Association for Behavior Analysis International

Humans and chimpanzees are largely similar at early developmental stages, but there are several crucial differences. Chimpanzees have been very rarely observed to engage in general imitation and active teaching. Young chimpanzees possess exceptional working memory capacities, often superior to those of human adults. In contrast, their ability to learn the meaning of symbols is relatively poor. Chimpanzees show collaboration and altruistic behavior to some extent, but not as much as humans do. Human infants are typically raised by more than one adult; not only the mother, but also the father, siblings, grandparents, and other members of the community. The human infant is characterized by the stable supine posture of the neonate that enables face-to-face communication via facial expressions, vocal exchange, manual gestures, and object manipulation because both hands are free. The stable supine posture helps to make us human. The development of social cognition in humans may be integrally linked to this mother-infant relationship and the species-specific way of rearing the children. Based on the parallel effort of fieldwork and laboratory study of chimpanzees, Dr. Matsuzawa presents possible evolutionary and ontogenetic explanations for aspects of cognition and behavior that are uniquely human.

TBD

A review of cultural contingencies and social enviroments.

Much of the discussion of cultural matters in the behavioral tradition is pitched at the level of groups of persons as they are engaged in societal or organizational circumstances. The aim of this contribution to the program is to consider the nature and value of a conceptualization of cultural behavior at the level of the individual person, as is characteristic of analyses in the psychological domain. The characteristics of this type of behavior, the conditions under which it is established, developed and changed will be discussed. Relations between cultural behaviors of individuals and those of groups will be explored.

Groups don’t behave, neither do cultures. People behave. Interest in the behavior of persons in groups was present in Skinner’s writings, but its systematic study is recent. As the science of conditional relations, behavior analysis now is showing progress in understanding how cultural practices are shaped, maintained, and/or changed. Cultural practices are maintained by social contingencies that prevail in a given society, group or organization. The metacontingency concept has generated a large amount of empirical research, much of it experimental. So far, metacontingencies are classified as ceremonial, technological, conservative, and transformative. Our present task is to understand how the controlling agencies, like government, religion, family, etc., establish and maintain such conditional relations.

Studying the cultural unit of interest, we will argue for a methodological distinction between theconcept ofcultural selection and the concept of the selection of cultures. While Skinner (1981) describes the third level of selection as evolution of social environments or cultures, some experimental works refer to cultural selection as a unique process responsible for the behaviors defined as cultural. The two concepts might be seen as two sides of the same phenomena, but we will argue that at least for methodological reasons the two concepts call for different research strategies that might challenge traditional behavior analytical approaches.

The presentation will demonstrate that the verbal operant autoclitic, when presented as an antecedent condition of a response, may have persuasive effects upon it, altering the function of the verbal stimuli that accompanies them. The empirical base is 11 experiments, conducted at the Laboratory of Verbal Operants Studies (LEOV) at University of São Paulo, in Brazil, with A-B-A or pre-post test designs. The participants were typical developed children and young university students. The procedures involved a baseline, where it was observed the frequency of a nonverbal response. In experimental phases, one or more verbal manipulations were conducted on verbal antecedent stimuli with autoclitic topography suggested by Skinner (1957), where one or more verbal responses, previously observed in the baseline, were differentially reinforced. After this, post-test measures, under similar conditions of those in baseline, were taken, verifying the reversion or not of the responses. The results in the majority of the studies indicated that the effects of the autoclitic verbal stimuli upon the non-verbal behavior related were, in general, transient, more easily observed in children than in adults, and with responses of lower cost. Under conditions where the emission of shaped autoclitic verbal stimuli did not show changes in the related nonverbal response, instructions announcing generalized reinforcers contingent upon the emission of planned response were effective. It was interpreted that the autoclitic is one more dimension of stimulus control, coherent with Schingler's analysis (1993) that, under certain conditions, the autoclitic is an altering function stimulus.

