Association for Behavior Analysis International

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

#none#

Failures of self-control and social cooperation may both be described in terms of hyperbolic discounting: failures of self-control as due to discounting by delay of reinforcement -- failures of social cooperation as due to discounting by social distance. Both self-control and social cooperation may be seen as choice of distributed rewards over individual rewards: self-control as choice of rewards distributed in time -- social cooperation as choice of rewards distributed over social space. Self-control fails when the value of a large reward distributed over time (such as good health) is discounted below that of a small immediate reward (such as having an alcoholic drink). Social cooperation fails when the value of a large reward distributed in social space (such as availability of public television) is discounted below that of a small reward to oneself (keeping money rather than donating it).Patterns of behavior that maximize reward distributed over wide temporal or social distances may be selected by reinforcement and evolve over the lifetimes of individuals by a process akin to group selection in biological evolution.

This lecture describes a demonstration project designed to address barriers to applying behavior analysis in underdeveloped African countries. In many African countries, there is a dearth of information on the prevalence and impact of disabilities. Additionally, there are major issues in the area of government policy, cultural perspective, early screening, diagnosis and treatment of children with autism and other developmental disabilities. In the light of this situation, Home-Link Trust Inc, a developmental disabilities agency based in Idaho State, has established a demonstration project in collaboration with existing non-governmental organizations for the replication and practice of applied behavior analysis in the management of children with developmental disabilities in Nigeria. This demonstration project will serve as a bridge between the practice of applied behavior analysis in the United States and Africa. In this lecture, the long-term impact of this demonstration project on training and government support for applied behavior analysis in Nigeria will be discussed.

Video modeling is a popular intervention with children with autism spectrum disorders. The presenters will describe four experimental investigations of the use of video modeling to teach skills to children with autism spectrum disorders.

The current collection of research papers is composed of studies investigating response-independent/noncontingent schedules of reinforcement. Studies investigating the utility of these schedules with both clinical and nonclinical populations will be presented.

The purpose of this symposium is to present data from three pediatirc feeding disorders programs. The data will be presented from two hospital-based programs and one home-based program. Data will be presented by the Kennedy Krieger Institute, St. Joseph's Childrens Hospital, and Clinic 4 Kidz. All three programs will discuss their assessment and treatment methods and present data on their outcome measures.

This symposium will contain papers that address topics and research in health, sports, and fitness. Topics include smoking cessation, rehabilitation regimen compliance, fitness adherence, and sports application. The blend of papers in this session represents a growing socially important application in ABA with interdisciplinary implications.

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) refers to the time-based delivery of a reinforcer independent of responding, such that there is no contingency between a response and a reinforcer. NCR has frequently been implemented as a treatment for problem behavior and generally has been shown to be effective in reducing levels of problem behavior. In the first paper, Severtson, Carr and Lepper will describe a quantitative review of NCR-based interventions to assess the efficacy of NCR as a treatment for problem behavior. In the second paper, Sloman, Vollmer, Samaha and Bosch will describe a comparison of momentary differential reinforcement of other behavior (mDRO) to NCR schedules, in the context of treating problem behavior. In the third paper, Carreau et al. will describe an evaluation of variable-interval (VI) schedules based on fixed-time schedules (FT) to measure the persistence of problem behavior when extinction procedures were implemented.

Although there have been a variety of studies discussing pathological gambling, many questions still remain as to the assessment, treatment and validation of pathological gambling. The purpose of this symposium will be to examine various improvements to work on pathological gambling. Four empirical studies will be presented in which different dimensions of pathological gambling were examined. The first presentation will be a discussion on the Gambling Functional Assessment (GAF). The second presentation will review a behavioral therapy treatment package to decrease pathological gambling. The third presentation will explore novel dependent measures in pathological gambling and possible future of gambling studies. The final presentation will discuss the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) and its effects on pathological gambling.

