Association for Behavior Analysis International

Teaching as applied behavior analysis is comprised of acquiring the vocabulary of the science and contingency shaped behaviors and developing verbally mediated repertoires. In CABAS model and CABAS component schools this is typically achieved through highly intensive educational training program and supervision. Identifying the most effective components of both training and supervision is necessary to ensure optimal outcomes for staff and students. Components such as the Teacher Performance Rate/Accuracy (TPRA), Cork-CABAS Decision Tree Protocol, and The Strategic Analysis of the Learn Unit have a long standing history of being functionally related. with those outcomes. Primarly data on these components have been collected in CABAS model settingsthat incorporate a full bodied university training degree program. In settings where a full university model is not easily accessible there has been much less research on the effectiveness of these components. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the staff training procedures used in full CABAS model programs will yield similar results in programs without a fully developed university degree program. Each of the papers reported herein will describe the components addressed and the associated outcomes. The results are reported as a function of the relationship between improving teaching performance and student outcomes.

Few studies have investigated the utility of the interlocking three-term contingency, the learn unit, combined with a detailed error analysis regarding the training of instructors to visually inspect data sets and effectively carry out rule-governed decisions based on these analyses. Though it stands to reason that the larger community of behavior analysts would conduct these analyses during training and provide corresponding consequences and remediation as such, this is often not the case. In fact, many behavior analysts, educators, and psychologists alike continue to use didactic training formats as their primary, and in some cases, only means for training new staff and addressing skills deficits with more experienced staff. Furthermore, this is a common model for training related to visual data analysis and teaching staff members to make decisions following their real-time inspection of collected data. The purpose of this study was to test and potentially further previous discoveries by applying an error analysis with learn unit treatment package across three participants who worked as teaching assistants at a school for children with autism. This delayed multiple baseline across subjects design was employed in respect to staff training on a rule-governed, data-based decision-making protocol, which demonstrated persuasive viability of this treatment.

Implementation of CABAS-based programs for children with and without disability in Italy raised many questions in the whole country about the need for special education environments. All Italian education is public and all students with disability and/or learning problems are integrated in regular education classrooms. With two pilot researches, we attempted to isolate some variables responsible for change in students and teachers behavior when components of CABAS were implemented in public school environments. Also, CABAS could participate in improving regular education environments as a training camp for teachers. Nine teachers performances were measured following 200 hours of training in a Public School classroom, in a learning centre using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and in a CABAS classroom. The teaching performance was measured based on 5 repertoires identified as the features of the best expertise in education (Greer, 2002; Heward, 2003). Data suggested that training teachers in a comprehensive ABA environment tremendously improved teachers performance and that CABAS was the most efficient training system compared with regular education and ABA-based general training . We will discuss the significance of these data in terms of advancement of behavior analysis and scientific pedagogy.

The purpose of this study was to try to teach special education teachers to implement novel educational methodologies in post-communist system of education with full student segregation and therefore change their students educational outcomes. After intense in-situ teacher training, we tested the effects of a peer-yoked contingency game on the acquisition of observational learning, Naming, and spontaneous speech in their students ages 6 to 8 year old with diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental delays in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We tried to replicate USA study that induced all the above capabilities in 6 preschoolers in inclusive setting. Six special education students, 3 males and 3 female, served as the participants for this study in B&H. None of the students were able to learn through group instruction due to missing verbal capabilities, but due to the nature of their classrooms and the schools curriculum the use of known protocols while working 1:1 to induce the missing capabilities, was not practical. Through a delayed, multiple baseline design, we sought to demonstrate the effects of a combination of protocols on the acquisition of 3 missing verbal capabilities: observational learning, Naming, and spontaneous speech. The results demonstrate the peer-yoked game board with an MEI component was effective at increasing Observational Learning, Naming and spontaneous speech capabilities in all 6 participants. These results showed that USA teacher successes can be replicated in the Bosnian school through intense evidence-based teacher training

The Comprehensive Application of Behavior Analysis to Schooling (CABAS) model identifies critical repertoires for teachers in several key areas: contingency-shaped behavior, rule-governed/verbally mediated behavior, and verbal behavior about the science. Approaching teacher repertoires from a behavior analytic perspective, we recast our teachers as strategic scientists and taught them to think of themselves in that way. The CABAS Decision Tree Protocol (Keohane & Greer, 2005) has been used with success in both classroom settings with teachers and in treatment centers with instructional therapists. It includes strategies for identifying instructional problems in the context of the learn unit and suggests a plan for solving challenges in the learning environment, following a series of steps to arrive at a solution. This paper will review the use of several components of the CABAS Decision Tree Protocol; discuss the strategies used for its implementation, and the improved outcomes for children who come into contact with these trained individuals.