En este episodio nos acompaña nuestra contribuidora frecuente, la Dra. Corina Jimenez, junto con la Dra. Sarah Lechago, una de las co-autoras de un nuevo artículo publicado en Behavior Analysis in Practice acerca de la Latinidad. En esta conversación se hace evidente que definir Latinidad no es una tarea fácil. Estas investigadoras identificaron, a través de varias fuentes en la literatura, que es común agrupar a los Latinos a partir de valores compartidos como el familismo, el machismo/marianismo, y la religiosidad/espiritualidad que subyacen en las tradiciones de las culturas Latinas. El artículo busca explorar a partir de una encuesta, como se identifican los analistas de conducta latinos con respecto a estos valores. A pesar de la complejidad de estos temas, queda claro que para ser proveedores de servicios de análisis de conducta más efectivos y culturalmente adeptos, nos incumbe informarnos y auto-evaluarnos con respecto a nuestros sesgos culturales como también tener mejores sensibilidades con respecto a los valores y prácticas culturales de las personas que apoyamos.
In this episode we are joined by our frequent contributor, Dr. Corina Jimenez, along with Dr. Sarah Lechago, one of the co-authors of a new article published in Behavior Analysis in Practice about Latinidad. In this conversation it becomes evident that defining Latinidad is not an easy task. These researchers identified, through various sources in the literature, that it is common to group Latinos based on shared values such as familismo, machismo/marianismo, and religiosity/spirituality that underlie the traditions of Latino cultures. The article seeks to explore, through a survey, how Latino behavior analysts identify themselves with respect to these values. Despite the complexity of these issues, it is clear that to be more effective and culturally adept providers of behavior analysis services, it is incumbent upon us to educate and self-assess regarding our cultural biases, as well as to have greater sensibilities regarding the cultural values and practices of the people we support.
Dr. Anthony Cammilleri - better known as Tony to friends and colleagues - joins me in Session 276. In this episode, we talked about his early experiences in Behavior Analyst, his experiences working in Greg Hanley's lab as a grad student, of course his work collaborating with Greg and other colleagues in the founding and development of the FTF consultancy, the recent news of his migration over to Action Behavior Centers, and what opportunities lie ahead in this partnership.
We then talk more generally about what's new in the world of the IISCA or Practical Functional Assessment, along with Skills-Based Treatment, and how those processes have evolved over the years, common mistakes people make when implementing these procedures, and more.
We also talked about my semi-misgivings about terms like Compassionate-ABA, Trauma-Informed-ABA, Trauma-Assumed-ABA, and the like, as well as Tony's upcoming talk at the 2024 Stone Soup Conference.
Here are links to some of the resources we mentioned:
This podcast is brought to you by:
My partner in crime and host of the BOP en Español Series, Miguel Avila, joins me to talk about Behavior Analysis in Spanish-speaking cultures.
In addition to his day job with Essential for Living, Miguel has been hard at work, and recorded over 10 Spanish language podcasts for Behavioral Observations listeners.
So in this episode, which we of course conduct in English because my Spanish did not progress past my Freshman year of college, I turn the tables and interview Miguel for a change.
We talk about his experience as an immigrant to the US, what constitutes "Spanglish," how he encountered Behavior Analysis, and how he ended up at Essential for Living, leading the efforts to translate those materials into Spanish.
We then broaden the discussion to talk about where Behavior Analysis stands in various Spanish-speaking countries. As you'll hear in the podcast, Miguel has spent time in many of these places in Latin America and Europe, so while he humbly claims to not be the ultimate authority on these matters, he certainly has gained lots of hands-on experience in these settings.
A conversation like this would not be complete if we didn't talk about efforts to provide training and consumer protections via regulatory institutions in these countries. In doing so, we touch on organizations including QABA, IBAO, LABA, ABA España, ABAI SIG Español, OMPAC, and more. Long story short, there's a lot to do in terms of supporting the profession of Behavior Analysis in these international contexts. In fact, Miguel will be speaking at the upcoming Puerto Rico ABA 2024 conference coming up in October.
