Association for Behavior Analysis International

This symposium will present 4 studies demonstrating innovative models to improve staff performance in a residential setting. The first paper will discuss the effectiveness of a training program incorporating a video model of correct skill performance, but no feedback provided on performance. The second paper assessed the level of protocol compliance in new staff following a training package comprised of didactic training and structured performance-based training with a competency component. In addition, ongoing system-wide data of performance and competency-based staff training using feedback tools will be presented. The third paper assesses and compares the accuracy of the descriptive data collected by direct-care staff under the two conditions: on-shift with students or independent observer. The fourth paper employs the same procedures as Parsons and Reid (1995) to train 5 supervisors in a residential facility and 5 supervisors in a school facility to provide effective feedback to direct service staff in both the group home and school setting.

Lovaas et al. (1987) convincingly demonstrated that early intensive applied behavioral interventions can dramatically improve the lifetime prospects for children with autism, and there have been several additional comparative studies validating that specific approach along with the more general term applied behavior analysis as an intervention strategy. But the array of behaviorally based strategies has expanded and evolved over the past two decades. Distinctive labels have been given to innovations, some of which are advocated upon on the basis of conceptual rationales rather than supporting research. Furthermore, services for children with autism have moved beyond the research setting and into public schools and homes, with the interventions implemented by teaching staff, paraprofessionals and parents. There is clearly a need for researchers to step beyond traditional within-subject research designs and begin the process of delineating the similarities and differences between alternative approaches while also evaluating intervention effectiveness. A multi-systemic approach will be presented for evaluating early, intensive ABA-based interventions within public school settings. The methodology for this multi-site study extends beyond the single-subject design to address which techniques and strategies are most effective for which children within the autism spectrum and with what resources of staffing and expertise.

Treatments based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) have been scientifically demonstrated to be the most effective option for young children with autism. However, more research is needed in order to identify the most effective procedures, both for the assessment and reduction of challenging behavior, as well as teaching adaptive behavior. This symposium includes three presentations on empirical research on a variety of topics in the assessment and treatment of the behavior of individuals with autism, covering topics such as toilet training, data collection of aquisition skills, and functional assessment. The symposium will be concluded with a discussion of the presentations.

As the field of Applied Behavior Analysis expands, critical issues relative to the protection of those we serve become more important to both the consumers as well as the longevity of the profession. The presenters will discuss a number of these issues, providing recommendations that will address both needs. Among these very critical issues is the current lack of direct oversight of individuals who are either members of ABA and/or certified by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board. The goal of this symposium will be to develop potential solutions to this issue and work to advocate for changes in the systems necessary to promote such needs.

Early behavioral intervention has well demonstrated the ability to instill or increase basic social and interpersonal skills in children with autism. However, there remain many areas where programming is less well developed. This symposium presents data-based procedures for addressing problems in pedestrian safety, non-food ingestion, and joint attention skills. These areas are often more challenging to treat than basic language, academic, and self-help deficits. As behavioral interventions become more widespread and effective, increased numbers of children need assistance with the more subtle skills. The first presentation reports on a program designed to improve childrens ability to be safe in high risk situations in the community. Automobile awareness and safety while walking are important safety skills for all children to have. The second presentation describes an ABA intervention to help a child with severe Pica. Many children with autism have additional diagnoses, and Pica not only constitutes a serious threat to the childs well-being, but is notoriously difficult to treat in a natural environment. The third presentation describes a 3-phase behavioral intervention to increase joint attention in children with autism, thus allowing the shared awareness and experience that makes social interaction so rewarding.

Joint attention, a synchronizing of the attention of two or more persons, has been an increasing focus of research in cognitive developmental psychology. In particular, it appears that children diagnosed with autism may display a syndrome-specific deficit in joint attention skills. Over the last few years, phenomena treated under the heading of joint attention have also come into focus of behavior-analytic research and theory. The purposes of the present symposium are to present (1) an operant perspective on joint attention phenomena and (2) empirical results which show that joint attention skills can be established in children with autism through specific, step-wise operant procedures.

