Association for Behavior Analysis International

Several recommended practices for behavior-analytic supervision have recently been identified (e.g., Sellers, Valentino, & LeBlanc, 2016; Turner, Fischer, & Luiselli, 2016). These include establishing a committed and positive relationship, evaluating the effects of supervision, incorporating ethics and professional development, continuing a professional relationship after certification, and establishing a plan for structured competence- and performance-based evaluation. This tutorial will review specific strategies to address each of these practices. Given the recent emphasis on training and monitoring of supervisee skills throughout training (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2017), we will focus on how to use the BACB task list to implement competence- and performance-based evaluation throughout supervision. Additionally, we will make suggestions for the ongoing evaluation of the effects of supervision.

New and experienced BACB supervisors who have completed the 8-hour supervision training.

Dana Reinecke is a doctoral level Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a New York State Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA).  Dana is a Core Faculty member in the Applied Behavior Analysis department at Capella University. Dana provides training and consultation to school districts, private schools, agencies, and families for individuals with disabilities. She has presented original research and workshops on the treatment of autism and applications of ABA at regional, national, and international conferences. She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals, written chapters in published books, and co-edited books on ABA and autism. Current areas of research include use of technology to support students with and without disabilities, self-management training of college students with disabilities, and online teaching strategies for effective college and graduate education. Dana is actively involved in the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis (NYSABA), serving as President in 2017 and 2018.

Cheryl Davis is a licensed and certified behavior analyst as well as a special education teacher who received her doctoral degree from Endicott College in Applied Behavior Analysis. Cheryl is an Assistant Professor at The Sage Colleges, as well as owner of 7 Dimensions Consulting, LLC. She received a Master’s of Science Degree in Intensive Special Education from Simmons College in Boston, MA after attending The University of Connecticut where she received a bachelor’s degree in Human Development. Cheryl then pursued her BCBA, while working in a world renown ABA school. With over 25 years of experience working with children and families with autism, developmental disabilities, and related disorders, Cheryl specializes in effective supervision for upcoming BCBA/BCaBA candidates. She has a passion for supervision, in both providing it to people who are in locations with limited access to behavior analysis and working with other supervisors to develop best supervision practices. Cheryl also specializes in skill acquisition programming for clients in need, online teaching, and active student responding. She has had experience as a supervisor, teacher, job coach, home therapist, residential supervisor, public school consultant, staff trainer and professor. Cheryl has extensive experience in developing training topics for both parents and teaching staff.

Behavior analyst practitioners use reinforcement-based procedures to increase desirable behavior and to reduce undesirable behavior. The success of these procedures depends in part on the clinician’s ability to identify reinforcers and deliver them in an effective manner. Understanding how to identify reinforcers is critical to designing and implementing effective reinforcement-based interventions, and requires a working knowledge of preference assessments. However, there are few resources available to practitioners that synthesize the rich technology of reinforcer identification that behavior analysts developed over the past 30 years. This tutorial reviews different preference assessment methods that have been published in the behavior analytic literature, how to identify stimuli to include in assessments, the prerequisite skills required for each assessment, and the conditions under which assessments should be conducted to maximize the validity of preference hierarchies that are established. Variables that influence preference assessment outcomes are reviewed, including the effects of pre-assessment motivating operations, displacement effects that result from including items from different categories (edible, tangible, social) on the same assessment, and the role of differential consequences following selection responses.

Behavior analytic practitioners and clinicians who work with individuals with autism and developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Richard B. Graff, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LABA, has worked in the field of autism and developmental disabilities for 32 years. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Clinical Training and Services at the May Institute. He previously served as Senior Scientist and Clinical Director at the New England Center for Children and as a clinical consultant to the Rhode Island Department of Human Services. Rick is on the Board of Directors of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy and serves on the Conference Planning Committee for the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts. Rick also serves on the Code Compliance Committee of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® (BACB®). He is an Adjunct Faculty member for Western New England University and Endicott College. Rick's research interests include preference and reinforcement, choice, functional analysis and treatment of challenging behavior, and skill acquisition in learners with severe disabilities. Rick has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavioral Interventions, and his research has been published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavioral Interventions, Behavior Modification, Research in Developmental Disabilities, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Behavior Analysis in Practice, and The Journal of Special Education.