Here are some links to the topics we discussed:
This podcast is brought to you with the support of:
Dr. John Austin returns to the show to discuss a topic that we touched on briefly back in Session 230: Psychological Safety.
While the idea of Psychological Safety might seem overly conceptual in nature, John breaks down what he thinks about it in very easily understood and measurable terms. More importantly, he talks about why Psychological Safety matters in the workplace.
Here are some of the aspects of this topic that we got into:
If you like John's content, you're in luck, because he's agreed to come back and do an episode on having difficult conversations, which as you'll hear, is a topic that many leaders struggle with.
Here are the resources we discussed in this episode:
to Better Productivity, Profitability, and Safety.
Organizational Settings (1998-2018).
This podcast is brought to you by:
I'm very much honored to be joined by Drs. Carol Pilgrim and Tim Hackenberg!
Listeners will recognize Tim from his very informative and popular episode on Token Economies. If you haven't heard that one, I highly recommend that you go back and check out Session 205, as well as read Tim's review paper in JABA on the same topic.
Dr. Carol Pilgrim is professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. It would take me several minutes to get through all of her contributions and accomplishments that she's imparted to the field.
Here are just a few: Dr. Pilgrim has served as president of its major organizations, including ABAI (as well as its Southeastern ABA chapter), the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and Division 25 (Behavior Analysis) of the American Psychological Association. She also served as secretary of the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and as a board member of that organization (note: for more background, please see here).
As you'll hear, Tim and Carol reached out to me to talk about the upcoming conference that they are co-chairing. It's ABAI's 2024 Theory and Philosophy Conference. It's happening on October 28th and 29th. The onsite location is Chicago, and it will be available virtually too.
While we did spend some time talking about the conference, we spent the majority of the episode discussing the importance of understanding Behavior Analysis the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of Behavior Analysis at a deep level. Specifically, we touched on:
Lastly, one of the topics we touched on that I'd like to return to down the road is the epistemology of Behavior Analysis, and how that how knowing both how and why we know what we know, and distinguishing this from other disciplines, can help us interact more successfully with practitioners from other fields.
Lastly, for disclosure's sake, ABAI is not sponsoring this content. However, in furthering the goal of being a transparent media outlet, I am very much open to this 😉
All kidding aside, while this might seem like an, "eat your vegetables first," or, "I swear you'll use algebra someday," type of show, I hope you come away with a broader appreciation of this topic. And I'm grateful that we have folks like Carol and Tim who can organize events like these to showcase them.
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Whether one calls it Procedural Fidelity, Treatment Integrity, or any combination of those, and/or many other related terms, this is an important and often overlooked issue when it comes to implementing behavior analytic interventions.
Think about it for a minute: as practitioners, we spend all this time obsessing about what assessment strategy to use and what interventions we think are the best fit for the individuals we serve. As you'll come to find out, we spend comparatively less time on ensuring that the programs we write are being implemented correctly.
So it is with this in mind that I'm grateful that Dr. Claire St. Peter returned to the podcast to discuss her research in this area of procedural Fidelity.
In this episode, we talk about why she prefers the term "Procedural Fidelity," the types of behavior plans that are difficult for teachers to implement, the different types of procedural errors one can make, the impact these different errors have, what types of intervention plans are more vs. less resistant to reductions in procedural fidelity, why this is a topic that practitioners should care about, whether to measure procedural fidelity via rate or percent correct, and regardless of method, how behavior analysts can start tracking procedural fidelity right away.
We also talk about Claire's research in this area, going back to the work she did as part of her dissertation. We also talk about the state of reporting procedural fidelity in the behavior-analytic research literature.
Lastly, I think it's important to point out that this topic is replete with ethical implications, which is why I titled this episode the way I did. When I listened to the show, I kept track of the various code elements that were indirectly outlined or addressed. For the mentors in the audience, this might be a fun exercise to do with your supervisees.
Here are the resources discussed in this episode:
This episode was brought to you with support from:
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
Dr. Matt Brodhead returns to the podcast to talk about a topic he's dedicated the better part of nearly completed sabbatical trying to understand: restraint and seclusion practices in public school settings.
