Association for Behavior Analysis International

Cocaine use disorder presents an enduring and significant public health concern. Despite decades of research, a widely effective and accepted treatment for cocaine use disorder remains to be identified. The failure to identify treatments may be due, in part, to the only accepted indicator of treatment efficacy: complete abstinence from cocaine. This presentation will provide an overview of human laboratory and clinical trial research that has identified other potential treatment targets that can be adopted as indicators of efficacy. These behavioral targets include attentional bias, inhibitory control and decision making. As the clinical relevance of these novel targets is demonstrated, they may become acceptable treatment outcomes and can be used to identify novel effective interventions for cocaine use disorder.

Graduate students, Researchers, Board certified behavior analysts, Licensed psychologists

Transitions from favorable to less favorable positive reinforcement conditions (i.e., rich-to-lean transitions) can produce aberrant behavior during the transition before work is initiated, such as disruptive behavior, aggression, and self-injurious behavior. In the laboratory, these type of transitions are studied most often under fixed-ratio schedules, in which extended pausing occurs during rich-to-lean transitions before the ratio is begun. In this presentation, I will discuss a series of experiments in which we systematically analyzed the aversive functions of signals of rich-to-lean transitions and variables that might attenuate the behavior produced during the transitions. I also will discuss the need for further research in this area overall and translational implications.

Experimental and applied behavior analysts

EDUS-Education for All is a non-for-profit organization trying to bring science, newest methods and conduct research in the fields of early detection, diagnostics, intervention, and inclusion of children with developmental disorders. EDUS creates systematic approaches and trains transdisciplinary teams of service providers using behavioral principles to advance health, education and social care systems in low resource countries. In partnership with UNICEF, USAID and relevant ministries in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EDUS was able to work on developing Early Detection and Intervention concepts for the country, and to provide services based on a behavioral but transdisciplinary approach for thousands of children through health, education and social care systems. We have created and standardized a behavioral developmental instrument, to detect and monitor early childhood development and tested it on over 2500 children in order to create developmental norms for the country. Now as an easy to use App, this behavioral tool will aid pediatricians in early detection and monitoring. Same process has now been started with UNICEF-Palestine for children in Gaza and West Bank, creating their developmental norms and behavioral approach to screening, monitoring, and advancing development. I will also talk about our research in application of technology and molecular biology to help detect and diagnose children with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders, and our research on methodologies for inducing language and other developmental milestones when they do not develop naturally. Our goal is development of reliable and evidence based methods for low and mid-income countries in order to advance health and education practices for children with and without disorders. We focus on transdisciplinary research and projects based on collaboration of medical, technical and social sciences. I will show you how using the science of Applied Behavior Analysis across several mid-income countries with limited resources can promote early childhood development with concrete steps, measures, tools and applications. It’s a showcase of the power behavioral science has for advancement of outcomes for all human kind.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students. 

The controversy over whether behavior analysts should not only examine, but intervene on, private events has not ended. Reluctance to incorporate analyses of covert language processes into applied behavior analyses has limited our field’s scope. Moreover, applied behavior analysis continues to focus its energies predominantly on small-scale studies in highly controlled environments while larger societal problems flourish. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss how the concepts encompassed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can be applied to several very diverse areas of social concern, including: 1) human service agency staff training; 2) health prevention behaviors; and 3) marine conservation. I will articulate the often underappreciated relationship between relational learning and psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance, and will describe how concepts such as acceptance, values, and committed actions can have an impact in building the adaptive repertoires needed to resolve a number of small and large-scale issues of social significance.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is evolving from clinical intervention into Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) at PLEA, a public sector, non-profit agency in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. PLEA’s School-Based Partial Hospital Program (SBPHP) serves a population of children and adolescents with diagnoses on the Autistic Spectrum. The SBPHP has grown over the past fifty years from a preschool started by parents desperately seeking services for their Autistic children to a program using principles of Applied Behavior Analysis in three main forms: Precision Teaching, Relational Frame Theory, and Acceptance and Commitment Training. ACT’s model of Psychological Flexibility as reflected in the ACT Matrix diagram has undergone progressive transformation from clinical to administrative functions. The “Prosocial” method, an approach integrating the ACT Matrix with the Core Design Principles of Successful Groups for which Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, also has been introduced at various levels within the organization (https://www.prosocial.world/). “Prosocial” is being broadly conceived as providing a platform for studying the evolutionary theory of multilevel selection. The impact of selection by consequences was discerned by B.F. Skinner not only for natural selection but also for operant conditioning of individual behavior as well as cultural evolution. In their recent book, Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Predicting and Influencing Human Behavior, David Sloan Wilson and Steven C. Hayes elaborate Evolutionary Science as a multilevel process of variation, selection, and retention. The ACT Matrix will be used throughout this presentation to explicate this multilevel process of ACT evolving into OBM at PLEA.