TBD

How can behavior analysts best help the world’s 60 million teachers and 1.4 billion students? How would you answer a teacher who asks, “Show me how I can improve learning in my classroom tomorrow?” This presentation will focus on "hands-on" strategies and tactics that any educator can use right away to improve learning for one student or one hundred students, regardless of student age, skills, curriculum content, or budget. Dr. Twyman will show how teachers can incorporate tenets of behaviorally informed instruction to maximize the effectiveness of digital technology in the classroom. Dr. Heward will show how teachers in “unwired” classrooms can use low-tech tools to improve learning. Dr. Shimamune will highlight critical variables to increase the adoption use of these practices. Attendees with leave with specific strategies and tactics to improve education in any setting.

TBD

Dr. Twyman will show how teachers can incorporate tenets of behaviorally informed instruction to maximize the effectiveness of digital technology in the classroom.

Dr. Heward will show how teachers in "unwired" classrooms can use low-tech tools to improve learning.

Dr. Shimamune will highlight critical variables to increase the adoption and use of these practices.

Modern science developed at the turn of the 16th and 17th century, thanks to F. Bacon, G. Galilei and right afterwards, Isaac Newton. Modern science was born in the physical world: first it dealt with astronomy and physics, and after expanded to chemistry (18th century) and biology (19th century). The 20th century was supposed to be the century of psychology, the science of behavior. Actually it was, at least partially: first John B. Watson, who claimed psychology is a branch of natural sciences, and after him B. F. Skinner. Skinner's book Science and Human Behavior (1953) was a milestone for the development of behavior science. His analysis of strengths and problems, opportunities and threats of such a science is still valid. But new problems are challenging humanity and the tendency to search for new pseudo-solutions, instead of looking at the sound principles of the science of behavior, prevails. Behavioral scientists need to define their principles in a new way in new contexts: health policies, environmental strategies, and education. Most importantly they need to show how effective the principles have been in these new contexts. According to one of our sayings, words and deeds are often oceans apart, but there are encouraging signals that we are moving and behaving in the right direction.

TBD

Topics in OBM

TBD

The development and communication of verbal products, such as rules, instructions, leadership statements and strategic plans can not only promote but prevent socially significant impact of organizational practices on cultural change. In their role as guides, leaders create new verbal relations between the current and future state of the organization, between the future organization and its niche in the future environment, and between current employees and the future organization. In many ways a leader’s decision making shapes the patterns of interlocking behavioral contingencies, aggregate product, and the behavior topographies of consumers. The overall process can bear positive or negative influences on the health of the organizational members plus the external environment (including the physical and social environment). This presentation will provided an overview of ways by which leadership decision making change the cultural landscape and practices.

Behavior analysis holds the promise of addressing many issues related to society's woes. We promote transfer and sustainability. However, what are we doing wrong in pursuing lasting change? The promise of OBM is rooted in the notion that contextually we hold the secret to sustainability across complex systems. As others on this panel will address, there is still much to do at the level of organizational change. OBM practitioners focus on patterns of behavior of individual performers and groups. Experts at identifying the skills needed to accelerate performance, they address large issues of corporate culture, safety leadership, and financial success, or pinpointed efficiencies and effectiveness, sales behavior, or variability to increase creativity. Systems and processes that surround behavior are redesigned to support a more participatory or orderly process of performance management. OBM practitioners teach managers to shape the performer toward the outcomes desired. They teach the performers about behavior and building new habits. On the surface, this seems more than adequate to create lasting change. However, OBM interventions too often are not lasting, fading quickly. We imply that we know how to fix the fluid future context in which behavior occurs. This presentation explores the concept of change in relation to current behavior analytic strategies designed to address it—and critical lessons learned long ago by the first practitioners of change inside organizations, long before the term OBM was created to define what we do.

Manipulating behavioral contingencies is not sufficient to lead and manage change in complex systems. Unique configurations of events, interactions between behaviors of individuals, and behavioral repertories "all non-replicable" necessitate different approaches. This presentation explores types of complex phenomena and their implications for leading and implementing change.