CABAS is a behavioral model of schooling drawing on 1) other behavioral models of schooling, 2) tactics and strategies from the applied and experimental branches of behavior analysis, 3) epistemology of behavioral selectionism, 4) research on CABAS components, and 5) demonstration applications to several schools. These components are applied to all areas of schooling including the students, parents, teachers, supervisors, and the University training program. Research in behavior analysis suggests a common set of effective teaching strategies. These strategies and CABAS components are demonstrated in certified CABAS schools and in public school systems. The following is a data presentation showing the effects of implementing CABAS and components of the CABAS model in a certified CABAS school in the UK and in public school settings in two states in the US.

Providing highly effective, consistent, and sustainable services to persons with Autism and related disabilities requires more than skilled clinicians and willing clients. Providing such services also requires consistent and comprehensive performance analysis and improvement efforts at all levels of a human service agency. This symposium will review how OBM blends Behavior Analysis with Systems Theory to analyze performance at all levels of an organization, describe its role in helping to ensure effective service delivery, and outline the steps that two human service agencies in the Puget Sound area have taken to help support the delivery of consistently high quality services.

In response to the increasing social awareness of environmental concerns and subsequent adoption of sustainable practices for better environmental protection and preservation, this symposium will present data from a variety of studies using behavioral approaches, namely those specific to OBM, to help promote environmentally-conscious behavior. The studies include projects conducted on college campuses ranging from energy conservation, recycling, and "smoke free" zones. Data will be presented and areas of application for future implication and social significance of continued behavioral approaches to influencing environmental preservation will be discussed.

College classrooms can make good settings for conducting behavioral research. Classes consist of amenable and captive participants, have readily available dependent variables that are collected as a matter of course, and easily allow for repeated measures. The studies in this symposium examine the effects of immediacy of feedback using personal response systems, realistic practice opportunities, and various types of question answering on student performance.

The completion of the human-genome map holds great potential for extending our understanding of gene-environment-behavior relations and behavior disorders. However, this potential can be fully realized only if the advances in genetic diagnostics are accompanied by advances in behavioral analyses that accurately characterize behavioral phenotypes. For example, in behavioral genetic studies, important behavioral phenomena seen in children with autism (e.g., echolalia, stereotypy, self-injurious behavior) are often phenotyped by a small number of items on a behavioral rating scale. This simplistic and structural approach to behavioral phenotyping often lacks precision and, more importantly, it overlooks the extent to which genes interact with environmental contingencies to influence the expression of aberrant behavior in autism (e.g., genetically mediated sensitivity to social escape as negative reinforcement for problem behavior). Functional analysis, on the other hand, provides a precise method of quantifying both the topographical and functional properties of aberrant behaviors. The accurate characterization of behavioral phenotypes using functional analysis methods should increase the power of analyses designed to identify genes that affect aberrant behavior in autism. This presentation will focus on how functional analysis methods may be used to better characterize behavioral phenotypes in autism and related disorders.

In the past decade, schools have come under increasing pressures to adopt evidence-based practices due primarily to federal legislation (e.g. the NCLB Act), greater demands for accountability and impact stemming from federal investments in research, and public concerns about the safety and security of students in school settings. It is now common to see lists of evidence-based programs, considered to be either promising or proven, compiled by such entities as the What Works Clearing House, Practice Guides sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences, and Programs to Prevent School Violence developed by the American Psychological Association and the National School Safety Office. This presentation will focus on the emergence of evidence-based practices in education and discuss what they are, where we have been with respect to their use, where are we currently and where we need to go in order to adopt and use them effectively. Specific topics that will be addressed are as follows: 1) definitions of evidence based practices and the efficacy versus effectiveness distinction, 2) key characteristics of evidence based approaches, 3) criteria used to validate and classify intervention and practice approaches, 4) single case versus randomized control trials in determining efficacy-effectiveness, 5) examples of evidence-based interventions, and 6) resources and access information.

N/a

The panelists will discuss Rachlin's notion of self-control and social cooperation. His argument is that both can be described in terms of hyperbolic discounting: "failures of self-control as due to discounting by delay of reinforcementfailures of social cooperation as due to discounting by social distance." According to Rachlin, both self-control and social cooperation may be seen as choice of distributed rewards over individual rewards: self-control as choice of rewards distributed in time, social cooperation as choice of rewards distributed over social space. Self-control fails when the value of a large reward distributed over time (such as good health) is discounted below that of a small immediate reward (such as having an alcoholic drink). Social cooperation fails when the value of a large reward distributed in social space (such as availability of public television) is discounted below that of a small reward to oneself (keeping money rather than donating it). Patterns of behavior that maximize reward distributed over wide temporal or social distances may be selected by reinforcement and evolve over the lifetimes of individuals by a process akin to group selection in biological evolution. The audience will be encouraged to participate.

This session will review reports from the Pennsylvania Verbal Behavior Project. Included will be a discussion of project outcomes, perspectives on the role of consultants who are also parents of children with autism, instructional design for teaching spontaneous mands, and a method of providing direct feedback on instructional performance during discrete trial instruction of the verbal operants.

Systematic replication may be defined as purposefully varying one or more variables across experiments to establish the reliability and generality of results. Although systematic replication may be common with regard to intervention technology, it has not been applied with the same vigor to the design of intervention program systems. This symposium will display annual outcome measures for the Education Program of the Princeton Child Development Institute (PCDI) and display data for three systematic replications--The New York Child Learning Institute, The Institute for Educational Achievement, and the Somerset Hills Learning Institute. Measures will include annual reviews of individualized programs, home programming services, consumer evaluations, and staff training and evaluation outcomes.

Behavioral relaxation training has been shown to be an effective technique to reduce severe, challenging behaviors and teach appropriate alternative behaviors. This technique used in combination with modeling, feedback, and reinforcement is a powerful behavior change procedure. The purpose of the present symposium is to share findings from three case studies in which behavioral relaxation was included as part of a multicomponent intervention package. Positive findings resulted in each example suggesting that individuals with autism may be taught to use behavior relaxation techniques as an antecedent management strategy.

Despite gains that many children with autism may have made while receiving early intensive behavioral intervention, without additional support, they may not be able to learn the same curriculum as the classmate, complete seatwork assignments independently, interact appropriately with peers on the playground or actively participate in class lessons. This symposium will present four papers that describe strategies to support children with autism in general education classrooms through interventions provided by home-based or center-based behavioral services. Each of the four papers will present the details of specific interventions used and child outcome data. Two papers will describe case studies of specific behavioral interventions to support children with autism in inclusive setting. A third paper will present the results of a study comparing high versus low numbers of embedded instruction trials on skill acquisition and generalization for a child with autism in a general education classroom. A fourth paper will describe the results of using priming of academic work in a treatment center to produce improved academic performance of a child with autism in a general education classroom. These papers as a group provide information on practical and effective interventions for children with autism in inclusive school settings.

Acceptance and present moment work are significant components of ACT. Descriptions of such interventions imperfectly capture the cadence, pace, and tone of the work. A video demonstration of acceptance and present moment done by Dr. Kelly Wilson will be featured in this clinical round table. Drs. Kelly Koerner, Barbara Kohlenberg, Steven Hayes, and Michael Dougher will discuss the interventions. Discussion will focus on both the clinical aspects of the video as well as on a behavioral analysis of the interventions.

Intermountain Centers for Human Development (ICHD), a private not-for-profit agency established in 1973, provides out-of-home and home-based support services in Arizona and New Mexico to a variety of at-risk populations including Native American children and adults, children and youth who are emotionally and behaviorally challenged, adults who have been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses, and individuals with developmental disabilities. Intermountain has been inspired and invigorated by the continuing contributions of pioneers such as Sidney Bijou, Judy Favell, Betty Hart, Todd Risely, Roland Tharp, Ralph Bud Wetzel and Montrose Wolf. Over the past 35 years, Intermountain has collaborated with a wide variety of organizations in the development of strategies and best practices to promote the preservation of families and the successful community stabilization and reunion of family members. This symposium will address some of the unique opportunities, successes and challenges for behavior analysis to further collaborate within the behavioral health system of care.

