The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

Now displaying: February, 2024

How to Disseminate Behavior-Analytic Technologies: Inside JABA 18 0

Feb 15, 2024

In the 18th installment of the Inside JABA Series, Dr. Dorothea Lerman joins Editor-in-Chief John Borrero and I to talk about her dissemination efforts, which are described in the Winter 2024 issue of the journal. Specifically, we talk about her discussion paper, "Putting the power of behavior analysis in the hands of nonbehavioral professionals: Toward a blueprint for dissemination."

This paper is definitely worth checking out. In it, Dorothy describes some common barriers to disseminating behavioral strategies and how to overcome them. We then talk about the blueprint she offers for dissemination, which is broken down into seven steps.

These dissemination efforts are described in the context of Dorothy's outreach to public school educators, law enforcement personnel, and health care providers, settings where Dorothy and her colleagues have made successful inroads. Not to spoil the show's content too much, but we touch on the alarming stats regarding the percentage of individuals with disabilities who are either sedated or restrained during dental procedures, and what can be done to improve them.

Even if you don't have a desire to bring behavior-analytic strategies to a novel setting, upon listening to the conversation a second time, I think there are lessons from this podcast that you can use in your daily practice. Things like gathering information about a particular culture or setting, describing concepts and principles in plain language, conducting experiments to see if what you're doing is working... you get the idea.

We also spend a decent amount of time talking about sustaining behavioral practices once they've been implemented in new settings.

One of the things that I forgot to mention during the podcast is that if you're really into dissemination, check out the new edited work, "Disseminating Behavioral Research," in which, coincidentally, the ABA Inside Track crew and I contributed a chapter called, "Non Traditional Options for Dissemination." I'll leave it to you to guess what medium we focused on.

Lastly, the Winter 2024 issue of JABA features several moving tributes to Drs. Brian Iwata, Hank Pennypacker, and Ronnie Detrich. Dorothy and Dr. Jennifer Fritz contributed a memoriam to Brian Iwata, and it's well worth checking out. In the first few minutes of the show, Dorothy shared some poignant stories about how Brian influenced her career, and John discussed the responsibility associated with curating the various tributes for this edition of JABA.

Relatedly, for the next three months, all of these In Memoriam articles will be freely available, so in the unlikely event you're not a JABA subscriber, you can still check them out.

Here are the resources we discussed:

Putting the power of behavior analysis in the hands of nonbehavioral professionals: Toward a blueprint for dissemination.
Brian A. Iwata, PhD: A Life Well Lived.
Dorothy's previous Inside JABA appearance (correction: in the podcast, I incorrectly noted that she appeared in the first Inside JABA episode. She appeared in the fourth episode of the Inside JABA Series).
Southwell et al. (2005). Strategies for effective dissemination of the outcomes of teaching and learning projects.
Houston, TX Police Department 2019 Annual Report (check out p. 18!).
Main JABA site where you can subscribe and access selected free articles.
Griffith and Ré (2023): Disseminating Behavioral Research (note: Amazon Associates link).
Critchfield et al. (2017). On the social validity of behavior analytic communication: A call for research and description of one method.
Previous BOP episodes covering law enforcement interventions.
Kramer Davis Healthcare (company I mentioned that specializes in providing medical services to individuals with IDD).
Allgood and Gravina (2021). Branching Out: Finding Success in New Areas of Practice.
Normand and Kohn (2013). Don't wag the dog: extending the reach of applied behavior analysis. (hands down, the article I have shared the most in my eight years of publishing this podcast).
LeBlanc et al., (2012). Expanding the Consumer Base for Behavior-Analytic Services: Meeting the Needs of Consumers in the 21st Century.

As with other Inside JABA Series podcasts, this show will be eligible for continuing education. You can learn more about this one, and the nearly 50 other CEU events over at behavioralobservations.com.

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AAC Use with adolescents and adults with ASD: Session 254 with Andy Bondy 0

Feb 1, 2024

Fan-favorite Dr. Andy Bondy joins me again to talk about... you guessed it... AAC!

In this episode, we discuss a paper he published last year in the journal, Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, that is titled, "Issues Related to AAC and SGD Use by Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder."

We get into why he felt this paper was necessary to write, how he chose to communicate his thoughts to an audience beyond those of us in behavior analysis, why he likes the term, "under what conditions" so much, what does and does not constitute a "robust" communication repertoire, the role of teaching words like "please" and Andy's nuanced view of this practice, whether the sound from Speech Generation Devices matter, and lots more.

We also got into a really interesting discussion on the distinction between pointing to pictures vs. exchanging them with communicative partners, and how that difference impacts Joint Attention.

We closed the show by talking about two topics that have been receiving lots of discussion as of late: Spelling to Communicate and Gestalt Language Processing. Lastly, ended the show by taking a question from a Patreon member about Andy's thoughts regarding the use of activity schedules, and whether they qualify as prompts, or something else.

Andy's previous episodes (the shownotes to these shows also have many links to great studies germane to this episode).
Jason Traver's episode.
All things PECS.
A critical review of Natural Language Acquisition.
GLP is a Fad IG page.
SLPs against pseudoscience IG page.

This episode is brought to you by:

The University of Cincinnati Online. UC Online designed a Master of Education in Behavior Analysis program that is 100% online and asynchronous, meaning you log on when it works for you. Want to learn more? Go to online.uc.edu and click the “request info” button.
HRIC Recruiting. Barb Voss has been placing BCBAs in permanent positions throughout the US for just about a decade, and has been in the business more generally for 30 years. When you work with HRIC, you work directly with Barb, thereby accessing highly personalized service. So if you're about to graduate, you're looking for a change of pace, or you just want to know if the grass really is greener on the other side, head over to HRIColorado.com to schedule a confidential chat right away.
ACE Approved CEUs from .... Behavioral Observations. That's right, get your CEUs while driving, walking your dog, doing the dishes, or whatever else you might have going on, all while learning from your favorite podcast guests!
Behavior University. Their mission is to provide university quality professional development for the busy Behavior Analyst. Learn about their CEU offerings, including their brand new 8-hour Supervision Course, as well as their RBT offerings over at behavioruniversity.com/observations.

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