Association for Behavior Analysis International

.

The teaching of behavior analysis in developmental psychology is critical because it is a core discipline in the preparation of teachers, psychologists, social workers, journalists, and other professionals, as well as a major influence on parents. Unfortunately, very few behavior analysts are themselves prepared to teach this important topic. This problem has been compounded by the scarcity of available materials from a behavior-analytic perspective. The result is that much of what is taught about development is, at best non-behavioral, and at worse, anti-behavioral. The authors will present a model of teaching child development based on Behavioral Systems Theory. They will provide examples of materials available, and methods that have been used successfully for over 40 years of combined experience teaching behaviorally-based classes in development and learning.

Todd Risley is now known for his research on language development of typical children but was one of the founders of applied behavior analysis and of behavioral interventions with autistic children. His presentation will integrate behavioral and developmental information to emphasize consensus rather than controversy in early intervention for autistic children.

Most of the concepts we use today to describe behavioral processes were the product of a mutually beneficial relationship in which Keller and Schoenfeld (Principles of Psychology) used Skinner's treatment of his research findings (The Behavior of Organisms) as the foundation for a systematic account of the science of psychology. In greater or lesser degree, this was the history of such concepts as operant conditioning, reinforcement and extinction, response induction and differentiation, successive approximation, shaping, stimulus generalization and discrimination, fading, conditioned reinforcement, chaining, escape, avoidance, and punishment.

Skinner not only provided us with a rich empirical and implied legacy, butalso a fertile conceptual one. One arena he shed his conceptual light upon is education. Through Skinner we've come to know that student learning is not accidental--it is the direct result of what has been designed, intentionally or unintentionally, by educators, instructional designers and society. Through Skinner we've learned that behavior is orderly, order emerges in single subjects, the "subject is always right," understanding behavior requires analyzing contingencies in fine detail, a complex repertoire can be synthesized from elementary units by the careful arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement, units of behavior should be determined empirically rather than defined in advance, and other important principles. One hundred years after Skinner's birth, by standing on his shoulders and those of other giants, Headsprout has updated the teaching machine to become a true, live contingency-matrix, one that has the potential to teach millions of children to read.

Of his many conceptual contributions, I will focus on Skinner's use of a small number of behavioral concepts and principles (respondent pairing, operant reinforcement and extinction, discriminative stimulus control, etc.) as a basis for a molecular interpretation of any conceivable event involving behavior. His analysis of the results of complex animal experiments in these terms illustrates the power of these few basic relations, and constitutes strong support for their extension to the interpretation of any form of human behavior. I will describe some outstanding examples of Skinner's interpretive approach and suggest its general importance for the field of behavior analysis.

Skinner partitioned the science of behavior into two inter-related enterprises-experimental analysis and interpretation. Experimental analysis is restricted to those situations in which all behaviorally relevant variables are manipulable, controllable, or measurable. Interpretation is the explanation of behavior that occurs in situations that do not meet the demands of experimental analysis. Such explanations must appeal exclusively to functional relations that have been identified in prior experimental analyses if they are to qualify as interpretations. The analysis-interpretation distinction is not peculiar to the science of behavior, but inheres in science generally. According to this distinction, many worthy behavioral studies do not satisfy the criteria of experimental analysis (e.g., the study of choice by means of concurrent schedules). Further, nearly all human behavior is the province of interpretation, not experimental analysis. The failure to honor the analysis-interpretation distinction has greatly impeded progress in the science of behavior, most especially in normative psychology.

The purpose of this presentation is to describe how the principles and practices of behavior analysis have been applied to the improvement of school-wide behavior support systems. In particular, the school will be considered as the unit of analysis. The development and durable implementation of school-wide systems of behavior support will be emphasized through a discussion of need, features, guiding principles, and examples and outcomes.

When teaching evidence-based behavior change methods to students of behavior analysis, it is prudent to utilize evidence-based educational methods. Such a commitment allows for proper modeling of applied endeavors, and also helps to ensure that the students behavior will be properly changed during the instruction. An orientation to the importance of this view, given the current climate of increasing accountability of applied services, will be presented. Investigations regarding the sequential analysis of student behaviors, as well as the learning efficiency of students of the selectionistic sciences will be discussed, and will demonstrate that the application of behavior analysis to teaching behavior analysis leads to important instructional gains. In addition, behavior systems of instruction will be the thread that puckers these presentations.

Reinforcers lose their effectiveness when they are presented repeatedly. Early researchers labeled this loss of effectiveness as satiation without conducting an experimental analysis. When such an analysis is conducted, habituation provides a more precise and empirically accurate label for the changes in reinforcer effectiveness. This tutorial will review some of the arguments that support habituation. Then it will be argued that habituation has surprisingly different implications for applied work than satiation. In particular, postulating that habituation occurs to repeatedly presented reinforcers suggests different ways than satiation for maintaining the strength of an existing reinforcer, for weakening the strength of a problematic reinforcer, and for conceptualizing applied behavioral problems. Finally, potential theoretical implications of habituation will be discussed. Habituation may contribute to multiple-schedule behavioral contrast and to understanding the characteristics of behavior undergoing extinction (e.g., spontaneous recovery, disinhibition). Habituation may also help to regulate many different behaviors. In particular, it may contribute to the termination of behaviors that are usually attributed to satiation (feeding, drinking), fatigue (wheel running), and obtaining a high (consuming alcohol).

Over the course of our recent past, behavior analysts and the consumers of their services have demonstrated increased interest in applying principles from Precision Teaching to the intervention programs of children with autism. Unfortunately, the addition of this highly effective, powerful, and efficient measurement system to childrens programs has sometimes been hampered, because of what some may view as barriers to the use of Precision Teaching in such programs. This tutorial will introduce audience members to the principles that form the foundation of Precision Teaching and will address and suggest solutions for some of the most commonly held concerns that surround the use of Precision Teaching with children with autism. Specifically, the tutorial will address concerns related to: errors students may make during instruction; the use of frequency as a measure of behavior and change in frequency as a measure of learning; the frequency aims used as criteria for mastery in Precision Teaching programs; and the use of the Standard Celeration Chart to depict human performance in meaningful ways.

In the 1970s and 1980s, approaches to anxiety disorders concentrated on reducing arousal and overt avoidance behavior. In the 1980s, innovations in psychological treatments focused on psychopathology specific to each disorder, such as panic attacks in panic disorder, directly utilizing interoceptive exposure tailored to the individual based on behavioral assessment to counter avoidance of somatic cues; the worry process itself in GAD conceptualized as an avoidance of negative affect; and depressive cognitions in depression. These psychological treatments were organized into therapeutic manuals. Now we have developed a modular approach directed at the core features of all anxiety and related emotional disorders such that existing treatments can be reduced to one strategic approach that varies based only on individual functional analysis. This treatment, now undergoing evaluation, focuses on: psychoeducation and antecedent cognitive reappraisal to regulate emotion based distortions; the prevention of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional avoidance; and enhancing opposite action tendencies through provocative interoceptive and exteroceptive emotional exposure-based procedures, focusing particularly on appropriate emotional expression.

Psychologists studying learning and memory have been increasingly interested in how animals - human and non-human - detect, integrate, and use temporal information. The importance of understanding interval timing is underscored by the fact that the time between events, responses, rewards, and punishers determine what is learned, what associations are made, and how learning progresses. Until recently, the majority of experimental and theoretical work has been aimed at understanding results obtained from procedures designed to measure steady state timing behavior. In contrast, relatively little is known about timing under changing conditions. I plan to review the results from temporal tracking and gap procedures and discuss the data in terms of a model for interval timing that is based on memory dynamics called the multiple time scale (MTS) model.

This panel is an ABA favorite. Attendees will be given pointers on how to give effective oral presentations and how to present an attractive and effective poster. This is a student committee sponsored event.

Human Performance Technology (HPT) was begun in the early 1960s by behavioral scientists who felt that what they had learned in the laboratory could be applied in the real world. In the last 40+ years the technology has matured and its applications greatly expanded. With the blending of behavioral and systems theory it may well be one of the most important and powerful technologies in the world today. In this presentation we will discuss HPT principles and models and their many applications focused on individual, operational, organizational and marketplace performance.

Increasingly, distance learning technology is opening university (and other) doors to a much larger audience. With a modern computer and an internet connection, employees, parents, indeed anyone who has limited access to or interest in traditional campus-based options, can conveniently participate in an increasing range of coursework. As teachers of behavior analysis, we can now reach a greatly expanded demographic base. Such is the case with Behavioral Intervention in Autism (BIA), a four-course distance learning curriculum designed to educate a large number of parents and personnel in the application of behavioral intervention with children with autism. A team of behavior analysts have collaborated to develop and evaluate this curriculum, with generous support from autism and instructional design experts outside of the team. In this tutorial, I have the pleasure of sharing our work on BIA as the illustrative case in support of two objectives: First, to describe and present data on how distance learning can be used with professional integrity to educate a greatly expanded number of parents and personnel seeking to master behavioral intervention, and second, to illustrate how behavior analytic instructional pedagogy can be meshed with current and emerging technologies to produce highly effective distance learning courses.

Implementation of Direct Instruction (DI) programs as a means of promoting early literacy for typically developing pre-school aged children is not widespread in practice. Few commercially available curricula, other than DI, provide preschool teachers with instructional materials capable of accelerating acquisition of literacy skills. This is of concern given recent federal legislative initiatives (e.g. No Child Left Behind) and research establishing a link between early language deficits and later reading performance problems. This presentation will provide an overview of the effectiveness of the DI curriculum in accelerating literacy skills of .preschool children who are 3.8 years of age or older. Baseline literacy measures and subsequent gains in literacy skill development will be reported utilizing data obtained from the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests (revised) and DI program mastery tests. System-wide application of literacy initiatives for preschool-aged children and the use of DI programs, as a means of early detection of children at risk for literacy skill development, will also be discussed.