In this episode, we talk about why he chose this topic to study, the difficulty in defining what constitutes a restraint, the challenges with documenting events, the terrible state of systematic, nation-wide data collection on restraint and seclusion events - particularly those that result in injuries and deaths, the pros and cons of banning these practices, potential legislation regarding these practices, and lots more.
Clearly this is an issue that generates controversy, and I hope you'll find that we did our best to talk about the subject with the appropriate amount of nuance and sensitivity.
In addition to his teaching and research duties at Michigan State University, Matt also provides consultation to schools and agencies, and specializes in developing systems that promote ethical decision making. If you'd like to work with Matt, you can contact him at either mattbrodhead.com or betteraba.com. At the latter website, you can purchase his excellent guide, A Workbook in Behavioral Systems Analysis and Ethical Behavior (by the way, these make for great gifts).
Resources discussed in this podcast:
This podcast is brought to you by the following:
In the 20th installment of the Inside JABA Series, I'm joined by Drs. Brennan Armshaw, Manish Vaidya, and Sachen Mehta. As always, I'm also joined by JABA Editor in Chief, Dr. John Borerro. In this episode we discuss a fantastic paper that is out in the summer issue of JABA titled, “Surface electromyography-based biofeedback can facilitate recovery from total knee arthroplasty.”
In brief, this study that examined a novel treatment approach for rehabilitating patients following knee replacement surgery. And guess what, they used simple behavioral techniques to radically improve physical therapy outcomes!
Orthopedics is something that's been on my mind lately as I am recovering from a broken metacarpal bone in my hand. It's probably something of interest to others who have either had orthopedic problems themselves, or who have taken care of hose who have.
However, even if you're not interested in orthopedics, I encourage you to really dig into this episode because it's just a great case study of applying our science to a novel problem that affects millions of people .
As always, there are no advertisements in the Inside JABA Series shows, but I will mention that if you would like to get a CEU for listening to this episode an answering series of questions related to its content, you can find out how to do just that by clicking here.
So if you would like to learn from your favorite podcast guests, especially while you're on the go, check out what we have to offer over.
I should also mention that there are discounts available for multiple event purchases. I recently crunched some numbers and found out that CEU customers, on average, save almost $100 when they leverage these discount codes.
Here are the links to resources mentioned in the podcast:
Armshaw, Vaidya, and Mehta (2024). Surface electromyography-based biofeedback can facilitate recovery from total knee arthroplasty.
Vaidya and Armshaw (2021). Surface electromyography and gamification: Translational research to advance physical rehabilitation.
Inside JABA 9: Applied and Translational Research in Healthcare.
The Institute for Behavior Science and Technology in Rehabilitation.
Brennan's WVU faculty page and LinkedIn.
Manish's LinkedIn page.
Hey everybody I hope you're having a great summer so far, or whatever season it happens to be whenever you listen to this episode.
Some of the things I've been doing recently is going back through the behavioral observations archives and giving episodes a second or third listen. One of those episodes was Session 193 that I published in July 2022, and my guest was Dr. Claire Saint Peter.
In that episode we talked about the constructional approach, as it were, and how it relates to solving behavior problems. This topic has been getting a lot of attention lately. When I was at ABAI in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I attended several talks on the constructional approach, which prompted me to listen to this episode again.
And when I did listen to this episode for a second time I felt that there were so many really helpful pieces of information that I wanted to republish it. What I did with this episode is essentially started after the part in which Claire talked about her background and getting into behavior analysis.
Now if you want to go back and listen to that story, and I think it is a good story by the way as it's a bit of a microcosm of the history of applied behavior analysis, you can certainly do so. However, for the purposes of brevity, I decided just cut out that introductory section so the overall experience is a bit more focused, especially for those of us who are listening to this for a second, third, or fourth time.
With that said, I really hope you listen to this episode and it's entirety there are so many great nuggets have information. Although we talk about the application of the constructional approach to a student in a school setting, I am sure that you will make connections to all sorts of applications.
