Association for Behavior Analysis International

We frequently encounter difficulty in gaining acceptance for effective behaviorally-based interventions or educational practices; similar difficulty arises in gaining or maintaining a place for behavior analysis within academic curricula. Simply arguing the merits of the case by appealing to the practical effectiveness or the conceptual coherence and relevance of our approach often does not work. In the applied domain, a partial remedy is to improve the aesthetic characteristics of the strategies and techniques that we propose. In the domain of persuasion, we could better apply our own principles, as well as some techniques from other disciplines. For example, in place of confrontation, our principle of shaping suggests that we begin with a potential allys current repertoires and attempt gradual change. In the field of rhetoric and persuasion, a key strategy is to initially establish bases of agreement or commonality before attempting to persuade. Coupled with these should be a concern to discriminate which of the differences matter, between ones own and the position of others and especially to discriminate when those differences matter. My objective in all this is to address these issues in a principled way, thus understanding our own approach more effectively even while introducing it to others.

Proponents of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and its theoretical foundation Relational Frame Theory have described this approach as the basis for a third wave of Behavior Therapy. Skeptical observers view the ACT/RFT third wave as only waving goodbye to the scientific basis of Behavior Analysis. In this Panel Discussion, Steven C. Hayes, a developer of the ACT/RFT model and Daniel J. Moran will present ACT as a necessary extension of behavior analysis. They see ACT as giving greater breadth to the clinical field and filling a gap in the behavioral account of complex behaviors. But some behavior analysts are not convinced that the cognitively oriented approach embodied in ACT and Mindfulness is the direction that the field should take. Kurt Salzinger will discuss the ACT/RFT model from the perspective of traditional behavior analysis. Richard M. OBrien will review some of the core concepts of ACT/RFT as positive additions to the behavioral model or digressions from it with the goal of bringing this approach solidly within applied behavior analysis.

Social interactions primarily consist of approach (i.e., initiations and response to initiations) or avoidance behavior between individuals. Social interactions involve complex nonverbal, verbal, and behavioral cues that typically influences an individuals behavior in some predictable ways. The hallmark deficit in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is the social impairment, which involves a significant difficulty with social interactions. Measurement procedures for social interactions varies across studies in our field, with many research studies using parent or teacher reports as well as standardized assessments, to describe a childs social skills and interactions. The first paper in this symposium will present results from a study that conducted a parametric analysis of some of the variables involved in a social interaction in young children with ASD. In addition, a new behavioral assessment, the Social Interaction Inventory-Revised (SII-R) that was developed to quantify social interactions will be introduced. The second paper presented will share results from a study that included typically developing children for the purposes of providing normative data for the SII-R. The third paper will present results from a study that included children with ASD and a follow-up assessment to determine if the SII-R is sensitive to changes in social interactions in children with ASD.

The four papers included in this symposium discuss various extensions of functional analysis methodology that may facilitate clear outcomes. In the first paper, Jeffrey Tiger will describe a modified functional analysis that included the delivery of consequences by the participants sibling. In the second paper, Sacha Pence will present data showing that the inclusion of modified social positive test conditions facilitated clear determination of function for two participants. In the third paper, Tiffany Kodak will describe an assessment for identifying various forms of attention for inclusion in a functional analysis. In the forth paper, Lynlea Longworth will present data on an empirically-based method for identifying tasks for inclusion during the demand condition of a functional analysis.

Behavioral interventions have proven to be effective in reducing problem behaviors exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. Despite the efficacy of this technology, there continue to be barriers to long-term treatment success. One such barrier is treatment integrity, which is the extent to which an intervention is implemented as designed. The purpose of this symposium is to present research in treatment integrity. The goal is to facilitate a meaningful discussion of treatment follow through, which we hope will promote a growth of research in this area.

Headsprout Early Reading is a demonstrably effective program at teaching elementary school children how to read. Its eighty on-line lessons take a beginning reader from being a non-reader to a reader performing at about the mid second grade level in approximately thirty hours of instruction. Since its inception, however, creative educators have crafted implementation strategies, additional materials, and clever models of use to bring the benefits of Headsprout Early reading to an even broader audience. This symposium highlights applications and implementation support for users not typically well served with traditional educational approaches to the teaching of reading.