Preference Assessments have become an essential tool in the assessment and treatment of problem behavior. Over the past 20 years, the effectiveness and utility of multiple methods has been evaluated. Included in these studies are investigations into the validity of the various assessments. However, important questions remain. The three studies presented in this symposium address questions pertaining to the validity of different types of preference assessments, consistency of choices across assessments, and the accuracy of choice making behavior. In the first study, the efficacy of discrimination training to teach individuals with developmental disabilities to make auditory discriminations during symbolic preference assessments was evaluated. Results indicated that choice making improved for all three participants following discrimination training. In the second study, high preference items from full- and partial-array preference assessments were compared in a reinforcer assessment in order to assess the relative reinforcement value. Results indicated that although both full- and partial-array items initially functioned as reinforcers, the participants allocated more responding the full-array items when presented concurrently. In the final study, reinforcer assessments were used to validate the outcome of several preference assessment methods (single-stimulus, paired stimulus, and multiple stimulus without replacement). Results indicated discrepancies in rankings across the three methods and reinforcer assessments validated the results of only one or two of the preference assessment methods for 2 of the 3 participants. The results of these studies suggest that although preference assessments are vital tools in the assessment and treatment of problem behavior particular attention should be given to issues related to the validity of these procedures.

Four papers on the assessment and / or treatment of noncompliance will be presented. In the first paper, two case examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of nontraditional treatment strategies for increasing compliance will be presented. In the second paper, an extension of an EO analysis of compliance was done by applying the procedures to a classroom setting serving typically developing children with behavioral disorders. In the third paper, three antecedent and two consequent strategies for improving compliance were examined in young children. In the fourth paper, previous research on child compliance is extended by describing compliance levels of 16 preschool-aged children, and then elucidating the importance of antecedent and consequence-based strategies via parametric analyses.

Behavior analysts have a long-standing presence in education; however the corporate arena offers a relatively untapped education facet: corporate learning. Large companies typically spend over $100 million yearly on learning and training programs but what, if any, is the return on this investment? Corporate learning solutions generally are not built upon sound behavioral principles. They are, however, built upon Instructional Systems Design & Development (ISDD) methodologies. The most popular methodologythe ADDIE modelprovides a systematic process for creating corporate learning. It is through this model that behavior analysts have the opportunity to drive results. Behavior analysts have the capability to turn learning solutions into behavioral learning solutions and produce a return far greater than a monetary investment. Not only do behavior analysts have the power to influence corporate learning, but corporate learning also has the capability to impact behavior analysis. A variety of learning modalities are delivered in the corporate arena, many of which can enhance current behavioral solutions. A showcase of learning solutions will be demonstrated in an effort to highlight Whats out there? and where, as behavior analysts, we can make a difference.

Applied behavior analysiss (ABA) pragmatic, natural science approach to discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and to developing a technology that takes practical advantage of those discoveries offers humankind our best hope for solving many of our problems. Unfortunately, ABA has had limited impact on society. Using public education as the exemplar, this presentation will explore the question, If ABA is so wonderful, why dont we (society) make greater use of it? Improving the effectiveness of education is one of societys most important problems, and for more than four decades applied behavior analysis has provided powerful demonstrations of how it can promote learning in the classroom. In spite of this evidence, behavior analysis is, at best, a bit player in efforts to reform education. Dr. Heward will identify a dozen reasons why ABA is ideally suited to help improve education, review a somewhat longer list of reasons that work against the widespread adoption of behavioral approaches in education, and suggest some actions that practitioners and researchers can take to enhance and further ABAs contributions to effective education.

Although ABA has the data showing effectiveness, parents continue to pursue fad and controversial treatments. Behavior analysts need to behave in a way that will result in increased acceptance of ABA and a scientific skepticism of all therapies. Attendees of this symposium are asked to bring materials - phamplets, flyers, brochures, videoclips, etc. - that can be disseminated to other members of the audience. These materials will hopefully be customized and given to pediatricians, parent groups, and other professional agencies, to begin developing a more positive attitude about ABA and a more objective evaluation of therapies being proposed for children with autism.