Behavior analysts and other mental health professionals working in community-based organizations, particularly if interested in CBM, AUT, OBM, and/or CBS in the forms of RFT, ACT, and/or “Prosocial.”

Dr. Jennifer Longano received her BS in education from the State University of New York at Geneseo. She then earned her MA M.Phil, and Ph.D. in applied behavior analysis from Teachers College, Columbia University. Jennifer Longano is a supervisor of the Early Intervention Program for the Fred S. Keller School located in the suburbs of New York City. She has worked for the Fred S. Keller School, a CABAS® model school, since 2008 supervising both preschool and early intervention classrooms for children with and without disabilities. She also is an Adjunct Assistant Professor for Teachers College and has taught courses in Applied Behavior Analysis, Single-Case Design, and Inclusion for the Health and Behavior Studies Department. She has earned several CABAS® ranks and currently holds a Senior Behavior Analyst and an Assistant Research Scientist rank. Her research has focused on verbal developmental cusps including: the source of reinforcement for naming, procedures to test for and induce naming, pre-foundational verbal developmental cups and capabilities, and conditioned reinforcement related to observing responses.

I will discuss the acquisition of bidirectional naming from the verbal developmental perspective. Observing responses selected out by conditioned reinforcers can set the occasion for the acquisition of verbal developmental cups and capabilities. These observing responses establish a history of stimulus-stimulus pairings, which set the occasion for the listener and speaker repertoires to be joined. Once joined, more complex cusps and capabilities can be acquired allowing for the emergence of incidental language, bidirectional operants, and advanced naming repertoires. For some individuals, listener and speaker repertoires are not joined naturally. Thus, protocols that can arrange the environmental contingencies to occasion the acquisition of bidirectional naming can be implemented. In CABAS® model schools, which are affiliated with Teachers College Columbia University, ongoing research has focused on identifying when bidirectional naming is present or missing, the types of naming repertoires, protocols to induce bidirectional naming, and the best instructional practices to accelerate learning when bidirectional naming is present.

The following presentation will be for individuals interested in verbal behavior and verbal behavior developmental theory with a heavy focus on the source of reinforcement for incidental language acquisition or bidirectional naming. The presentation will also discuss how to identify when Naming is present or absent, different types of naming experiences, and procedures to induce naming. The audience should have some understanding (intermediate level) of verbal developmental theory and naming.

Why do organisms and behavior exist? Organisms exist because genes that make organisms increase reproductive success. An organism’s behavior is its interactions with its environment. Behavior, on average and in the long run, functions to serve reproducing. Surviving usually serves reproducing, and other activities like maintaining health, maintaining relationships, and gaining resources usually serve surviving and sometimes directly serve reproducing. When phylogenetically important features of the environment vary in ways that can be tracked by physiological mechanisms, selection favors phenotypic plasticity. Part of phenotypic plasticity is behavioral plasticity. Phylogenetically important events (PIEs), such as presence of potential mates, predators, or prey, impact reproductive success and underpin selection for behavioral plasticity. PIEs induce activities that tend to mitigate threats and enhance benefits. Additionally, selection favors phenotypes that respond to covariance in the environment between PIEs and other events and between activities and PIEs. Events that covary with a PIE come to induce the same activities as the PIE, and activities that covary with a PIE come to be induced by the PIE. Induction is the mechanism of the Law of Allocation that governs the allocation of time among an organism’s activities.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

The theme of this talk is the nature of the organizations that meet consumer demand, the susceptibility of their behavior to operant explanation, and the consequences of treating them as operant systems. All firms market. Marketing, moreover, provides the raison d’être of firms. Just as consumers can be shown to maximize the utilitarian and informational reinforcement they receive from commodities, so firms maximize similar sources of reward through the generation and implementation of marketing mixes that influence consumer choice. But over and above the operations involved in marketing functions, firms are compelled by the imperatives of modern economies to engage in customer-oriented management in order to compete within and between traditional industries for the dollars over which customers have discretion. This talk draws on ideas from microeconomics and marketing science, as well as behavior analysis, in a nontechnical exploration of the sensitivity of corporate activity to contingencies of reinforcement. I argue that the concept of metacontingency is central to understanding the behavior of organizations such as marketing firms and that the idea of bilateral contingency is central to understanding why they exist and what their function is.

All those interested in the behavioral economics of organizations and their publics; organizational management; public policy with respect to business firms; the interaction of operant analysis and other disciplines and the implications of using economics to understand human behavior.