The proposed symposium is consisted of four papers that used behavioral techniques to teach parenting skills. The first study examined the effects of parent education training on their childrens learning achievements in school. Dependent variable included standardized assessment and the criterion-referenced assessment on thirty preschoolers. The independent variable consisted of parent education training package that included: (a) parent education workshop and (b) individual parent session. The second study evaluated the effect of a parent-training curriculum on parents positive teaching interactions. Specifically, the number of accurate tacts and positive responses to situations were measured. The third study investigated the effectiveness of a parent training package which emphasized teaching parents to identify appropriate skills of a target repertoire for their child to test for a) how many appropriate behaviors of particular target skill the parents could identify, (b) children's mastery of the appropriate behaviors within a particular target skill, and (c) parents generalization of identifying appropriate skills across other target behaviors. The fourth study examined specific skill such as increasing rates of childs compliance through the use of unflawed antecedent commands and contingent consequations. Results are discussed in terms of parents understanding of three-term-contingencies, observational learning, and effective parenting repertoires.

Choice responding refers to the manner in which individuals allocate their responding among available response options. In this symposium, a series of translational studies ranging from basic to applied are presented that show how variables that affect choice responding, such as reinforcement rate, immediacy, and quality, can be quantified and manipulated to improve our understanding of behavior and inform clinical assessments and interventions.

To date, there are few studies that report the long-term effects of applied behavior analysis treatment with children with autism ( e.g. Lovaas, 1987; Mceachin et al., 1993; Harris & Handleman, 2000; Sallows & Groupner, 2005).These studies have focused on variables such as classroom placement, IQ scores from standardized tests, and other such measures to infer treatment efficacy. There is little information on behavioral variables of treatment outcome for children with autism. In addition, few studies have provided a longitudinal analysis of treatment efficacy with follow-up many years after treatment completion. The present study presents preliminary findings of longitudinal evaluation of treatment outcome of 10 children with autism over a span of 15 years. Data were collected on behavioral measures, four appropriate behaviors and four inappropriate behaviors, during six month intervals on the waiting list for treatment at the Claremont Autism Center, during treatment, and after treatment for up to 15 years post-treatment. Thus, a multiple baseline design across children was used to assess the efficacy of the behavioral treatment at the Center, and the children who started their treatment at under 6 years of age were followed well into their 20s. In this symposium, we will present the importance of longitudinal analysis with children with autism, our methodology and treatment efficacy variables, and findings from our initial 10 children analyzed in terms of concrete behavioral measures.

Three data-based research studies examining the use of self monitoring for improving health and safety related behaviors will be presented. The first two studies will each present data examining the parameters of self-monitoring as an intervention for improving postural safety. The last study will demonstrate the use of a self-monitoring program in an actual organization to improve the health and safety-related behaviors of long haul truck drivers. Finally, our discussant will discuss the potential behavioral mechanisms underlying self-monitoring from a relational frame theory perspective.

This symposium presents two empirical studies and two conceptual papers on issues related to Skinners analysis of verbal behavior. Results are presented for (1) an investigation of procedural modifications of the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure and the role of automatic reinforcement in establishing speech as a conditioned reinforcer and (2) a study on generalization of mands for information across establishing operations. A third paper presents a behavioral interpretation of the etiology and intervention for aphasia by providing a taxonomy of the disorder based upon observed deficit relations. The final paper discusses transfer of stimulus control across verbal operants, reviews variables that increase procedural efficiency, and concludes with a discussion of stimulus blocking and multiple control.

Behavior Analyst Certification Board: New Developments & Requirements The meeting will address important developments within the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) relating to growth and changes in the BACB including: new continuing education and recertification requirements, new professional experience and supervisor requirements, university coursework approval and new university practica approval, new examination administration procedures, new ethics requirements for certificants, new specialty credentials, and disciplinary standards. The presentation also will focus on development of the BACB in the future, particularly as it relates to International development, and will explore the possible role of BACB certifications and certificants in the US and abroad.

This symposium will address how all aspects of the scientific study of behavior are utilized to build effective instructional programs. Though often thought of as applied work, designing effective instruction requires the application of experimentally derived principles from the laboratory, the application of useful techniques from applied settings, the direct experimental controlanalysis of behavior, and the interpretation and analysis of complex behavioral relations. Symposium participants will address a fundamental area important to Headsprout's success, and discuss the contribution of basic, applied, and conceptual analysis in each of the areas described.