"Affect" refers to a persons facial expression, gestures, and verbalizations that are emitted in response to a complex set of discriminative stimuli that evoke the observers use of terms that draw inferences about a persons emotional state. People with autism have deficits in social interaction that are apparent in nonverbal behavior. Such deficits have been addressed using applied-behavior-analytic methods that successfully promote social interaction. Based on the reviewed literature, however, only two studies (Gena, Couloura, & Kymissis, 2005; Gena, Krantz, McClannahan, & Poulson, 1996) used behavioral principles to increase appropriate affective responding in individuals with autism. This symposium presents a review of the literature on affective behavior and two studies that add to that literature. The study by DeQuinzio, Townsend, Sturmey, and Poulson emphasized the role imitation and modeling play in displaying facial expressions. The study by Najjar, Vener, and Poulson used a behavioral intervention package, consisting of modeling, shaping, and script-fading to increase appropriate verbalizations, vocal intonation, and facial expressions. Both studies were conducted with children with autism.

The label "high risk" in the past denoted dangerous areas to avoid/was predictive of a problem that might not be readily resolved. Currently, the "high risk" label is being applied to students with behavioral deficits--and children who have been so labeled are placed into special education classrooms along with those diagnosed as persons with mental retardation, autism, developmental delay. Behavioral Assessment & Technology Support Systems (BATSS) has been successful in training classroom staff to remediate these behavioral deficits and, thereby, enable these children to function more appropriately and effectively in public school classrooms. Our discipline does not encourage us to recognize boundaries established by descriptive assessments. The papers presented in this symposium describe how master's-level graduate students are demonstrating to educators and classroom staff how to bypass some of the problem type behaviors being exhibited in these classrooms. Following the presentations the audience will be included in a discussion of problems, problem-solving strategies, and directed to literature that will acquaint them with behavioral technology. The speakers and the chair will generate discussion by asking questions of the audience.

Behavior analysts are frequently part of an interdisciplinary treatment team; quality programming for students requires that behavior analysts work effectively with other disciplines, which are likely to present vastly different approaches. This symposium presents data on interventions combining behavior analytic principles and strategies employed by speech and occupational therapists. The first study uses multi-element designs to assess the effects of various sensory stimulation protocols on two students challenging behaviors. The second study, conducted by a behavior analyst and speech therapist, uses a multiple baseline across settings to assess the effects of functional communication training on the aggressive and self-injurious behaviors of an 11-year-old boy. The effects of this intervention on his overall language acquisition rate will also be discussed. The final study will present data to be collected on the food refusal and selectivity of a young man with autism. Interventions from behavior analytic and speech pathology literature were combined; data on the effects of two phases of the intervention will be collected and evaluated in a changing criterion design. Collaborating with other disciplines can result in empirical and creative interventions.

Ongoing research on behavioral momentum and behavioral economics continues to examine the generality of the momentum metaphor and the utility of behavioral economic analyses. The first study examined the effects of differing types of disrupter stimuli. The second evaluated momentum effects in a natural education environment. The third examined the effects of response effort manipulations on responding maintained by qualitatively different reinforcers on progressive-ratio schedules. The fourth evaluated a method to determine reinforcer value based on a unit-price analysis.

This symposium will present recent research promoting behavioral safety. In the first study, Mackner and colleagues will discuss procedures for teaching parents to provide safety skills training for preventing gun play to their children. In the second study Tarasenko and colleagues will describe peer tutoring for teaching abduction prevention skills to children. In the third study, Knudson and colleagues will describe behavioral skills training to promote fire safety skills with individuals with severe and profound mental retardation. Finally, Van Houten and malenfant will discuss procedures for promoting safety belt use among drivers.

Various tactics used at the Jigsaw CABAS School are described and data are provided to show their effectiveness in expanding the academic and communication repertoires of children on the Autistic Spectrum. The effect of multiple exemplar instruction was tested on the transfer of stimulus function for unfamiliar pictures across listener and speaker responses. Conditioning procedures were used to increase time spent playing appropriately with various activities, increasing the number of learn units presented was used to decrease out-of-seat behaviour and items were targeted to a rate criterion for fluency. Writer immersion is used to increase the number of written autoclitics and to decrease the number of written errors. Textual prompts are also being tested in this classroom as a tactic to increase the use of descriptive autoclitics. Data will be presented on the effectiveness of all these tactics.

