Association for Behavior Analysis International

Writing across the curriculum has long been viewed as a method to teach the complexities of writing at the university level. The primary goal of the current study was to use the Ryan and Hemmes (2004) procedure to further study the effectiveness of points on academic performance in a Psychology course on behavior modification. Students earned points contributing to the final course grade for written assignments for each of3 research reports associated with APA-style papers (Self, Rat, and Grant). Contingent points were provided according to random assignment for submission and quality of written assignments. For each student, quality points were available for2 of4 sections of each paper, according to an alternating-treatments design. For each complete report, a listing of assignments was distributed for students to be completed and reviewed for each class. Completion of assignments based on each of the projects was submitted according to the assigned deadline. Performance improved when feedback and points were consequences of assignment completion. The current results provide support for quality points for submitted assignments compared to points only in order to improve submission rates and overall grades on final written reports.

In this project, we trained regional school personnel to conduct functional analyses in school settings. The initial group of trainees is summarized in Table 1. Of the 33 trainees, most of their disciplines were either social work or school psychology. Trainees were trained in both their school and our outpatient clinic with local students who engaged in problem behaviors. A task analysis (TA; Table 2) was developed for conducting functional analyses. The TA included skills in preparation, decision making, and procedures. Thirty-one skills were represented in the functional analysis TA, and on each skill the trainee needed to show "expert status," meaning they were independent. Figure 1 summarizes the data for 6 trainees whose data were complete. As shown in Figure 1, the results showed that on average trainees almost doubled the number of skills gained in training. Specifically, during baseline, trainees showed expert status on an average of 6.2 functional analysis skills. At the end of Year 1 and Year 2, the average number of skills achieved at expert status was 12.7 and 22, respectively. In the poster, we will present summary data for all trainees spanning 2009–2012.

Africa continues to exist as an underexplored and or unexplored continent as far as information on the prevalence and impact of disabilities on its inhabitants are concerned. According to Autism Speaks about 1% of the Worlds population or 67 million people are affected with some form of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Also according to the World Health Organization; Tens of millions in Africa are affected by autism which has been seen as a Developmental Disability Pandemic. Africa is about 15% of the worlds population. Using the projected figure above roughly 10 million Africans are affected by an ASD. Nigeria is about 15.5% of African population; when extrapolated, about 1.5 million of Nigerians may be affected by ASD. Ghana is about 2.4% of African population; when extrapolated, approx. one-quarter million of Ghana people may be affected by ASD. As at August 31st 2011, the BACB Certificant Registry indicates that just one BCBA Certificant [among others unknown officially] exist in African Continent; to address the developmental issues of about 10 millions children with ASD in Africa! This call to duty report has spurred some organizations to undertake a number of initiatives to promote ACCESS and facilitate INCLUSION of people with autism and other developmental disabilities in all facets of community life.

In traditional academic behavior modification programs, a face-to-face strategy among teacher-students is held in applied settings. In recent years the information and communication technologies are part of everyday life. In educational fields and higher education the learning management systems (LMS) are widely spread. In the psychology school of UNAM campus Iztacala, CUVED is a kind of Moodle Learning Management System with more of 5000 users. This LMS allowed this research. By means of a blended learning the main aim of this work was to teach theoretical behavior modification and several related competences in psychology students. A 2 stages b-learning strategy: theoretical and practical contents was tackled in the CUVED LMS and through attending classroom tasks. In conclusion, with the Learning Management System and attending classroom sessions the behavior modification competences were fullfilled among psychology students.

A key component of interteaching, as described by Boyce & Hineline (2002) is the opportunity for students to participate in "dyadic" or pair discussions. Although most interteaching studies have involved this pair discussion, this classroom arrangement may present concerns for an instructor. Specifically, facilitating discussion equally among all the students in the classroom may pose a challenge. Although the rationale for pair discussions is evident, no studies to date have evaluated the relative effectiveness of student performance when group size is manipulated. For this reason, the present investigation was designed to evaluate the effect of group size during pair discussions on student exam scores. An alternating treatments design was implemented, in which students in an undergraduate introductory psychology course were assigned to work in a group of 4–5 students, or groups of 2–3 students to discuss each preparation guide. All of the major components of interteaching were in effect during both conditions (i.e., availability of prep guides, clarifying lectures, and frequent exams.) Preliminary results indicate no significant differences between average exam scores across the two conditions. These results will be discussed with respect to suggestions for variations of the interteaching session and the potential for future component analyses.

Inconsistencies in the effects of guided notes on student performance are noted in the literature (Austin et al., 2002; Neef et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2010). In order to evaluate the efficacy of guided notes in undergraduate student performance, three different note-taking conditions were examined: providing no notes to students, providing guided notes to students, and providing full notes to students. An alternating treatments design was conducted to evaluate the effects of the note-taking conditions on quiz scores in two undergraduate behavior analysis courses. An analysis of quiz performance was conducted on 11 weeks out of the semester for class one and 12 weeks out of the semester for class two. Results indicated slight differences in the note talking methods on the performance of each class as a whole, but no difference between note-taking conditions for individual performance.

There is substantial research supporting the impact of parent training on the effectiveness of treatment of children with developmental disabilities. Despite this knowledge many parents do not participate. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact that task clarification and delivery of praise or child care can have on parent participation. This study utilizes 8 parents of children with developmental disabilities, whom are currently receiving Applied Behavior Analytic treatment. All parents were given access to online training. Task clarification was provided for all participants and praise or child care was delivered contingent on the number of training modules completed. The number of modules complete was measured daily. The results of this multiple baseline study will assist in determining if these strategies can be used to increase parent participation with training methods in order to contribute to a more successful treatment program.

Accurate implementation of programming is essential in Applied Behavior Analysis to ensure that change is controlled by the intervention. One of the most popular interventions in applied behavior analysis is discrete trial training, which facilitates student learning through systematic repetition and reinforcement. To increase accurate implementation by direct care staff, researchers have utilized a variety of staff training tools. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a checklist on staff implementation of discrete trial programming with students in a school for children with Autism. A multiple baseline experimental design was utilized across 6 participants. The treatment package consisted of a pre-developed checklist given to all instructors in a classroom to be implemented before each discrete trial program was run. Accuracy was measured using an observational procedure named teacher rate performance and accuracy (TPRA; Ingham & Greer, 1992), at least three times per week. The treatment package was removed from the classroom when the participant scored 80%, on a minimum of ten errorless TPRAs. Results showed an increase in accurate implementation of discrete trial programs across all participants. Inham, P., & Greer, R.D. (1992). Changes in student and teacher responses in observed and generalized settings as a function of supervisor observations. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 153-164.

Studies have shown that children with autism who receive intensive behavioral therapy can make significant progress in the acquisition of language, social, motor, and academic skills. However, children who make the most progress often receive intensive programs that are large in scope, requiring 20-40 hours of therapy weekly over the course of many years. Many families have difficulty finding the financial resources to meet this number of hours, as well as finding personnel with adequate training to administer the intensive therapy. In this study, the experimenters trained high school students to provide intensive therapy to autistic children. Our hypothesis was two-fold: first, the use of high school students would reduce the financial burden of therapy on the parents of children with autism; second, the techniques used to train high school students would enable them to perform ABA teaching methods to criteria previously established by research. By the end of the study, most of the high school students performed discrete trials independently with 90% minimum accuracy. The intertrial interval had the greatest impact on the percentage of accuracy. Parent and student satisfaction was reported to be high, based on social validation surveys completed at the end of the study.