The mission of the Practice Board is to consider issues related to the work of behavior analysts everywhere, including research, practice, and ethics and to address issues relevant to the practice of behavior analysis. This symposium will explore issues that affect behavior analysts work.

The utility of the functional analysis (FA) methodology in identify environmental reinforcers maintaining problem behavior and developing robust treatments has been well documented over the past 20 years (Iwata et al., 1994, Hagopian et al., 1998). However, FA of problem behavior is not always feasible due to the severity of problem behavior, time constraints, or lack of resources. A variety of experimental analyses (e.g., antecedent and concurrent operant) have been successful in identifying environmental reinforcers of appropriate behavior (Conroy & Stichter, 2003; Finkel et al., 2003). The purpose of this symposium is to examine extensions of experimental analyses to the assessment of appropriate behavior. The symposium will include three presentations in which FA of appropriate behavior was conducted with adolescents with problem behavior. The presentations will evaluate the utility of experimental analyses to identify the maintaining variables of appropriate behavior and develop robust treatments. The assessment of appropriate behavior is evaluated via FA, concurrent operant analysis, and assessment based treatments. In addition, FA and concurrent operant assessments are compared in relation to reinforcers identified and treatment efficacy. The findings indicate the need for continued evaluation of FA of appropriate behavior across settings, individuals, and topographies of behavior.

This symposium will present a variety of OBM research projects, showcasing some of the most commonly used interventions in OBM research. Two studies examined ways to improve the effectiveness of employee work tasks in restaurant settings, one manipulating a unique feature of feedback while another used a package intervention to increase selling and customer service behaviors. Another study examined the use of antecedents to improve the cleanliness of gym equipment. The fourth used a reinforcement program to enhance the effectiveness of a smoking cessation program in a primary healthcare facility.

This symposium will address the acquisition of verbal capabilities using the principles of verbal behavior analysis with students in elementary and middle school settings. The three papers focus on inducing observational learning, self-editing, and rates of learning with children diagnosed with developmental and behavioral disabilities. The first paper addresses the effects of students observing teacher presented learn units on the emergence of selected untaught structural and grammatical components of writing samples and the effectiveness of the observing students writing. The second paper focuses on the effects of written mands on written compositions. The final paper investigates the effects of an immediate correction procedure and the students' use of answer keys on learn units to criterion for target behaviors.

We have completed 4 years of a 5-year NIH-funded project that is evaluating long-term maintenance associated with functional communication training. Approximately 20 children have enrolled in the project. All children are 6 years of age or younger, have developmental disabilities, and display aberrant behavior such as self-injury. Parents conducted functional analysis and functional communication training session in their homes with weekly coaching from project investigators. Treatment sessions were videotaped and coded using a 6-sec partial-interval recording system. IOA was recorded for approximately 30% of all sessions. Treatment continued for up to 1 year for each participant. Throughout treatment, probes of aberrant behavior, manding, and task completion were conducted in which various components of the treatment package were removed (e.g., mand card) or changed (e.g., time in demands increased from 5 to 15 minutes). The purpose of these probes was to determine if aberrant behavior increased or adaptive behavior decreased when these components were altered. In this talk, I will present the results of these probes and will discuss the results relative to resurgence, maintenance, and response strength.