Joint attention involves the coordinated attention between a social partner and an object in the environment and has been identified as one of the earliest emerging social behaviors in typically developing children. Deficits in joint attention for children with autism have been well documented in the literature. These children fail to orient to speech sounds or social stimuli, show deficits in the ability to follow the gaze of another person and often to use gaze shifts and gestures to initiate joint attention. Interventions based on behavioral teaching approaches have shown the most promise for ameliorating joint attention deficits in young children. A variety of instructional procedures including systematic prompting, shaping and reinforcement have been shown to be effective in teaching responding to joint attention and initiating joint attention. A limitation of this research to date is in the generalization and maintenance of the acquired skills. The purpose of this symposium is to describe several research projects in which the authors are using behavioral interventions to teach joint attention to preschool age children. The implications of these findings will be discussed as they relate to the integration of these skills into the general behavioral repertoires of these children.

Scientific communities rarely embrace new formulations of their subject matters or theories concerning them with enthusiasm. On the contrary, new theories are frequently and sometimes forcefully resisted, the latter peculiar to those touching upon issues of so fundamental a sort as to threaten venerable scientific traditions. Historians note that the eventual adoption of new formulations of events in the sciences is typically preceded by their having first suffered through successive stages of being ignored, dismissed, reviled, ridiculed, distorted, and exploited. Such has been the fate of interbehavioral psychology in the most powerful sector of the behavior analytic community. While it is the case that certain aspects of the behavior analytic position are incompatible with Kantors formulation of psychological events, the threat posed by the adoption of the latter is not as great as might be imagined. Indeed, it is only the most ill-formed and incoherent aspects of the former that are threatened by interbehavioral logic. More importantly, unless behavior analysis strives toward greater scientific systemization, problems of this sort will inevitably resurge, putting the validity and significance of this enterprise at continued risk. Adequate systemization is exemplified in interbehavioral psychology. For these and related reasons, certain assurances and clarifications pertaining to Kantors views are warranted. In addition, many members of the behavior analytic community are wholly unaware of Kantors enormous contribution to the development of a natural philosophy and science of behavior. My aim in this address, thereby, is also to provide an overview of interbehavioral psychology and the philosophy of interbehaviorism for this audience.

Scott Geller coined the term behavior-based safety (BBS) in 1979 when consulting with Ford Motor Company on applications of behavior analysis to increase the use of vehicle safety belts. He subsequently taught BBS principles and relevant intervention strategies for on-the-job safety, first at several Ford manufacturing plants and then at various other companies nationwide. Over the next decade, BBS gained substantial popularity as the leading-edge approach to addressing the human dynamics of industrial safety. Annual conferences have been dedicated to BBS, and consulting firms purporting to implement BBS continue to spring up worldwide. Indeed, BBS likely represents the largest-scale application of behavior analysis beyond educational and rehabilitation institutions. The presenter has authored several books and training programs on BBS, including participant workbooks, audiotapes, videotapes, CDs and DVDs. However, Gellers most recent books and training materials (e.g., People-Based Safety and The Anatomy of Medical Error) advocate people-based safety (PBS) over BBS. This presentation will explain the evolution of PBS from BBS, with particular reference to applications in industrial and hospital settings. Learn the principles of BBS and PBS as presented to industries worldwide and most recently to healthcare workers, as well as distinctions between BBS and PBS.

The incidence of autism has increased considerably during the past decade. A corresponding development of programs serving individuals with autism has occurred. While these programs are essential to meet the needs of the autism community, attracting, training and retaining a qualified workforce becomes very difficult. In addition to the competition among programs serving individuals with autism, these agencies must also compete with employment opportunities that are less stressful and less demanding than working with individuals with autism. Despite the widespread use of empirically-based teaching techniques in the field of special education, few providers apply these same principles to address staff behavior change. Organizational behavior management (OBM), also referred to as Performance Management (PM), is the application of applied behavior analysis to organizational improvement. The purpose of this panel is to address common issues within the field of human services and more specifically, to programs serving individuals with autism. Topics to be addressed include issues of staff retention and turnover, staff development as well as issues of quality assurance and improvement.

