Association for Behavior Analysis International

Elif Tekin Iftar, Ph.D, is a professor in Special Education at Anadolu University in Turkey. Dr. Tekin-Iftar received her Ph.D. degree in 1999 from Anadolu University. During her doctorate studies she received a scholarship from Turkish Academy of Sciences and pursued part of her doctoral education at University of Kentucky. Dr. Tekin-Iftar received her full professorship in 2009. She served as a director of Research Institute for the Handicapped in Anadolu University between 2007-2014. Her current research and clinical interest include the behavioral treatment of children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental disabilities, single case experimental research methods, and professional development. Dr. Tekin-Iftar received Distinguished Young Scientist Award and Scholarship from Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2003. Dr. Tekin-Iftar has published over 25 international peer-reviewed journal articles, over 20 book chapters, coauthored a book, and served as editors in three books named as Single Case Research Methods in Educational and Behavioral Sciences, Applied Behavior Analysis, and Educating Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her research has been published in Exceptional Children, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, Journal of Special Education, Research in Developmental Disabilities, and Autism. Dr. Tekin-Iftar currently serves on the editorial board for Exceptional Children. Dr. Tekin-Iftar teaches research methods in education, applied behavior analysis and single case experimental designs at graduate levels. She served as supervisors for many doctoral students in Turkey. She founded Association for Behavior Analysis Turkey (ABATurkey) Chapter as an affiliation of Association for the Behavior Analysis International and she serves as president of ABA Turkey. She founded a graduate program entitled as “Applied Behavior Analysis in Autism” which is the first and only program in its kind in Turkey. She received a postdoctoral scholarship from The Scientific and Research Council of Turkey and visited University of North Caroline in Charlotte for a year. She is the mother of two daughters.

“Safety skills” is an umbrella term consisting of a wide variety of skills. Research has shown that all children have the risk of being injured perhaps fatally because of the intentional and unintentional accidents. Children with autism spectrum disorder face two or three times the risk of injury or abuse compared with those of their same age peers. Ensuring children’s safety is, and should always be, a concern for parents, teachers, and society. However, it is well-documented that teaching safety skills to children with autism spectrum disorder is often neglected both clinically and experimentally. In a relatively new study, it is indicated that (a) although parents and teachers found safety skills instruction important and necessary, they use natural occurrences as teaching opportunities and prevention behaviors rather than providing systematic instruction and (b) neither parents nor teachers have enough knowledge and experience for teaching safety skills (Sirin & Tekin-Iftar, 2016). However, research has shown that when taught systematically, children with autism spectrum disorder could acquire safety skills and perform them over time and across persons and settings. During the presentation, Turkish parents and teachers’ opinions about teaching safety skills to children with autism spectrum disorder and a series of research studies investigating the effectiveness of prompting strategies, videomodelling, and Social Stories in teaching safety skills will be shared with the audience. Implications of these research studies will be discussed.

Behavior analysts; Psychologists; Special education teachers; Graduate students.

As schools witness what behavior analysts are capable of doing, they are hiring behavior analysts in increasing numbers to help develop and evaluation interventions with students experiencing behavior and academic problems. In some cases, behavior analysts are delivering direct services, a professional role for which they are well prepared. In a lot of cases, however, schools are calling on behavior analysts to serve as consultants, which is a new role for many of us. A consultant serves in an indirect role by trying to help someone else (e.g., a teacher) help a third party (the student). A consultant typically has no authority over the consultee, but must engage the consultee in such a way that their combined efforts empower the teacher to improve students’ academic achievement and behavioral self-control. The purpose of this presentation will be to help behavior analysts adapt their assessment and instruction/intervention skills to a school-based consultative role. I will present research-based strategies for (a) how to efficiently embed functional assessment principles and practices in the consultation process, and (b) manage the contingencies under which teachers are operating to maximize effectiveness.

Behavior analysts practicing in schools

Pain is a classic or, perhaps, rather a modern scientific conundrum. It is, by definition, a subjective experience. One of the confusing or difficult problems comes about by reducing the experience to a singular objective entity that can be quantified. How and why this is done will be discussed in two ways. One in relation to contemporary accounts of basic pain research agendas and what seems like the (re)discovery of the brain and conditioning (respondent, operant) mechanisms. The other by placing the issue in the applied context of trying to reliably and validity measure pain experience in individuals with communicative difficulties associated with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Behavioral scientists; practitioners providing services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Skinner (1957) defined the tact as a verbal response under the functional control of a nonverbal antecedent stimulus due to a history of generalized conditioned reinforcement. However, control by nonverbal stimuli over vocal verbal responses often emerges in the apparent absence of prior reinforcement. This phenomenon has been documented, for example, in research on on receptive-to-expressive generalization, stimulus pairing observation procedures, and instructive feedback, and it requires explanation in an operant account of language. It is commonly proposed that undocumented reinforcement of overt or covert echoic responses in the presence of the nonverbal stimulus plays a role in emergent tact control. In this presentation I will review research from my own lab and others that has addressed this hypothesis by measuring or manipulating the occurrence of echoic responses during learning trials. I will evaluate the extent to which the results support a functional role of echoic responding in emergent tact control and discuss alternative explanations of the phenomenon, including relational operants and stimulus correlation effects.