This symposium will present three studies on behavioral applications for enhancing quality of life among people with severe disabilities and their support staff. The first study will describe a systematic procedure for using verbal reports of support staff to identify indices of happiness and unhappiness among nonvocal adults with autism, and then observational and choice procedures to validate the reports. Results indicated the procedures reliably identified happiness/unhappiness indicators among adults with autism who lacked conventional means of expressing their emotions. The second study will describe a means of assessing nonpreferred work tasks among support staff, and then altering the tasks by pairing them with preferred activities to make the tasks more desirable. Results indicated the behavioral pairing procedures enhanced the preferred nature of disliked tasks among all four participating staff. The third study will describe a means of maintaining desired work behavior among staff by focusing on enhancing the self-reinforcing nature of the staffs appropriate work performance. Overall, results of three studies indicate how behavioral procedures can be applied in socially important areas such as quality of life that are often considered to be outside of the realm of applied behavior analysis.

School psychology trainers rely on collaboration with community schools to provide authentic field experiences to promote meaningful outcomes for candidates. As education administrators consider the assessment practice alternatives offered in IDEA 2004, school psychology candidates also serve as a resource for training educators, developing and managing student assessment data, and providing micro and macro level evaluations of student achievement outcomes. The findings from student research collaborations between the Eastern Washington University School Psychology Masters Program and area schools are presented in this symposium. The three studies presented support the utility of CBM in educational decisions in a rural elementary and middle school and an assessment of the degree to which educators utilize these data in daily practice. Replication studies of CBM Reading, Math Computation, and Written Expression quarterly performance as predictors of statewide achievement test performance in Washington State were conducted for elementary and middle schools in the same rural district. Results indicate that CBM was a significant predictor of performance on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), with CBM Reading the most significant determinant of WASL success. The final study indicates that educators utilize CBM data regularly in screening and inclusion decisions and progress reporting situations.

Research presented in this symposium will illustrate methodological extensions of functional analysis procedures, including naturalistic (classroom) application and assessment of high-intensity and low-frequency problem behavior, as well as clinical extension to self-injurious behavior in a specific genetic disorder (Prader-Willi Syndrome).

This symposium provides an update, including demonstrations and data, on 18 of the most recent and exciting instructional design projects occurring in our field. Many areas of interest will be represented including higher education, staff development, instructional design for children, design methodology, and dissemination of good instructional design.

Behavior Analysts, Inc. (BAI) provides behavior analysis services to families and school districts in the San Francisco Bay areas. BAI uniquely utilizes B.F. Skinner's verbal behavior conceptualization to assist in the development of the verbal repertoires of individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. This symposium will describe the new procedural implementations and tracking systems at BAI and its STARS School, with exemplary data presented.

Outcome data from a several Early Intervention Programs for children with autism are presented: 1) Coyne et. al., discusses their ABA based in-home program serving children younger than three years old. Participants gained significantly more than controls; program duration (age when enrolled) was a better predictor of success than total service hours; 2) Weatherly and Mallot present their use of Organizational Behavior Management methods to analyze the effects of a pre-school ABA based autism program. They examined treatment at various levels affecting the children, the families, the staff at the autism school and the people involved with behavioral treatment. Areas of focus included: discrete trial teaching, maintenance of previously acquired skills, and family life; 3) Jonaitis presents 10 years of data from the Croyden Ave School Autistic Impaired Preschool serving children 2-6 years old. One goal was to prepare children for general education kindergarten using students from Western Michigan University; and 4) Youngbauer presents data from the North LA County Regional Center ABA intervention program. The program included an integrated process of parent information, parent education, use of several competent behavioral agencies, and monitoring of services.

Four papers on recent research in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) will be presented. First, the effects of a process change, feedback, and a tiered incentive system on warehouse quality were examined. The next study examined the effects of individual daily feedback and the withdrawal of disincentives on delivery errors among transit drivers (n = 45) in a national furniture distribution company. The third study examined telephone customer service behaviors in a medical clinic setting. The fourth paper used a descriptive assessment to examine the variables responsible for poor employee performance in a restaurant.

The corporate university, a contemporary educational model designed to maintain an expert workforce, brings higher education opportunities into the workplace. In this model, on-site credit-bearing courses allow employees to acquire additional academic degrees and certifications. Increasingly, agencies offering behavioral services are developing programs of research and professional development that allow them to assume scholarly functions beyond housing courses. The three papers included in this symposium illustrate human service agency contributions to higher education. Topics addressed include (a) establishment of a laboratory to increase graduate students verbal fluency with behavioral principles and procedures, (b) development of a model for providing supervision required for certification that integrates classroom learning and work experiences, and (c) establishment and integration of a Ph.D. program in ABA in a human service agency.