Efficient training of staff is a high priority for agencies serving people with severe developmental disabilities. This symposium examines a complete makeover of staff training in two agencies supporting people with severe developmental disabilities. Community Living Opportunities, Inc. (CLO), located in Eastern Kansas, provides residential services for 185 adults and features the Family Teaching Model (FTM), where 1 to 3 people live with a family who provides care, teaching, and a preferred lifestyle. California Community Opportunities, Inc. (CCO), located in San Jose, provides FTM services to people moving from Agnews Developmental Center. The first paper examines the effects of shortened workshop and in-home training on Family Teacher performance on tests and observations after workshop sessions, after 90 days, and after six months. The second study is a replication (at CCO) of the training and testing model, but focuses on in-home coaching lessons and ongoing assessment of primary outcome areas including safety, rights, supervision, and teaching skills. The third paper focuses on Social validity of the training model. Parents and frequent visitors of individuals are queried regarding satisfaction with training and outcomes. Preliminary data suggest that in situ training focused on the most important staff skills results in the best outcomes.

This tutorial will focus on trichotillomania and other repetitive behavior disorders in children and adults with an emphasis on functional assessment and intervention strategies. Following a discussion of the different repetitive behaviors, functional characteristics, and diagnostic categories, the tutorial will discuss assessment procedures, describe functional analysis research with these behaviors, and present recent research on habit reversal and other treatment of these disorders.

This symposium will present innovations in procedures for treating feeding problems and teaching pill swallowing. The first presentation will present data of efforts to treat food selectivity by texture using antecedent manipulations and reinforcement-based procedures. The second presentation will present data demonstrating that stimulus fading can be used in the absence of escape extinction to teach pill swallowing to children. The third presentation will present data of a component analysis of a treatment package used to treat food selectivity by type.

Children, persons with intellectual disabilities, their caretakers, and the general population are at increasing risk for illness and premature death because of their unhealthy eating and exercise habits. Since eating and exercising are behaviors, this problem provides an opportunity for behavior analysis to contribute to its solution. This symposium will present data on the effectiveness of behavior-analytic technologies that provide resources, training, and/or performance management interventions (such as goal-setting, feedback and incentives) to help persons at risk for illness and premature death to acquire and maintain healthier eating and exercise habits.

Behavior consultation can involve a behavior analyst working on behalf of a public school to address a wide range of issues requiring behavioral services. Commonly, referrals are for training, skill acquisition, or behavior reduction with individual or small groups of students. This symposium will present 3 data-based papers representing this range of behavioral referrals. One paper will present data on skill acquisition in social skills training to a group of middle school students receiving special education services. Specifically, data will be presented on several childrens acquisition of social skills during a systematic training process. The second paper will present data on reducing prompt dependency and increasing spontaneous manding in a child with autism. The third paper will present data-based decision making procedures derived from an analysis of how much data is required for making informed decisions during discrete trials training. Using both contrived and real data sets, decision making strategies were applied to daily data collection, and data taken during 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% of days.

Children who have experienced abuse, neglect and/or separation from parents often exhibit severe behavioral difficulties that can result in expulsion from homes, schools and various community programs. With the structure, consistency and positive reinforcement provided by behavioral treatment programs, the behavior of these children often improves, they can frequently be maintained in these settings, and they are sometimes found to have been misdiagnosed. However, they often have continued dependency on the external structure provided by the behavioral treatment program. This is manifested by a failure to generalize positive behaviors in alternate settings and/or to internalize the values and motivation provided by the external structure. These children tend to show no indication of experiencing the emotions of joy, pride, shame, guilt, anxiety or fear. Their behavior appears to be strictly influenced by external stimuli and does not seem to be modulated by emotions. They tend to exhibit what appears to be a false sense of high self-esteem, show no indication of having a conscience, and seem to lack any genuine emotional expressiveness other than anger. A theoretical interpretation based on behavioral principles of the issues discussed above will be provided with specific behavioral treatment strategies to address these issues.