I will also make this episode eligible for a continuing education unit, as I have been doing with many older episodes as well. So if you are looking to get caught up on your continuing education, go to behavioralobservations.com to see the nearly 60 episodes we have available for your continuing education.
The last thing I'll say about this episode is that this is not the last thing I'll say about the constructional approach. I guess I'm saying that out loud for some accountability, because of said this before, but I want to have some other guests on to talk about this because I think it's an interesting way to look at behavior analysis and it's ability to address problems of social importance.
Here are links to some of the resources we mentioned:
Goldiamond (1974): Toward a constructional approach to social problems: ethical and constitutional issues raised by applied behavior analysis
More Goldiamond: A Programming Contingency Analysis of Mental Health
Layng (2009). The Search for an Effective Clinical Behavior Analysis: The Nonlinear Thinking of Israel Goldiamond
Romano, St. Peter, Milyko, Mesches, and Foreman (2021). Incorporating Curricular Revision to Treat Escape-Maintained Behavior for Children with ADHD
Inside JABA 7: There's No Such Thing as a Bad Boy, with Pat Friman
Session 158: Motivational Interviewing with Dr. Jim Murphy
Friman (2021). There is no such thing as a bad boy: The Circumstances View of problem behavior
Johnston, Pennypacker, and Green: Strategies and Tactics for Behavioral Research and Practice (note: Amazon Associates link).
This podcast is brought to you by:
En este episodio tenemos la oportunidad de conocer la trayectoria de Jessie Arroyave, la primera BCBA de Guatemala. Jessie publicó un artículo en la revista Behavior Analysis in Practice, en el que habla de los altos y bajos al tratar de dar los primeros pasos para el establecimiento del análisis de conducta en Guatemala. Ella decidió tomar el camino difícil de regresar a su país después de formarse en Estados Unidos a pesar de los múltiples obstáculos. ¿Qué estamos haciendo para apoyar a profesionales como Jessie? Lo que sé es que con nuestra ayuda o sin ella, su compromiso y dedicación están intactos. Tenemos mucho que aprender de su ejemplo.
The ups and downs of establishing behavior analysis in Guatemala with Jessie Arroyave
In this episode we have the opportunity to learn about the career of Jessie Arroyave, the first BCBA in Guatemala. Jessie published an article in the journal Behavior Analysis in Practice, in which she talks about the ups and downs of trying to take the first steps toward establishing behavior analysis in Guatemala. She decided to take the difficult path of returning to her country after training in the United States despite multiple obstacles. What are we doing to support professionals like Jessie? What I know is that with or without our help, her commitment and dedication are intact. We have much to learn from her example.
Dr. Bruce Tinor returns to the podcast for an informative conversation about his work as a principal at The Child and Career Developmental Center of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Long-time listeners will recall that Bruce originally joined me in Session 197.
In this podcast, we talk all things alternative ed. Specifically, Bruce gives a quick review of how students find their way to his school, and in doing so, provides a mini-seminar in FAPE (and if you're not familiar with that acronym, you will be shortly). We talk about working in a multidisciplinary setting, how those related services are provided, improving academic skills as a behavioral intervention, and in general, what it's like to be a BCBA and a school principal.
In many ways, this is a podcast about culture and leadership too. Bruce talks about his interview practices and how he supports teachers and staff throughout the day. We also talk about some of the unique Tier 1 and Tier 2 behavioral practices, how he makes new students feel welcome, his behavioral approach to social-emotional learning, and lots more.
We close the podcast with what I thought was a really special discussion about Bruce being a role model. I don't want to spoil that part of the podcast here. You'll definitely want to listen to it for yourself, so I hope you check that part of the show out.
This podcast is brought to you by the following:
Dr. Chris McGinnis joins me in Session 266 to talk about his work in Primary Care Behavioral Pediatrics. If you're not sure what that is, don't worry. We go over that right away and learn that this area of work sits in an important and underserved niche: The niche between the general behavioral advice dispensed by pediatricians, and intensive treatment for serious mental health challenges.