Three- and four-term contingencies describe uniquely fundamental units in the analysis of behavior, as most operant responses are emitted in changing environments, and few are reinforced equally often in the presence of all environmental conditions. The stage is thus set for the development of stimulus control over virtually all everyday behavior. Familiarity with the fundamentals of establishing discriminative control should hold special significance for applied behavior analysts. Indeed, stimulus control procedures provide the basis for therapeutic efforts ranging from standard teaching techniques (e.g., prompting), to pivotal forms of assessment and training (e.g., verbal behavior interventions), to the ultimate goal of programming for treatment generalization. In short, learning to identify possible sources of stimulus control, and to increase or decrease them as needed, is essential to effective service delivery. The experimental behavior-analytic literature has much to offer practitioners who wish to understand more about the stimulus-control principles and findings that can improve intervention effectiveness. This tutorial will review some of the fundamental lessons of stimulus control that have emerged from decades of careful laboratory research.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students. 

Carol Pilgrim, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.  Her primary research interests are in the analysis, application, and conceptual treatment of relational stimulus control, particularly stimulus equivalence.  Carol is a former editor of The Behavior Analyst and associate editor of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and The Behavior Analyst.  She has served as President of the Association for Behavior Analysis, International (ABAI), the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, Division 25 of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis.  She is a fellow of ABAI and of Division 25 of APA, and she has been honored with the North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award (2003), the UNCW Faculty Scholarship Award (2000) and Graduate Mentor Award (2008), and the ABAI Student Committee Outstanding Mentor Award (2006) and Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis Award (2017).   

Phonetic hand cueing systems (PHCs) are commonly used by speech-language pathologists and promoted in commercially available products (Carahaly, 2012; Kaufman, 2007; Strode, 1994, and others), however; research on the effectiveness of these systems for improving articulation is limited (Hall and Jordan, 1992, Jordan 1988, Klick, 1985, Stelton & Graves 1985). This series of four studies examines the effect of the systematic use of phonetic hand cues as a stimulus control transfer procedure and compares the relative effectiveness of three procedures: PHCs as antecedent prompts, PHCs modeled by instructor and executed by learner, and a commonly used differential reinforcement procedures. Study results reveal rapid acquisition of hand cues, and improved articulation at the syllable, and word level as well as use of hand cues to improve intelligibility in natural settings. Reduction of speech sound errors on formal testing further confirms results. Use of hand cues as part of an ABA or school program from target selection to generalization of improved articulation across the verbal operants will be presented and illustrated via video examples. Results confirm previous case study findings that phonetic hand cues may be an effective intervention in promoting speech production skills in children with autism with limited vocal repertoires.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Tamara S. Kasper, MS, CCC-SLP, BCBA, is a Speech-Language Pathologist with nearly 30 years of experience working with children with challenging behaviors. Tamara’s commitment to the children she serves led her to pursue treatment methods outside the field of Speech-Language Pathology. Under the mentorship of renowned Behavior Analyst Dr. Vincent Carbone and his protégé, Tamara became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She has also completed advanced training in application of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior and Kaufman’s strategies for apraxia of speech.

Tamara is a frequently invited international lecturer, having treated clients and trained professionals in England, Ireland, Greece, Ethiopia, Senegal, and other countries. She enthusiastically shares her unique approaches and her outside-the-box intervention techniques that are successful in building functional verbal behavior for children on the autism spectrum.

Tamara is also Director of The Center for Autism Treatment (www.centerautismtreatment.org)  near Milwaukee, Wisconsin; A center which provides personalized ABA intervention plans for children as well as consulting services and workshops to autism treatment teams in the United States and abroad. Tamara’s publications include the K&K Sign to Talk materials and Speak with Sign. She is a past recipient of the Wisconsin Speech and Hearing Association’s Clinical Achievement Award.