Association for Behavior Analysis International

Three plaintiffs in Miami, FL, who had children with autism, challenged a ruling by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) that applied behavior analysis (ABA) was "experimental" and AHCA refused to fund behavioral treatment. The case was taken by a team of attorneys for Florida Legal Services, and the presenter was contacted to serve as an expert witness and testified in this federal case. The witness critiqued the state's method of reviewing the plaintiffs' request for treatment, and AHCA's documents and presented the case for ABA as a proven, evidence-based method of treatment. The presenter will describe the "evidence" that was used against ABA and the scientific data that was presented to the federal judge in rebuttal. The blow-by-blow account of the case will be presented in detail including a description of the misrepresentations of our field and the role that the journal peer-review process and meta analysis played in the final judgment in the case.

Translational research links laboratory findings to applied research and innovations in practice. Scientific communities are experiencing a renewed emphasis on translational research, as evidenced by recently adopted NIH funding priorities and, within behavior analysis, several recent papers in The Behavior Analyst and a new initiative for translational research in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB). Effective translational research often requires a partnership between those that have produced provocative laboratory findings and those that understand the necessities and practicalities of the context to which those findings might be brought to bear. Towards this end, the ABAI Science Board has brought together several prominent basic scientists, ready and willing to discuss findings that are on the cusp of translation or in their translational infancy. Allen Neuringer will address the functionality of reinforced variability. Thomas Zentall will describe an animal model of suboptimal choice analogous to human gambling. Timothy Hackenberg describes recent behavioral economic explorations into the nature of generalized reinforcers in the pigeon. To comment on the sort of innovations that may arise from these topics, F. Charles (Bud) Mace, translational science editor for JEAB and one of our fields most prominent applied/translational researchers will serve as discussant.

Behavior analysts well know that animals and people can learn to repeat a response when reinforcement is contingent upon repetitions of that response. Less widely appreciated is that animals and people also can learn to vary when reinforcement is contingent upon variability. In the first case, the response can readily be predicted; in the latter, prediction may be difficult or impossible. Particular levels of variability or (un)predictability, including approximations to random responding, have been generated through reinforcing feedback, such as under lag, threshold, and statistical-feedback schedules. These studies support the claim that variability is an operant dimension, much like response force, frequency, location, and topography. As with these others, contingencies of reinforcement and discriminative stimuli exert precise control. Reinforced variability imparts functionality in many situations, such as when individuals learn new responses, improve skills, explore new situations, attempt to solve problems, or engage in creative work. Importantly, reinforced variability helps to explain the voluntary nature of operant behavior.

When humans engage in organized gambling, they are generally choosing suboptimally (i.e., losses are almost always greater than gains). We present a model of suboptimal gambling in which animals prefer an occasional signaled high payoff (10 pellets 20% of the time; 2 pellets on average) rather than a reliable alternative with a signal for a lower payoff (3 pellets 100% of the time). This effect appears to result from the strong conditioned reinforcement associated with the stimulus followed by a high payoff. Surprisingly, although experienced four times as much, the stimulus that is never followed by reinforcement does not appear to result in significant conditioned inhibition. Similarly, human gamblers tend to overvalue wins and undervalue losses. We also have found that pigeons gamble less when food is less restricted (rich people gamble less than poor people) and they also gamble less when they have been exposed to an enriched environment rather than being kept in an individual cage (for humans, gambling is said to be a form of entertainment). This animal model should provide a useful analog to human gambling behavior, one that is free from the influence of human culture, language, social reinforcement, and other experiential biases.

From money, gift cards and vouchers to grades, promotions and prizes, generalized reinforcers--reinforcers established via their relationship to two or more sources of reinforcement--abound in everyday life. In addition, generalized reinforcers, in the form of token economies, have been used successfully for years in classroom and clinics. Despite their ubiquity and clinical utility, surprisingly little is known about how generalized reinforcers work--the kinds of experiences needed to establish and maintain them as reinforcers, their relationship to other reinforcers, and so on. This talk will describe some recent laboratory research directed to the topic of generalized reinforcement with pigeons in a miniature, self-contained token economy, using data from studies on cross-price elasticity to illustrate some conditions under which generalized tokens reinforcers come to functionally substitute for other reinforcers. The presentation will discuss the data in relation to economic concepts and consider some implications for translational research.

The demonstrated effectiveness of applied behavior analysis-based interventions has led to its increasing acceptance by insurance providers, parents, and schools as the "treatment of choice" for individuals on the autism spectrum. However, much variability exists in the forms of and quality of what is labeled as "ABA" in practice. How is a parent, school district, or HMO administrator to distinguish between what constitutes "ABA services" and what does not? Who is competent to provide or supervise these services? A real potential exists for harm to consumers and to the positive perception that ABA now enjoys, if we as a field do not establish clear standards for the delivery of "ABA services." The panel will discuss three projects designed to help codify standards in critical areas of behavior-analytic autism treatment. These projects include the BACB Health Plan Coverage of Applied Behavior Analysis Treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder, the Autism SIG Consumer Guidelines (for identifying qualified professionals in autism treatment), and the ABAI Empirically Supported Treatments project. The panelists will describe the purpose and status of each project. The implications of not establishing practice standards for practitioners in our profession will be highlighted and the ethical issues that such standards raise will be discussed.

The experimental analysis of motivation is mostly absent from the 55 years of research in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Research has only recently begun to appear in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, but it too has been historically absent from that journal. However, Skinner made it clear in Behavior of Organisms (1938) that antecedent motivational variables were separate from stimulus variables. Keller and Schoenfeld (1950) further developed this distinction in the section, "A drive is not a stimulus" (p. 276), and suggested the term "establishing operation" be used to distinguish the effects of deprivation, satiation, and aversive stimulation on behavior. Skinner elaborated on motivation with three chapters in Science and Human Behavior (1953), and throughout Verbal Behavior (1957). However, as Michael (1982, 1993) pointed out, motivational variables have been neglected in behavior analysis resulting in, "a gap in our understanding of operant functional relations" (1993, p. 191). The current presentation will focus on Skinner"s treatment of motivation in the book Verbal Behavior, where he describes its critical role in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). The failure to address motivation leaves our field vulnerable to claims that ABA is impoverished or incapable of addressing motivation in treatment programs. Suggestions for applications and future research also will be presented.

Functional Behavior Assessment is considered "best practice" when creating interventions for problem behavior (Graham, Watson, & Skinner, 2001; Steege & Watson, 2008). Sometimes, however, problem behaviors may arise because of general classroom management and instructional issues. For example, problem behavior may arise in the classroom because the classroom teacher rarely attends to appropriate student behavior and consistently provides attention for inappropriate behavior. At the same time, the classroom teacher may use ineffective instructional practices. Current practices in the classroom may not represent a "best practice" baseline, which should be in effect before an individual child is targeted for highly individualized assessment and intervention. In such situations, another approach to the assessment of problem behavior is warranted, specifically an assessment of the classroom environment and the instructional routines in place. Such assessment might indicate that a functional analysis for one individual child should not be the first course of action. Rather, more broad-scale intervention may be warranted and may benefit all children in the classroom, while decreasing problem behavior in the targeted child at the same time. This presentation will discuss the rationale and utility for such an assessment, as well as propose a possible method of such assessment.

This presentation first will review how ethical behavior is considered from a behavior-analytic perspective, outlining unique features as well as those that overlap with other views on ethics. The review also will include the potential impact on ethical behavior of some general topics of concern to behavior analysts, such as values and value clarification, long- and short-term consequences of actions, the role of rules and contingencies in ethical behavior, behavioral control and counter-control, and the context in which actions occur. This will be followed by a review of how selected specific methods used in assessment and intervention and contemporary research findings in both the experimental analysis of behavior and in applied behavior analysis might influence ethical decisions and practices related to treatment of behavior disorders.

Many students with autism and other developmental disabilities have difficulty sequencing their own behavior during free-choice situations. Rather, they rely on adults to prompt them to engage in particular activities. Many do not interact appropriately with play materials or may select one activity and engage in it for an extended period of time. Photographic activity schedules have been shown to be an effective tool to teach children to sequence their own behavior and transition smoothly between multiple activities. Children learn to follow the visual cues in the activity schedule to make transitions instead of relying on adult-provided prompts. Activity schedules also provide a context for teaching basic and complex choice-making behavior. As children develop verbal behavior, social scripts also will be added then later faded to promote social interaction. Activity schedules have been used successfully in a variety of settings with both children and adults with various disabilities. They are easy to use and can be adapted to most environments. As children learn to follow activity schedules, the schedules themselves can be modified to more closely resemble those used by their typically developing peers (e.g., planners, daily calendars, "to do" lists, etc.).

Behavior analytic practitioners who work with children and adults with autism and related developmental disorders.

The metaphor of reinforcement plays a central role in how behaviorists view psychology. The response strengthening effects of reinforcement conveyed by this metaphor provide the foundation upon which the law of effect is constructed. Like previous quantitative theories of operant behavior, behavioral momentum theory has provided a formalized approach for characterizing how reinforcement affects response strength and has been suggested as a quantitative version of the law of effect. Based on research findings on behavioral momentum and on other evidence, the presentation will explore an alternative account of behavior based on information theory that dispenses with the notion of response strength. The presentation also will explore how such an information-based account might be reconciled with and integrated with the fact that reinforcers do seem to invigorate behavior. Finally, the presenter will argue that such an information-based account is at least as grounded in natural science as a traditional behavioral approach.