In a way, this conversation expands on something that Pat Friman brought up in our most recent interview: The idea that BCBAs are uniquely suited to provide families with this type of care. In order to provide direction to those who are interested in doing just this, Chris recently published Introduction to Primary Care Behavioral Pediatrics: A Guide for Behavior Analysts.
In our conversation, we covered:
· His background in Behavioral Pediatrics, including his work at BoysTown (and meeting Pat Friman for the first time).
· The motivation for writing his book.
· The reification of psychological terms (see Skinner '45).
· The myth of the Chemical Imbalance Hypothesis.
· The range of behavior challenges he sees in his practice.
· Thoughts on caregiver adherence.
· The pros and cons of reimbursement practices, including the concierge model he has currently adopted.
· Chris' study of Trauma-Informed Care.
· Permissive vs. Authoritative, and how those related to adolescent mental health.... In other words, why parenting is like The Marshmallow Test.
· Advice for the newly-minted BCBA.
This podcast is brought to you by the following:
Dr. Camille Kolu joins me again on the podcast, and let's just say that she came back loaded with great insights like these to share with you.
If you're not familiar with Camille, she's been on the show before (see here), and is one of the predominant voices discussing the impact of trauma, and how it interacts with what we do as Behavior Analysts.
In this episode, we discuss her recent paper in Behavior Analysis in Practice, Providing Buffers, Solving Barriers: Value‐Driven Policies and Actions that Protect Clients Today and Increase the Chances of Thriving Tomorrow.
This article is not about trauma, but instead, it's about practices and repertoires that can protect individuals from the harmful health impacts of adverse childhood experiences. We also discuss Camille's article in Operants Magazine, called, Understanding Choice, which is where that audio segment was clipped from.
If you like the work that Camille does and want more training from her, she has generously provided listeners with a discount on her training materials over at Cusp Emergence University. If you want to go deeper into this topic of Buffers and Barriers, she has not one, but two courses on it, providing both Ethics and Supervision CEUs. If you want take her other courses in the area of Trauma, you can do that too (just click here to check it out). When you do so, be sure to use the promo code summerofBOP24 to save 24% off at checkout.
Camille also created a free, 15-minute course called, The Buffers Story: Simple, Important Things We Almost Forgot, and she'll be doing a workshop later this month with Connections-Behavior.
Lastly, if you like Camille's content, perhaps the easiest way to keep up with it is to sign up for her mailing list.
Burke-Harris (2018). The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity (note: Amazon Associates link).
Ala'i-Rosales et al. (2019). The Big Four: Functional Assessment Research Informs Preventative Behavior Analysis.
Ratey (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (note: Amazon Associates link).
Inside JABA 10: Towards Trauma-Informed Applications of Behavior Analysis.
Maier and Seligman (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience.
In full disclosure, these are not sponsored products and events; I’m just trying to get the word out there. However, the sponsors that are responsible for bringing this episode to you include:
Did you rate and review Behavioral Observations on Apple Podcasts?
You rated and reviewed Behavioral Observations on Apple Podcasts, right?
John Borrero told me that you rated and reviewed Behavioral Observations on Apple Podcasts. Is that true?
Did you rate and review Behavioral Observations on Apple Podcasts? Again, did you rate and review Behavioral Observations on Apple Podcasts?
If you've ever watched a police procedural show on television, you're probably noticed that there are different ways to phrase questions to people. I've just given you a few examples that will be salient to the forthcoming discussion.
And, all kidding aside, if you haven't done so already, if you enjoy what we do here, head over to Apple Podcasts and kindly leave a rating and review of the show.
In the 19th installment of Behavioral Observations' Inside JABA Series, Dr. John Borrero and I discuss a paper in the most recent issue called, Idiosyncratic effects of interviewer behavior on the accuracy of children’s responses, with its authors: Milad Najafichaghabouri, Dr. Ray Joslyn, and Emma Preston.
Here's some additional background on our guests:
Dr. Ray Joslyn is currently an assistant professor in the psychology department at West Virginia University. He has research interests in group contingencies, behavior analysis in education, and crime and delinquency.