This presentation will discuss the development of a team of Masters level behavior analysts within a large public special educational service agency. The behavioral team was designed to: 1) treat individuals with severe problem behaviors across a number of diagnostic categories; 2) build behavioral capacity within the agency by providing staff and parent training in behavior analysis; 3) work with the various school districts who had contracts with the agency; and 4) ensure that treatment gains were maintained once responsibility was transferred from the behavior analysts to the classroom personnel. This discussion will specifically focus on describing the behavior treatment team model and methods of effectively incorporating behavior analysis into a public educational agency. Several successful treatment cases also will be discussed.

Four papers will be presented to demonstrate the types of socially significant changes what may be made in a relatively brief peiod of time, 15 weeks, in community settings.

CLG, a Behavioral Based Consulting firm, supports corporate wide initiatives towards achiving desired business results through behavior change. The methodology is grounded in the Applied Behavioral Sciences, working with leaders to effectively manage and maintain high levels of performance. The symposium will present three different client experiences on three different types of coaching (executive coaching and two different performance coaching designs).

The current crisis in education recognized by a variety of reports, studies, and commentators could have serious long-term effects on children world wide. In response to this crisis a number of behavior analysts have targeted the empirical validation of curriculum for their research agenda. In particular, with recent advances in computer technology, there has been a strong interest in developing and evaluating internet curricula. Three examples are Headsprout, a program that teaches beginning reading, iLearn a middle school mathematics curriculum, and TeachTown, a program for autistic children. This symposium will present the current data and methods used to evaluate these programs. Emphasis will be given to descriptions of the how these programs have integrated single-subject methods with program evaluation methods, methods for evaluating teacher and other professional implementation, and more traditional random controlled studies to create a thorough method of empirical validation.

Morningside Academy teachers will present descriptions and data on a variety of development projects in our laboratory school. We will discuss assessment strategies for reading comprehension, oral reading fluency, and vocabulary; behavioral approaches to counseling; study skills; prompting question-generating; and improving number-writing fluency.

The experimental analysis of relational responding is one the oldest areas in psychological science. The examination of relational responding grew out of philosophical debates in the late nineteenth century to become a hot topic in the early twentieth century. More recently, relational responding, in particular derived and arbitrary relational responding, has attracted much interest among behavior analytic researchers interested in complex cognitive phenomena. The four papers in this symposium present new methods for the experimental analysis of relational responding. The first paper summarizes the literature on responding in accordance with temporal relations and presents a novel empirical approach to investigating such performances. The second paper examines the role of derived relational responding in the enjoyment of computer games by using a game constructed to provide different levels of such responding at different levels of the game. The third paper employs a novel procedure to isolate different sources of contextual control in derived relational responding. Finally, the fourth paper exploits the phonological and orthographic properties of natural language words to elucidate sources of control in tests for stimulus equivalence.

Teachers, instructors, and parents of children with autism seek to find the most effective instructional methodologies. This involves examining the smallest intricacies of the instructional session (e.g., prompting, reinforcement, pacing) as well as the many of the larger, broader issues, such as those involved in choosing the content of the instruction (e.g., language, social skills, play, community). In this symposium, the authors present examples of research that look at both of these aspects of educational programming for this population. The first two papers compare different prompting protocols within one-to-one instructional discrete trial training sessions. Weinkauf et al. built upon their past research to develop, and now examine, a prompting procedure that combines beneficial features from both a simultaneous and delayed prompting protocol. Leaf et al. compared the effects of a simultaneous prompt with another type of delayed prompt called a no-no-prompt. Finally, Alai-Rosales describes a methodology to help us determine what to teach during these instructional sessions. By identifying, and then incorporating, behavioral cusps into our choice of skills to teach to children, we may be more likely to maximize the benefit for children with autism. Sigrid Glenn will comment on the papers.

When working with children, we should always be looking for empirically supported strategies to enhance our effectiveness. Improving the accessibility of effective strategies is often the first hurdle. In the first two presentations, we will provide information on sharing the technology of functional behavior assessment found in the empirical literature, first to teachers and then to families. The third presentation will present information about empowering parents in effective intervention strategies to help . The first presentation will be a multiple baseline design across teachers at varying grade levels. This data-based presentation will address the effects of knowledge dissemination on effectiveness of behavior plans. The second data-based presentation will assess the effects of a curriculum to teach parents to develop intervention plans. The third presentation will present a review of parent education literature and summarize the parent education strategies utilized as part of an intervention program for young children with autism and its effects on their families.

Children with pervasive developmental disorders are often provided services in a specialized setting outside of a typical school district placement. This referral is most often related to significant behavioral concerns that cannot be treated appropriately in self-contained classrooms within the district. However, with the goal of a least restrictive environment, an out-of-district placement strives to reduce the inappropriate behavior to a stable level and when possible, provide a user-friendly behavior support plan that can be implemented by public school teachers. Three clinical cases will be presented illustrating various issues associated with a return to district. The first presentation will highlight the initial stage of stabilization of a myriad of highly disruptive behavior such as aggression, noncompliance, dropping to the ground, and screaming for a high functioning 11-year-old girl diagnosed with autism. The second presentation will focus on the next step of selecting and teaching specific skills required for a student with ADHD and PDD-NOS to function effectively in middle school. Finally, the third presentation will address coordination with a school district regarding selecting goals to address the unique needs of a four-year-old boy diagnosed with PDD who exhibits high rates of vocal stereotypy in an integrated preschool classroom.

Fifty years ago B. F. Skinner published the book Verbal Behavior. The book contains behavioral analyses of the most complex aspects of human behavior such as language, private events, thinking, epistemology, memory, and logical and scientific verbal behavior. In many respects, the core of Skinners radical behaviorism is presented in this book. The members of this panel will discuss the significance of Verbal Behavior in terms of past contributions and controversies, its current usage, and its potential for the field of behavior analysis.

Like contemporary psychology, behavior analysis developed with the framework of nineteenth-century associationism, which ignored evolution. With minor exceptions, behavior analysis has failed to re-orient itself in the light of modern evolutionary theory. Instead, behavior analysts have adopted an oversimplified view of the dependence of behavior on evolution in which some behavior is set aside as given and other behavior is regarded as modifiable. The result has been a paucity of concepts and over-reliance on conditioning and reinforcement. To grasp the true significance of evolution, one must understand that all behavior depends on genetic inheritance. The reason is that, whether we are talking about cockroaches or humans, behavior exists to promote fitness. It is modifiable by environmental factors only in ways and by means that genes permit or encourage. The explanation and modification of behavioral phenotypes depends on illuminating the effects of natural selection and the effects of environmental factors in development. Genes that promote and constrain development often allow phenotypic flexibility, but within limits imposed by the mechanisms resulting from natural selection. This point may be illustrated by a series of examples. One conclusion is that the events called reinforcers may be understood in the light of natural selection, as phylogenetically important events that do much more than reinforce.

Settings for normally developing preschool children often serve some children who are not prepared to participate in all learning activities. The Competent Learner Model can prepare educators in these settings to arrange their environments to engage these naive learners. The CLM Course of Study integrates the best practices of Applied Behavior Analysis, Direct Instruction, and Precision Teaching. It coaches educators to mastery of applying these practices with their naive learners. Formative evaluation data from two such settings will be presented and discussed. These data will include Competent Learner Repertoire Assessments, Developmental Work Samples, and teacher decision making.

Behavior analysis, once a promising and widely used approach in the understanding and treatment of severe behavior disorders, has been obscured by the rise of biological psychiatry and its biomedical model of mental illness that prioritizes psychotropic drugs as the treatment of choice. The current hegemony of biological psychiatry stems less from reliable empirical data and much more from ideological, political, economic, and disciplinary sources of social and fiscal control. The panelists will discuss this thesis, analyze the ramifications of it, and offer suggestions for increasing the visibility and impact of behavior analysis in the social response to severe behavior disorders. The panelists are drawn from the contributors to a forthcoming issue of Behavior and Social Issues devoted to a discussion of the relative obscurity of behavior analysis in the treatment of severe behavior disorders.

Stimulus preference assessments have been demonstrated to effectively predict reinforcers for individuals with and without disabilities. Most of the research in this area, however, has focussed on the assessment of edible and tangible (e.g., toys, leisure materials) stimuli. Papers in this symposium will address the use of this technology to assess preferences for various types of social interactions, auditory stimulation, and community-based activities.

A pediatric feeding disorder is diagnosed when a child consumes an insufficient volume or variety of foods to grow. In the treatment of these disorders, a number of procedures have been shown to be effective (e.g., escape extinction). However, like other behavior disorders, the emergence and treatment of pediatric feeding disorders are often affected by idiosyncratic variables. This symposium will present data that exemplifies variables that influence the assessment and treatment of feeding disorders. The first investigation involves the application of functional analysis methods to the assessment of inappropriate mealtime behavior. In many cases, different outcomes were obtained depending on who conducted the assessment (i.e., primary caregivers or clinical staff). In the second investigation, a shaping procedure was evaluated to increase food consumption. Results showed that shaping was not effective at increasing oral intake in the absence of a negative reinforcement-based treatment. Study 3 evaluated the extent to which the response effort associated with either self feeding or non-self feeding influenced response allocation across concurrently available treatments. As predicted, response allocation varied according to manipulations in response effort. These studies will be discussed in terms of variables that influence the development of empirically derived treatments for pediatric feeding disorders.

The theme of this symposium is that our appreciation of even the most well-established and widely-known facts and doctrines of a science is often meaningfully enhanced and enriched when obscure historical details are placed in modern context. Three presentations giving specific examples of this for behavior analysis are followed by a discussion that expands upon that general theme. John Malone provides a biographical portrait of E. B. Delabarre, who contributed substantively to James' Principles of Psychology, worked with Munsterberg and Thorndike, supplied a son to assist Skinner, and founded the psychological laboratory at Brown. Ed Morris describes the origin and fate of third variables, a notion Skinner developed in his earliest writings, but subsequently dropped, that relates to the modern concept of establishing operations and has implications for how Skinner's systematic position has been perceived and understood by psychology at large. Gail Peterson analyzes rarely seen photos from a 1952 story in LOOK magazine featuring B. F. Skinner and Charles Ferster responding to a challenge to demonstrate the power of shaping, the first such public demonstration. Details of the photos are relevant to later empirical and conceptual developments.

The aim of this symposium is to present further analysis, discuss current methodological developments and applications in the area of imitation and observational learning. A paper by Goyos analyzes the behavior of the observer during a matching-to-sample task taking into account the necessary simple and conditional discriminations, antecedent stimuli, motivational operations, observing and touching responses, and consequences. Brown and Poulson will review the concept of observational learning and the operant research on generalized imitation with the goal of identifying procedures to teach learners with autism to imitate in ordinary environments. A stimulus-control account of imitation in ordinary environments is included in this paper with the goal of the development of effective teaching procedures. As the stimulus equivalence technology develops and becomes more powerful, the need to teach a larger number of learners increases, and learning by imitation or observation may be a powerful tool to accomplish this. The objectives of the paper by Goyos & Dias are to develop a control procedure for the observing responses during a matching-to-sample (MTS) task. Secondly, the study investigated whether a model could function as a conditioned reinforcer for the observing response, and third, whether learning a first conditional relation via observational learning would transfer to new conditional relations.

Behavior-analytic research into derived stimulus relations has laid the foundation for powerful and easily administered tests for implicit behavioral histories. These tests allow the behavioral researcher to gather information about an individuals behavioral history without the individuals awareness. While popular implicit tests such as the Implicit Association Test (I.A.T) claim to do precisely this, the processes involved in these tests are poorly understood. This symposium outlines a behavioral research program into the development of implicit behavioral tests, and in particular tests for sexual history and attitudes. The first paper provides an overview of behavior-analytic research into derived stimulus relations that has laid the foundation for the development of behavior-analytic implicit tests. The second paper reports on an experiment designed to assess the utility of a derived relations-based implicit test in detecting a history of inappropriate internet use. The third paper outlines a study that employed a derived relations-based implicit test to assess differences in the attitudes of men and women towards children and sexuality. This issue is also pursued in the fourth paper, which reports on a study employing an I.A.T-type test to examine gender differences in the categorization of children and sexual terms. Together these papers constitute a behavioral research program into the development of behavioral implicit tests that may have a wide variety of uses in research, clinical and forensic settings.

Autism is a complex disorder that affects an individuals language and communication, social skills as well as other aspects of learning. Applied behavior analysis has been widely documented as being the most effective treatment methodology to address the behavioral excesses and deficits associated with autism. Unfortunately, even with excellent behavioral treatment, many individuals with autism continue to demonstrate significant deficits in language, communication, and social skills. It appears that existing interventions are insufficient to address the complex learning deficits of all learners with autism. One strategy to address this problem is to broaden the scope of treatment outside of the behavior analysis field to other disciplines and areas of research. This panel will present a set of case studies that demonstrate the integration of other disciplines with applied behavior analysis in the treatment of learners with autism. Specifically, programs derived from the research in speech-language pathology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology will be discussed.

Language for Learning is a Direct Instruction program designed to teach pre-academic skills as well as skills in areas such as problem solving, classification, description of objects, and actions. . The curriculum is comprised of presentation books and workbooks that cover a variety of domains essential for language development and academic success. Information will be presented on what programs are currently using Language for Learning, how Language for Learning can be incorporated into a discrete trial teaching program with children with autism and data on skills mastered as well as an error analysis. In addition, a paper will be presented linking the concepts of relational frame theory to effective instructional practices in language development. Information will be included as to how Language for Learning addresses the teaching of relational frames throughout the content. In this program, relational frames are taught for the purpose of increasing communication skills to transmit and receive information, solve problems, and engage in higher order thinking tasks, all of which are skills necessary for academic success.

There have been recent revisions to the requirements for completing supervised fieldwork that will fulfill the national standards of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). There are an ever-growing number of BACB approved training programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels that offer the coursework component but do not offer the supervised experience component. Undergraduate programs at universities that do not have an approved graduate program face unique challenges in locating, contacting, and supervising these placements. A sample of undergraduate programs that offer the supervised undergraduate experience in preparation for certification in behavior analysis at the associate level will answer questions about how they meet these challenges to open discussion about possible solutions for other programs.

Research presented in this symposium illustrates a range of applications in which varied reinforcement schedules (progressive ratio, concurrent, conjugate, momentary DRO) played a prominent role in the context of either assessment or treatment.

This symposium will focus on the importance of determining performance standards (aims) for instructional programs. Specifically, panelists will discuss methods for determining aims for learners on the autism spectrum, generic speaking rate as a tool for predicting speaking aims, and the clinical relevance of issues related to rate, particilarly in the realm of progress on educational programs.

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A 2x2 factorial design tested the effects of signal schedule (extinction or VI 6-min) and visual field and signal context (DIAL with needle deflections or BAGGAGE with knives) on the rate of observing responses in a visual screening task. During 30-minute sessions, participants (n=24) pressed the spacebar to briefly view a BAGGAGE or DIAL image (two seconds) and pressed a hit key when a signal was present. Cumulative records of spacebar presses were approximately 30% steeper during VI 6-min conditions. Statistical analyses showed a main effect for target schedule [F (1,20)=12.4, p<.05], no main effect for visual context (F<1), and no interaction (F<1). The results highlight the importance of signal schedules in maintaining vigilant performance during visual screening tasks.

In a post-9/11 world, airport security has become a national priority. In 2005, the Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) budget set aside $5.2 billion for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and $851 million to improve aviation security. The current study was carried out within the operations division of a regional airport. The operations division is responsible for the airports communication center, safety, security, oversight of general aviation, ground transportation, compliance with FAA regulations, and coordination with police and fire services. We defined and measured vigilance behaviors in the communications center and evaluated the effects of naturally-occurring and specially designed behavioral intervention.

This presentation will give participants an overview of the Pennsylvania Verbal Behavior Project and will highlight research initiatives completed and in progress. During the first presentation, an overview of the PA Verbal Behavior Project will be given and a summary of outcomes over the past 4 years will be presented. Following the overview, Behavior Analysts will share two controlled studies done through the Project which evaluated different transfer procedures to teach tacts to children with autism. The final presentation within this symposium will highlight selected case studies completed through the PA Verbal Behavior Project.

This session is a continuation of the earlier Invited Panel Discussion entitled "Behavior and Social Issues: Behavior Analysis, Biological Psychiatry, and the Treatment of Severe Behavior Disorders" and includes additional contributors to the special issue of Behavior and Social Issues that was recently devoted to a discussion of the modest impact that behavior analysis has made in the treatment of severe behavior disorders. The panelists will focus of the economic, industrial, and institutional factors that supersede scientific data to limit the use of behavior analysis and favor psychotropic medication in the treatment of severe behavior disorders.