Behavior analysts have long lamented the relative ignorance from the general public regarding our science. While the field has made efforts to address our dissemination, many still believe we have much work to do. On the contrary, other disciplines within the social and behavioral sciences have captured public interest, leveraging social media to garner attention and disseminate to large audience. Many of these audiences include stakeholders and policymakers with the power and authority to bring scientific influences into the mainstream. Despite a relative dearth of behavior analysts on social media platforms, there is a small group of highly effective communicators that have tips and strategies to share. This panel includes three effective behavioral science communicators who will share their experiences and expertise in the hopes of promoting others to more effectively communicate their own work in behavior analysis.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Judy Johnson received her Ph.D. in Applied Behavior Analysis and Masters in I/O Psychology from Western Michigan University. Judy partners with executives and leadership teams to engage and inspire employees in a way that delivers sustainable strategic results. She brings deep expertise and creative ideas to solve organizational effectiveness issues and closely collaborates in a way that builds internal capabilities. As an independent consultant, and then consultant at The Continuous Learning Group, The Boston Consulting Group and now Aspirant, Judy has spent over 25 years working in a variety of industries from banking to mining. She brings her expertise in behavior to a wide range of organizational issues including organizational behavior change, leadership, change management, culture and engagement.

Today’s workplace is in a state of constant change. By 2030, trends in localization, technology, and engagement will create dramatic shifts in how we approach employment and performance. These trends will change the complexion of organizational effectiveness, creating new and different requirements for companies and opening the door for Behavior Analysts to create change the rules of the workplace. Behavior Analysts can see beyond typical solutions to breakdown the components of organizational effectiveness and build a workplace ready for the future. This presentation discusses the 10 most significant trends affecting the workplace, and behavior analysts’ unique position to help companies prepare for those trends. As part of the discussion, Dr. Johnson will share examples of how the multi-disciplinary team at Aspirant has combined behavioral science, artificial intelligence and new technology solutions to assess and address a company’s organizational effectiveness. This presentation seeks to inspire all OBMers by sharing real world case examples of how behavioral tools and techniques can be applied to the toughest business challenges.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

The term Theory of Mind has come to refer to a collection of responses that involve one’s ability to predict another person’s behaviour based on understanding that person’s perspective. One of the most studied topics in the field of psychology for the past 30 years, Theory of Mind is considered not only an important developmental milestone in childhood, but also a theoretical system to explain additional social and cognitive processes in both typical and atypical children and adults. Despite the importance of the topic, behaviour analysis has yet to provide a satisfactory account of Theory of Mind (i.e., of the variables that control the types of behaviour commonly held to denote Theory of Mind). In this presentation I set out to provide the beginning of such an account. Firstly, I will argue that Theory of Mind is not an “entity” that is either present or absent, but rather, is a developmental verbal process that begins in early childhood with the establishment of tacting public and private events during social interactions. Secondly, I will provide an analysis of the controlling variables of the component verbal skills that are said to denote Theory of Mind. Thirdly, I will illustrate a hierarchical sequence of instructional activities derived from such an analysis to establish perspective taking in children with autism, a syndrome with known deficits in these skills. The application of a teaching technology derived from a conceptual and experimental analysis both validates and extends the basic approach.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Poverty is a pervasive risk factor underlying poor health, including drug addiction and HIV. This presentation will review research on the utility of operant conditioning to address the interrelated problems of poverty, drug addiction, and HIV. Our research has shown that operant reinforcement using financial incentives can promote abstinence from cocaine and heroin in low-income adults with long histories of drug addiction and adherence to antiretroviral medications in low-income adults living with HIV. Our research has also shown that financial incentives are most effective when high-magnitude incentives are used, and that long-duration abstinence reinforcement can serve as an effective maintenance intervention. The utility of operant conditioning to promote behaviors needed to escape poverty is less clear, but research on an operant employment-based intervention called the therapeutic workplace shows some promise. In the therapeutic workplace, low-income or unemployed adults are hired and paid to work. To promote drug abstinence and/or medication adherence, employment-based reinforcement is arranged in which participants are required to provide drug-free urine samples and/or take prescribed medication to maintain access to the workplace and maximum pay. Because many low-income adults lack skills needed for gainful employment, the therapeutic workplace offers job-skills training and employment phases through which participants progress sequentially. Our research has shown that employment-based reinforcement within the therapeutic workplace can promote and maintain drug abstinence, medication adherence, work, and other adaptive behaviors that people need to move out of poverty. The therapeutic workplace could serve as a model anti-poverty program, particularly for people with histories of drug addiction or other health problems, although more research on the therapeutic workplace is needed that targets poverty directly.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.