Milad Najafichaghabouri is a doctoral student in the Disability Disciplines program at Utah State University specializing in ABA. His primary research interests include group contingency-based intervention in the classroom, and social validity practices in research
Emma Preston is currently a graduate student in the Disabilities Disciplines program at Utah State University specializing in ABA. Her research and practice interests include the Good Behavior Game, manipulating parameters of reinforcement to improve intervention outcomes, and Tier 3 school-based interventions.
I'll refrain from spoiling the discussion here, but there are a few things to note. First, this is the first time we've discussed a replication in the Inside JABA Series, and John dons his Editor in Chief hat for a few minutes at the end and discusses the importance of replication studies in general, and what makes for good replication more specifically.
Second, this topic - describing the conditions in which children do and do not report incidents accurately - has huge implications. From schools, to child services, to law enforcement, understanding the potential influences of phrasing questions and acknowledging responses could be crucial contributions in these areas.
Third, this study featured a clever assent procedure that again, I won't spoil here, but it's worth tuning into.
And lastly, we get into all sorts of nitty-gritty details, including some of the participants' unexpected responses to the experimental procedure... and these are the things that generally do not make the printed page that you can only get in these types of conversations.
This podcast, along with all of the Inside JABA Series ones, is eligible for continuing education. If you've never gotten CEUs from Behavioral Observations before, it's really easy. Just listen to the episode, go to behavioralobservations.com/get-ceus, make purchase... and fun fact: there are great discounts available if you need to snap up many CEUs, take a quiz, and you're good to go.
Dr. Pat Friman returns to discuss the Behavior Analytic approaches he uses with patients. In this episode, we harken way back to Session 16, and review some of what we know about Anxiety and Depression, which are the most common forms of mental health distress.
Pat talks about how he conceptualizes these challenges, what he does in the first session with patients, his general approach to treatment, the role of medications, his view on when to begin or cease therapy, important therapist characteristics like kindness, compassion, and acceptance, and lots more!
Here are links to the references we spoke about:
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Entrevistas Motivacionales con la Dra. Monica Gilbert
Aunque la entrevista motivacional nació del contexto psicoterapéutico y de rehabilitación en relación a dependencias y abuso de sustancias, hoy en día se utiliza como un estilo de comunicación para establecer relaciones terapéuticas y profesionales en varios contextos con un espíritu de colaboración y empoderamiento en dirección al cambio.
Los analistas de conducta estamos reconociendo que, sin ser esa nuestra intención, nuestra comunicación al brindar nuestros servicios en algunos casos puede ser coercitiva. Esto resulta en respuestas defensivas y resistencia a nuestras recomendaciones.
Espero que este enfoque y las recomendaciones prácticas de la Dra Gilbert no solo llamen a la reflexión acerca de nuestra propia conducta sino que despierten curiosidad acerca de un área de competencia que a muchos de nosotros nos hace falta desarrollar.
Motivational Interviewing with Dr. Monica Gilbert
Although motivational interviewing was born from the psychotherapeutic and rehabilitation context in relation to dependencies and substance abuse, today it is used as a communication style to establish therapeutic and professional relationships in various contexts with a spirit of collaboration and empowerment in the direction of change.
Behavior analysts are recognizing that, without this being our intention, our communication when providing our services can in some cases be coercive. This results in defensive responses and resistance to our recommendations.
I hope that this approach and Dr. Gilbert's practical recommendations not only call for reflection on our own behavior but also spark curiosity about an area of competence that many of us need to develop.
Dr. Bill Heward was gracious enough to return to the podcast in Session 260. In this episode, we talked about a handful of different topics, including how to respond to criticisms of reinforcement practices, and the international dissemination of the excellent book, Let's Make a Contract, which he coauthored with Dr. Jill Dardig.
However, we spent the majority of the time discussing Bill's extensive knowledge of whole-group responding practices in classroom settings. Specifically, we talk about how he first learned about this practice, why he wanted to study it, how he and his colleagues carried out one of his better known studies on the topic (Lambert et al., 2006), and lots more.