Four papers on augmentative communication device and autism will be presented. Paper topics include: Modifying Existing Curricula for Use with Augmentative Communication Devices; Producing Generative Language on Augmentative Communication Devices using Precision Teaching: Quasi-Experimental Designs; Pre-Skills to support Augmentative Communication Devices; Modifying the Layout of an Augmentative Communication Device to Measure the Affects on a Child with Autisms Vocabulary Acquisition and Spontaneous Device Use

This symposium includes four studies concerning functional assessments, analysis and function based interventions in school settings.

As children with autism move into general educational classrooms, there is a need to develop effective and contextually-practical interventions. There is little evidence that placement of children with autism in a general education classroom setting by itself, will produce significant gains in their academic or social skills. This symposium will present a number of techniques associated with the success of supported inclusion for children with autism. One paper will present data on the use of embedded instruction to teach children with autism within a general education setting. A second study will describe a study of training paraprofessionals to support adolescents with autism in secondary schools. The third paper will present data on generalization across tasks of teaching children with autism to answer why questions. The fourth paper will discuss the use of a transitional classroom to prepare children with autism for supported inclusion and z method of evaluating the match between the expectations of a potential receiving classroom and the needs of a child with autism.

Theory and philosophy have important roles in the development and advancement of behavioral science. This symposium will include four papers related to theory and philosophy. The first paper discusses the extension of behavior analytic theory to the important area of adherence, particularly as it relates to health. The second paper addresses the role of classical conditioning in the evolution of behavioral science. The third paper describes the relationship between philosophy and behavioral science. Lastly, the fourth paper addresses the concept of probability in behavioral science.

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has contributed greatly to the treatment of behaviors related to a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) since the inception of the field. Early ABA studies still provide the foundation for now routine recommendations such as the token economy and behavioral parent training. However, recently these early treatments have become much more refined and systematized. The application of functional analysis principles and procedures as well as the development of sophisticated concurrent operant assessment procedures have also led to new and innovative behavioral treatments for ADHD. The purpose of this presentation is to present recent functional analysis and concurrent operant assessment research related to the treatment of ADHD in the context of the past, the present, and our future.

Floridas Behavior Analysis Services Program (BASP) is a statewide program for dependent children and their caregivers. Over 60 board certified behavior analysts from the University of South Florida and the University of Florida work with parents and staff to improve their interactions with previously abused and neglected children. Caregivers receive training in the Tools for Positive Behavior Change Curriculum and learn how to implement individualized behavior plans when necessary. Three presentations within the current symposium discuss outcome results with both caregivers and children. The results of these studies indicated that the training and/or individual assessments were effective in producing positive outcomes (i.e., decreasing teen runaway behavior and increasing the positive interactions of caregivers). The final presentation applied the same curriculum, which is typically only taught to those affiliated with child welfare, to volunteers in the community who were interested in taking a parenting class. This study indicated positive outcomes on child behavior and also showed that additional measures of caregiver stress and depression can improve after training. In summary, the results of the current studies indicate that the BASP program can be effective in making positive changes in both child and caregiver behavior.

There are many challenges with training staff and teachers in Humans service agencies and schools with limited time and resources Administrator and supervisory must find way to quickly and accurately train staff to be able to perform with students and individuals in school day program and residential setting. This symposium provide several example of multiple training interventions, using video Feedback to train educational assessment and interaction skills to teachers parents and direct care staff The first presentation describes a method for training parents and staff to implement functional analysis using performance feedback and Video Feedback to increase accuracy of implementation of consequence during conditions. The second presentation describes a performance management intervention that used Video observation to increase effective interaction skills increasing clinical interaction skills for teachers in a school and residential programs. The third presentation describes a training program to teach discrete trial training to staff in a residential school for children with Autism. All presentation represents interventions used across multiple staff in education and therapeutic environments.

This symposium includes three papers with recent research on the treatment of binge eating and purging associated with bulimia, and smoking. In the first study, Bosch and colleagues describe a study in which extinction was used to treat binge eating maintained by automatic negative reinforcement. In the second study, Azrin and Kellen describe research in which a slowed eating rate resulted in a decreased level of purging behavior associated with bulimia. In the final paper, Anderson and Gaynor describe a multifaceted behavioral intervention for smoking. David Reitman will serve as discussant and comment on the papers.