The sources of novel behavior and behavioral variability are important issues in behavior analysis for theoretical as well as for practical reasons, and many studies have shown that behavioral variability can result from certain reinforcement contingencies. Some well-known experiments have suggested that variability can be directly reinforced and function as an operant class on its own, and that organisms can engage in the strategy of a quasi-random generator. However, the details of the original experiments suggest that the sequences upon which reinforcement is contingent are often too complex to be directly reinforceable, and that alternative interpretations of the conditions that produce behavioral variability are feasible. The alternative proposed here is based on experiments in which lag schedules were arranged for topographically distinct response classes rather than for different sequences of responses on two operanda. These experiments suggest that whenever a new or relatively novel response occurs and is reinforced, the immediate effect is not an increased frequency of more variable behavior, but an increased rate of the specific response that occurred immediately prior to the reinforcer. It is concluded that, at worst, the notion of “variability as an operant” on its own is misleading to the extent that it suggests that the “reinforced variability” transcends the range of specific responses that are followed by reinforcement. At best, the notion of variability as an operant on its own seems superfluous, because the variability seen in the relevant experiments seem properly accounted for in terms of well-established empirical findings. No special random or stochastic generating processes seem necessary, because the complexity of certain reinforcement contingencies in which several responses reciprocally cycle between reinforcement and extinction seem sufficient to explain the resulting quasi-random performances.

Recent research and multiple special issues of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior have focused on connecting basic and applied research through translational experimentation. By contrast, researchers have paid much less attention to linking applied behavior analysis to its conceptual and philosophical foundations. The current symposium will attempt to illustrate ways in which the theoretical and philosophical foundations of behavior analysis can inform the treatment of socially important problems. In addition, we will present empirical examples of how applied behavior analysis can expand its impact and reach non–behavior analytic audiences.

TBD

Results of multiple within-subject studies have shown that individuals with autism elope for three main reasons: to gain access to preferred items, to escape undesirable settings or activities, or to gain attention from others (e.g., Piazza et al., 1997; Rapp, Vollmer, & Hovanetz, 2005). In contrast to this goal-directed bolting, some children with autism wander without a clear course due to skill deficits and/or a lack of recognition of potential dangers (e.g., oncoming car, swimming pools). These children have not been successfully taught to discriminate between safe and unsafe environments or to monitor and maintain safe proximity to caregivers. Despite the clear impact elopement has on the health, safety, and well-being of these individuals and their families, no comprehensive treatment approaches to the assessment and treatment of goal-directed bolting and wandering have been empirically validated. In this presentation, I will discuss a comprehensive model aimed at (a) distinguishing elopement from wandering and (b) developing treatments for problems of elopement and wandering that are uniquely tailored to assessment outcomes. Our preliminary results suggest that this comprehensive model can lead to more effective treatments.

Theory and philosophy are often assumed to be distant from, and irrelevant to, practical affairs. Indeed, this may often seem to be the case in many traditional helping professions, where techniques used by clinicians require little if any orientation or subscription to a particular theory. However, applied behavior analysis is different from traditional approaches to improve socially important behavior. This presentation highlights some of the ways that applied behavior analysis is distinct from other helping professions and ways of conceptualizing behavior more generally. After distinguishing applied behavior analysis from other approaches, specific consideration to the theoretical and philosophical foundation of applied behavior analysis is emphasized. Common examples of applied situations where theory explicitly influences practice are provided. The implications for the training, supervision, and continuing education of applied behavior analysts are reviewed. Ultimately, it is argued that the continued development and effective practice of applied behavior analysis requires an ongoing, intimate relationship with behavioral theory and philosophy.

Treatments of pediatric feeding disorders based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) have the most empirical support in the research literature (Volkert & Piazza, 2012); however, professionals often recommend and caregivers often use treatments that lack empirical support. In the current investigation, we compared the Sequential Oral Sensory approach (SOS; Toomey, 2010) to an ABA approach for the treatment of the food selectivity of 6 children with autism. We randomly assigned 3 children to ABA and 3 children to SOS and compared the effects of treatment in a multiple baseline design across novel, healthy target foods. We used a multielement design to assess treatment generalization. Acceptance of target foods increased for children who received ABA, but not for children who received SOS. We subsequently implemented ABA with the children for whom SOS was not effective and observed a potential treatment generalization effect during ABA when SOS preceded ABA.