely by the perceived narrowing of the road. This study also examined whether replacing the sign element most likely to be struck by vehicles with a robust city post which can withstand many more high speed hits could increase yielding. The results showed that this configuration produced results that were somewhat inferior to that produced by the use of in-street signs in each position.

This study examined whether the width of the gateway configuration of the in-street sign influenced the efficacy of the treatment. Data were collected at there sites with a narrow and a wider gateway configuration. The gateway treatment was more effective in the narrow configuration then the wide configuration at two of the three sites and made little difference at the third site. Contextual variables appeared to be related to whether the narrow or the wide configuration were more effective. These data showed that perceived narrowing was a variable influencing the efficacy of this treatment. These data were interpreted in terms of behavioral principles.

This study compared the use of edge lane in-street signs alone, lane line use of in-street signs alone and the full gateway (edge lane and lane line signs used together on driver yielding behavior to pedestrians. The edge line alone and lane line alone configurations produced marginal increases over baseline levels of yielding behavior while the full gateway configuration lead to a marked increase in yielding behavior at this site. These data were explained using behavioral principles.

The continued health and vitality of the science and practice of behavior analysis depends on providing top-quality graduate and practical training to current and future generations of new behavior analysts. This symposium brings together four papers that describe programs for such training, as well as discussing and critiquing strengths and limitations of how behavior analysis is traditionally taught. The symposium begins with a paper on arrogance by Jonathan Tarbox. The second paper, by Grace Cascone, applies Skinners analysis of self-control to designing learner behavior that enhances the quality of graduate education in behavior analysis. The third paper, by Taylor Hill, describes a system for designing behavioral classrooms as teams to enhance graduate education. The final paper, by Cheryl Young-Pelton, describes a program for training pre-professional skills and includes preliminary program evaluation data. The symposium will conclude with a discussion by Dr. Darlene Crone-Todd.