Along the way, Bill offered lots of great advice for practitioners who are interested in trying out these low-tech/high-impact strategies. During the conversation, Bill mentioned a talk that I gave at the 2023 BABAT conference, and in the podcast I mentioned that my colleagues and I created an online course based on that presentation. At the time of the interview with Bill, the course was not yet available. However, I'm happy to report that it is out now.
The course is called, "When Not to FBA: Five Quick Strategies for Improving Behavior in the Classroom." So if you're working in school settings and you're supporting teachers in classrooms, please consider checking this out.
Back to the interview, one of the things that makes Bill such an awesome podcast guest is that he comes with lots of resources. In fact in this case, he sent me an Google Drive Folder chock full of articles, studies, and many other resources. So instead of listing each resource individually here in the shownotes, I'll go ahead and link the folder and cut out the middleman (click here to get access to it).
While we're on the topic of Bill's generosity, he wanted me to remind you that the website, contractingwithkids.com has several free downloadable contract templates. Click here to check them out.
This podcast is brought to you by:
If you're a student, supervisor, or university instructor, this is an episode for you. In Session 259, I speak with Dana Meller and Dr. Steve Eversole, of Pass The Big ABA Exam and Behavior Development Solutions, respectively. In this conversation, they reflect on what they've learned about helping thousands of people pass the BCBA exam over many years.
In this conversation, we covered why they got into the test prep business, the state of BCBA testing today, re-taking the exam, interpreting the board's re-take data, barriers to passing the exam - including things like test anxiety and specific topics of difficulty, their counterintuitive opinions on SAFMEDS and mock exams, the role of social media, and how both of them became friends despite being competitors.
Here are the links we discussed:
Honig and Staddon, Handbook of Operant Behavior.
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Dr. Alycia Halladay joins we to discuss the topic of Profound Autism. If you're not familiar with Alycia's work, she is the Chief Science Officer for The Autism Science Foundation, and host of the excellent show, The ASF Weekly Science Podcast.
In this episode, we discuss the changes in Autism diagnosis from the DSM IV to V, the Lancet Commission paper on Profound Autism, why there is a need for this distinction in the Autism spectrum, the conditions under which an individual would be classified as having Profound Autism, the estimated proportion of Autistics who have Profound Autism, the differences in the distribution of sex-based differences in Profound and Non-profound populations, person vs. identity-first language, the importance of reducing stigma for everyone with Autism, criticisms of the proposal of this category, and responses to those criticisms. Even though we packed a lot into this interview, there is way more to this conversation than we had time for, so I'd like to revisit this again sometime in the future.
In the meantime, if you're in the New England area, consider attending The Profound Autism Summit, which is taking place on April 5th, 2024 in Burlington, Massachusetts. Alycia will be speaking at that event, and will go into even more detail than we did in this podcast. It's a multi track conference that, according to the PAS site, aims to "bring together leaders from the areas of research, medicine, treatment, advocacy, education, and human services to discuss the needs of those with Profound Autism across disciplines and throughout the lifespan."
Even though the Profound Autism Summit features talks from notable Behavior Analysts like Drs. Greg Hanley, Shanna Bahry, Peter Gerhardt, Jessica Slaton and others, it's not just an ABA conference. There will be speakers and panelists representing advocacy groups, emergency services personnel, service providers, and more (check out the entire speakers roster here).
The PAS is right around the corner and is almost sold out, so if you're on the fence and are looking for some motivation, here it is (register your spot here!). If you can't make it, consider signing up for their mailing list, as I believe they'll be making the talks available asynchronously some time down the road.
This podcast is brought to you by:
I'm thrilled to be joined by none other than Dr. Tim Vollmer. In this podcast, we talk about a wide variety of research and practice topics, as well as some funny stories from his long and prolific career.
Specifically, talk about how his dog ate his copy of Strategies and Tactics, how he and his colleagues analyzed 2 and 3-point shot patterns in basketball games, his line of research that examined The Good Behavior Game, Behavior Analysis and the game of Poker, and his take on why he and his students have such an affinity for one another.
That's not all. We probably spent the most amount of time discussing the topic of ignoring in the context of Behavioral Intervention Plans, and its potential problems.
I really hope you stick around until the end of the podcast, because we close the show in a slightly different format. Instead of asking Tim my normal closing question (advice for the newly minted), I ask him to share his thoughts on the future direction of Behavior Analysis, including both risks and opportunities.
Here are the links to the resources we mentioned:
This podcast is brought to you by:
Las conversaciones acerca del alcance de nuestra práctica y de nuestras competencias son muy comunes hoy en día en nuestra profesión. Los fonoaudiólogos y los analistas de conducta coinciden frecuentemente en los apoyos e intervenciones para el desarrollo de habilidades comunicativas. Coinciden en la práctica y en algunos casos en competencias desde un mismo enfoque o en otros desde un ángulo distinto. En una efectiva colaboración entre estas disciplinas es importante reconocer los marcos conceptuales y las tecnologías que ambas disciplinas proponen para así maximizar las maneras en que las mismas se complementan y se superponen. En otras palabras, donde las disciplinas se encuentran. Existen ‘unicornios’ capacitados en ambas disciplinas que nos demuestran el potencial de esta amalgama. Estefania Alarcón Moya es una de estas personas y en este episodio nos comparte sus perspectivas como analista de conducta/fonoaudióloga.
Referencias
Esch, B. E., LaLonde, K. B., & Esch, J. W. (2010). Speech and language assessment: A verbal behavior analysis. The Journal of Speech and Language Pathology – Applied Behavior Analysis, 5(2), 166–191.https://doi.org/10.1037/h0100270
Koenig, M., & Gerenser, J. (2006). SLP-ABA: Collaborating to support individuals with communication impairments. The Journal of Speech and Language Pathology – Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 2–10. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0100180
Spencer, T. D., Slim, L., Cardon, T., & Morgan, L. (2020). Interprofessional collaborative practice between behavior analysts and speech-language pathologists. Association for Behavior Analysis.https://www.abainternational.org/constituents/practitioners/interprofessional-collaborative-practice.aspx
The intersection between speech and language therapy and behavior analysis with Estefania Alarcón Moya
Conversations about our scope of practice and competencies are very common in our profession today. Speech therapists and behavior analysts frequently overlap on supports and interventions for the development of communication skills. They coincide in practice and in some cases in competencies from the same approach or in others from a different angle. In effective collaboration between these disciplines, it is important to recognize the conceptual frameworks and technologies that both disciplines propose in order to maximize the ways in which they complement and overlap. In other words, where the disciplines meet. There are 'unicorns' trained in both disciplines who show us the potential of this amalgam. Estefania Alarcón Moya is one of these people and in this episode she shares her perspectives as a behavior analyst/speech therapist.
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.
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If you've completed a VB-MAPP at some point in your career, you're familiar with the EESA component of the assessment protocol. In today's podcast, I had the chance to talk with Dr. Barbara Esch, who created the Early Echoic Skills Assessment, which has evolved into the stand-alone product called the Early Echoic Skills Assessment and Program Planner.
In this conversation, we talk about how Barb got into Behavior Analysis, she shared some humorous stories from being mentored by Drs. Jack Michael and Jim Carr, why she created the original EESA, who the EESAPP is for and who it's not for, and some fantastic advice for newly-minted BCBAs.
In addition to these topics, we spent a decent amount of time talking about some speech therapy concepts that were definitely new to me, especially the idea of co-articulation. We also talked about the order in which one should target specific skills. To me, this highlights the importance of collaboration, especially if you don't have a strong background in typical speech development.
As a side note, I inadvertently used the acronyms, EESA and EESAPP, interchangeably throughout the conversation, and apologize if this confused anyone.
Barb is giving not one, but two talks at this year's Verbal Behavior Conference. Are you coming? I sure hope so. If you can't make it to Austin on February 29th and March 1st, please consider joining us virtually through the magic of BehaviorLive.com. There's also an amazing conference workshop being taught by the incomparable Dr. Lina Slim on the 28th.
There will be many other amazing speakers and talks at the VBC, so whether you join in person or virtually, I hope to see you there!
Here are some helpful resources from our conversation:
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