Joint attention, a synchronizing of the attention of two or more persons, has been an increasing focus of research in cognitive developmental psychology and behavior analysis. Much of this interest is grounded in the fact that children diagnosed with autism may display a syndrome-specific deficit in joint attention. Phenomena typically considered include gaze following, monitoring, social referencing, and protoimperative and protodeclarative gestures. First, from an operant perspective, a conceptual analysis is in order both because the concept of joint attention has come to refer to a number of different phenomena and because the specification of reinforcement contingencies can replace vague cognitive language of "intention," "sharing," and "theory of mind." Second, even if almost completely unrecognized in modern psychology, some very basic phenomena now studied in the context of joint attention, such as protoimperative and protodeclarative communication, were analyzed as verbal operants by Skinner more than 50 years ago. Third, certain contingencies and schedules of reinforcement that have been investigated in behavioral laboratories are directly relevant to devising procedures that aim to correct deficiencies in joint attention skills, for instance, in children with autism. A behavior-analytic perspective is inherently practical, suggesting technological applications at almost every step.

Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies, heavily regulated by culturally transmitted institutions, are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this talk, Richerson will argue that the key to understanding human behavior is a theory of cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution that is built on Darwinian principles. Our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Culture has played a leading rather than lagging role in human evolution. Culture creates novel environments than then act as forces of natural selection on genes. Most strikingly, our cooperative societies have led to something like the domestication of our genes.

To build a science of the person, the most basic question is: How can one identify and understand the psychological invariancethe basic coherence and organization-- that distinctively characterizes an individual and that underlies the variations in the thoughts, feelings, and actions that occur across contexts and over time? This question proved particularly difficult because discrepancies soon emerged between the expressions of consistency that were expected and those that were found. The resulting classic personality paradox became: How can we reconcile our intuitions---and theories---about the invariance and stability of personality with the equally compelling empirical evidence for the variability of the persons behavior across diverse situations? Which is right: the intuitions or the findings? I discuss some advances to answer this question since it was posed decades ago. These findings have allowed a resolution of the paradox, and provide the outlines for a conception of the underlying structure and dynamics of behavior, and its links to situations, that seems to better account for the data on consistencies and variability in the expressions of individual differences. This conception is applied to the analysis of self-control, focusing on the ability to delay gratification, and its determinants, development, and implications over the life course.

This symposium will present 3 papers demonstrating social skills instruction for children with autism, carried out in three different formats/settings; computer-based parent training, university center-based student teaching, and a community-based social skills group with typical and non-typical peers . Data on childrens' social interactions and parents' social skill instruction will be presented. Video demonstrations will also be used to illustrate procedures used in these different instructional formats.

Group studies of treatment outcomes for children with autism typically utilize standardized assessments of cognitive functioning, adaptive behavior, and language as primary dependent variables.(e.g., Lovaas, 1987; Sallows & Graupner, 2005; Smith, Groen, & Wynn, 2000). More recent attention has been paid to assessing changes in the core features of autism using measures such as the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. (ADOS; Lord, Rutter, DiLavore & Risi, 1999) Although the ADOS was not designed to assess change, some investigators are using the assessments rating score (Owley et al., 2001) or combining the structure of the assessment with other behavioral coding systems to assess response to treatment (Lord & Corsello, 2005). Clinically, the practice of targeting specific verbal operants for instruction has become widespread. Strategies for assessing the development of verbal behavior across groups of children are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions; to supplement existing single subject research demonstrations (Carr & Firth, 2005). The following series of investigations explore strategies for direct measurement of verbal behavior within the semi-structured assessment offered by the ADOS, addressing issues of measurement and evaluation of treatment outcome.

The papers in this symposium touch upon two important topics in behavior analytic intervention for children with autism. The first is related to practices used for data collection during discrete trials instruction and the second is related to practices that lead to generalization of skills taught during intervention. The first presentation in this symposium will show results from an evaluation of continuous data collection versus first-trial data collection during discrete trials instruction. The second presentation will show an assessment of generalization of pure tacts in the natural environment as a result of teaching impure tacts during discrete trials instruction. The third presentation will show a comparison of using free operant to restricted operant procedures on generalization of skills. From the first presentation, attendees of this symposium will learn which of the evaluated methods of data collection appear to be more accurate. From the second two presentations, attendees will learn whether generalization of skills is more or less likely given the evaluated practices.