Behavior analysts; scientists

This panel will be a discussion of Dr. Jonathan Friedel and Dr. Brady DeHart’s SQAB Tutorial on the utility of statistics in behavior analysis.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Skinner remarked that verbal responses are “true” or “objective” when the correspondence with a stimulating situation is sharply maintained. Lanza, Starr, & Skinner (1982) developed an “animal model” for the study of variables involved in correspondence: a pigeon “reported” to another about the color of a hidden disc, by pecking a specific key. Having access to the color, the experimenter could investigate contingencies leading to distorted reports. This presentation will address a series of studies with human participants recently conducted in our lab, with variations in this method. Participants reported about previous behavior or played card games in which they reported the value of their cards. A recent study developed a videogame with different audiences asking about the participant’s previous behavior. Several independent variables have been investigated. Correspondence was enhanced by reinforcement of corresponding responses, punishment of non-corresponding responses, probability of response checking, and modelling of corresponding reports by confederates. Non-corresponding reports increased with reinforcement for specific reports (reinforcing reports of correct responses regardless of correspondence), punitive audiences, and modelling of non-corresponding responses by confederates. This series of studies has progressively refined experimental methods and increased the range of variables investigated, contributing to clarify the determinants of correspondence.

Researchers or students interested in basic and translational research on verbal behavior.

Jennifer L. Austin, Ph.D., BCBA-D has been applying the science of behavior analysis to improve outcomes for children and their teachers for over 20 years.  Both her research and clinical work focus on how behavior analytic assessment and intervention strategies can be applied with typically developing children, as well as examining what adaptations may be necessary for making our science “work” in mainstream classrooms.  She has worked with numerous schools in the US and the UK, focusing primarily on those in disadvantaged communities.  Dr. Austin received her PhD from the Florida State University and currently serves as Professor of Psychology and Head of Behavior Analysis at the University of South Wales.  Prior to moving to the United Kingdom, Dr. Austin served as faculty at the University of South Florida, California State University, Fresno and the University of Houston, Clear Lake.  She is the President of the UK Society for Behaviour Analysis and a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Current statistics regarding problem behavior and academic attainment confirm that schools need behavior analysts more than ever. However, many schools that could benefit from our services do not know we exist (or have misconceptions about what we do). Further, our enthusiasm for helping schools enact meaningful changes in student and teacher behavior may cause us to miss some important contingencies that might impact our effectiveness as behavioral consultants. Drawing on work conducted at the University of South Wales, this presentation will identify some tips for “opening the school doors” for behavior analysis. It also will identify some common mistakes that behavior analysts make in schools, including such areas as functional assessment strategies, intervention planning and approach, and data collection. Importantly, it will provide some potential solutions to these problems, as well as identifying some interpersonal skills that might be useful in improving our efficacy in both mainstream and special education settings.

Behavior analytic practitioners working in schools (particularly early career behavior analysts)

By the end of 1999, the first year in which the Board Certified Behavior Analyst® certification was available, there were 4,707 Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBA®), and by the 10th year, in 2009 there were 5, 731 BCBAs. Fast forward to August of 2018, and there were 29,104 BCBAs; a 400% increase in the past nine years. This means that not only are there increasing numbers of individuals actively pursuing certification, but a flood of novice certificants in the workforce. Whereas our field places a particular emphasis on providing high quality supervision during an individual’s accrual of practical experience hours, it is equally critical to ensure that individuals, post-certification, continue to provide excellent clinical services. It is especially true when one considers that 76% of individuals who responded to a 2016 job task survey from the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® reported their primary-practice areas were providing clinical services to individuals with Autism and Developmental Disorders. Merriam-Webster defines supervision as: “the action, process, or occupation of supervising; especially: a critical watching and directing (as of activities or a course of action).” This is a functional definition, not topographical. In other words, supervision is not defined by the level or title of the parties involved (e.g., pre or post-certification), but by the purposeful activities that take place. This talk focuses on a tiered conceptualization of, and approach to, providing effective supervision that ensures the initial and continued development of robust clinical repertoires.

This talk is targeted to individuals who are responsible for providing supervision of fieldwork experience, on-going supervision of clinical services, and designing or managing supervision practices, as well as for individual who will become supervisors in the near future.

Small children who live in long-lasting stress and anxiety, whether they be victims within their own homes or refugees suffering on a more global level, develop neurobiological impairments. The brain is plastic and “user dependent”. A child is born with 100 billion nerve cells, but only 15% are connected to other cells. During the first three years, 250.000 new connections are performed per hour in the child’s brain. The architects are the genes, but the constructors are the parents and the child’s social network. Positive experiences stimulate the myelination process in the cells axons and the myelin sheets increase the velocity of the nerve impulse. Long-lasting stress and anxiety reduces the myelination process and influences brain activity. Four brain structures are important for the brain’s reactions to stress and anxiety. The presenter will discuss the specific impacts that stress and anxiety have on each of these brain structures and the ensuing affect they have on the child’s development of crucial abilities necessary to successfully navigate the world. It is of great importance that sources of stress and anxiety, e.g. violence, abuse and neglect, but also war- and refugee experiences are quickly brought to an end. The role of child protection agencies, either by parent training interventions or by taking the child out of the family, is crucial. Likewise, the reception and caretaking of refugee children preventing neurobiological impairments will have life-long consequences for these children’s schooling, education, employment and mental health. The presenter will also briefly highlight parenting strategies and therapeutic interventions that can help to reduce the risk for these vulnerable children.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; social workers; graduate students.

This panel will be a discussion of Dr. Caio Miguel’s SQAB Tutorial on derived stimulus relations.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Daniel M. Fienup is an Associate Professor of Applied Behavior Analysis at Teachers College, Columbia University.  He received his Master’s in Applied Behavior Analysis from Southern Illinois University and his Ph.D. in School Psychology from Illinois State University.  Dr. Fienup and his students conduct research on instructional design and educational performance.  Dr. Fienup is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Behavioral Education and The Analysis of Verbal Behavior.  He also serves on the editorial board for Behavior Analysis in Practice, Perspectives on Behavioral Science, the Psychological Record, and Behavior Development.  He serves on the Licensed Behavior Analyst New York state board and is a past board member of the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis.