Association for Behavior Analysis International

Positive social interaction is a daily occurrence for most individuals and critically related to social success. Individuals with autism, due to the nature of the disorder, often have great difficulty when interacting with others. A lack of relationship-building skills and social reciprocity often interfere with their successful integration into community and family activities. As such, individuals with autism often face potential social isolation. Active teaching of responses that increase an individual's success during all social exchanges is necessary to remediate the deficits of individuals with autism. Prosocial responses, such as polite verbalizations, sharing, offering assistance, and the display of empathy are likely to increase an individual's success during a social exchange. These responses demonstrate an awareness of a social partner, lead to increased levels of positive interaction and reinforcement, and set the occasion for future social interaction. Research has demonstrated that behavioral teaching strategies, such as modeling (both in-vivo and video), script and script-fading, manual guidance, behavior rehearsals, and contingent reinforcement have been effective at increasing prosocial responses. Such outcomes, in combination with efforts focused on producing generalized behavioral repertoires that maintain over time, substantiate that these responses are subject to behavioral principles. That is, by teaching individuals with autism to attend to relevant discriminative stimuli and to respond in the presence of those (and similar) stimuli, they are more likely to be prepared for successful social exchanges. This, in turn, will maximize their successful integration and long-term success in social contexts.

Certified assistant behavior analysts and behavior analysts, behavioral consultants, behavioral therapists, caregivers, clinicians, educational consultants, psychologists, special education teachers, and individuals working with children with autism or other developmental delays.

1. Identify potential reasons why individuals with autism do not display positive social responses.    
2. Identify teaching strategies based on behavior analytic principles that will be useful in remediating deficits noted in individuals with autism with respect to the development of positive social behavior. 
3. Base clinical decisions related to teaching positive social behavior on experimental research in the field of behavior analysis.      
4. Identify effective methods for increasing the probability that responses taught to individuals with autism will generalize to non-training situations and maintain over time.            

Functional analysis is an individualized evaluation designed to assess an individual's problem behavior in relation to environmental events that may influence the probability of that behavior. Functional analysis is designed to identify (a) the environmental contexts in which an individual's problem behavior is likely and unlikely to occur, (b) the consequences that reinforce and maintain the individual's behavior in those contexts and (c) the treatments that are most likely to effectively reduce the individual's problem behavior. This presentation will illustrate how functional analysis methods have (a) increased our understanding of the influence of environmental antecedents and consequences have on problem behavior, (b) led to the development of innovative and effective interventions, and (c) provided methods for determining which treatment components are necessary and sufficient to replace problem behavior with appropriate, alternative responses. This discussion will also demonstrate how descriptive data can be used to develop functional analyses for idiosyncratic functions of problem behavior.

Certified assistant behavior analysts and behavior analysts, behavioral consultants, behavioral therapists, clinicians, educational consultants, psychologists, special education teachers, and individuals working with children with autism or other developmental delays.

1. Understand the basic principles and procedures of applied behavior analysis involved in the treatment young children with autism; 
2. Distinguish between topographical and functional approaches to categorizing aberrant behavior in autism;
3. Identify the strengths and limitations of indirect and direct functional assessments and formal functional analyses;
4. Identify potentially effective behavioral interventions based on the results of a formal functional analysis

Technological advances have been successfully incorporated into behavioral interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorders for over two decades in the form of video modeling, automated or remote-activated prompting systems, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). New technologies such as the Bluetooth wireless protocol and cost-efficient virtual reality platforms offer great options for teaching community skills that can be cumbersome or unsafe with traditional lower-tech methods. These interventions can be most powerful when basic behavioral principles are incorporated into their design and implementation rather than simply substituting technology for human efforts. This presentation will describe several important unanswered research questions about the efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and optimal parameters for implementing technology-based interventions and the evaluation strategies best suited for answering those questions. In addition, this presentation will present several questions that consumers should use to guide decision-making about the adoption of any new technology-based behavioral intervention.

Certified assistant behavior analysts and behavior analysts, behavioral consultants, behavioral therapists, caregivers, clinicians, educational consultants, psychologists, special education teachers, technical assistance providers, and individuals working with children with autism or other developmental delays

1. Identify several proposed benefits of video modeling and determine which of these benefits have been experimentally examined.       
2. Identify several types of technologies used in 3-D immersive virtual reality interventions with children with autism.      
3. Identify several advantageous design features and several logistical benefits of technology-based interventions for teaching children with autism. 
4. Evaluate the merits of adopting a technology-based intervention based on a proposed decision-making model

This discussion will cover topics and presentations from the morning sessions. Questions will be taken from the audience.

Sleep problems are prevalent among children with autism and related disabilities. Addressing sleep problems can be challenging, and when left unaddressed, sleep problems can lead to or worsen other behavior problems such as aggression and self-injury while also making learning in school difficult. The goal of this seminar is to provide attendees with a sound understanding of factors that worsen and improve children's ability to achieve age-appropriate amounts of sleep as well as strategies for addressing common sleep problems such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, nighttime routine noncompliance, and night terrors. As a result, attendees will have a better understanding of how family members and support staff can work as a team to promote the healthy sleep of the children in their care. The seminar will involve an overview of factors that often contribute to different types of sleep problems, opportunities to design individualized and parent-friendly treatments for specific sleep problems, and a review of strategies to prevent sleep problems from occurring.

This 3-hour workshop is an optional addition to the Autism Conference. For further details or to purchase this workshop, click here.

Certified assistant behavior analysts and behavior analysts, behavioral consultants, behavioral therapists, caregivers, clinicians, educational consultants, psychologists, special education teachers, technical assistance providers, and individuals working with children with autism or other developmental delays

1. Identify the personal factors contributing to specific sleep problems,
2. Design individualized and socially acceptable interventions for existing sleep problems, and
3. Prevent the development of sleep problems for the children and young adults in their care.