Este simposio presentara estudios que han sido realizados ya sea en paises de habla hispana, or por investigadores de habla hispana. Todas las presentaciones seran en espaol.

Research has shown positive reinforcement to be an effective strategy for increasing food consumption in children with developmental disabilities who display food selectivity/refusal. Three papers will review background, incidence, significance, assessment, intervention, outcomes, and limitations with three different students diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorders who display food selectivity and/or refusal across home and school environments. Each paper will discuss systematic intervention, including a variety of antecedent and consequence strategies used to promote increased food consumption across home and/or school environments. Papers will also present individualized programs tailored to the child and team and that using one or more types of interventions concurrently or with multiple baseline approaches may generate outcomes quickly to create team confidence. The impact of several variables will be presented; including, developing technically sound protocols, identifying functional reinforcers, promoting comprehensive team involvement and communication, treatment integrity, data collection, and limitations of interventions. Results presented will show significant improvements in meal times and increased food consumption for all three children, with results sustained over time with maintenance procedures in place.

Since 1979 Project 12-Ways has served families with a history of child abuse and neglect. The Project has operated under the auspices of the Behavior Analysis & Therapy Program at SIU and, therefore, adopts an experimental-clinical approach to rendering service. Recent innovations will be described including the first attempt at an international replication in Ontario, Candada.

The use of functional assessment prior to treatment selection is considered best practice in a range of settings, including schools. However, promoting quality school-based functional assessments is often a challenging endeavor. This symposium will explore some of the issues surrounding functional assessments in schools, including the relative value of function-based interventions for typically developing children, challenges to the quality of school-based functional assessments, and models for improving functional assessment practices within school districts.

ABA-based treatment and education programs for children with autism frequently require staff to conduct highly structured, 1:1 intervention sessions. The staff that fill these positions are typically psychology undergraduates or B.A. level graduates, and many have not had formal training or coursework in behavior analysis or behavioral intervention techniques. Consequently, most ABA-based service providers develop and implement their own training protocols and performance-based evaluations to facilitate the acquisition of intervention skills in these entry-level, front-line staff. This symposium will discuss this critical issue of staff training and performance in ABA-based programs in home, school, and center-based settings. The presenters will emphasize performance-based criteria to assess skills in the areas of discrete-trial teaching; incidental teaching; mand training; teaching in dyads; fluency; and problem-solving via functional analyses. Training procedures will be described in detail, data on staff performance will be presented, and the implications of staff training and performance on the efficacy of intensive behavioral intervention will be discussed.

Autism is a complex and heterogeneous disability that is associated with a myriad of serious problems that affect the lives of the diagnosed child as well as family members and others who are close to the child. Such problems include challenging behaviors, family disintegration, isolation, and highly restricted learning opportunities. A number of interventions have been implemented in efforts to prevent or remediate these problems. This presentation will describe several of the most conspicuous problems associated with autism, along with selected prevention strategies that have been validated with experimental data or that seem particularly promising as a result of quasi-experimental findings and clinical experience.

This symposium will critically examine the biomedical model of mental disorders and its underlying assumptions, diagnostic system, empirical evidence, clinical outcomes, professional and corporate sponsors, and wide spread promotion through educational and media campaigns. Ways in which the biomedical approach suppresses research and practice of behavior analysis with persons with mental disorders will also be discussed.

Although descriptive analyses only provide correlational information about antecedent and consequent events associated with problem behavior, they may be useful in some situations. The four papers included in this symposium discuss various extensions of descriptive assessment methodology. In the first paper, Sacha Pence will discuss results from a study comparing outcomes from two commonly used descriptive assessment methods to outcomes obtained from a functional analysis. In the second paper, Jessa Love will review descriptive analysis and functional analysis data from 30 children diagnosed with autism, noting the relation between behavioral function and a number of other dependent variables, including referral source, diagnosis, response topography, descriptive assessment type, and functional analysis characteristics. In the third paper, Curtis Harris will discuss a study evaluating the utility of conducting a structured descriptive assessment method when a functional analysis resulted in unclear outcomes. In the final paper, Erin Camp will describe a study evaluating the utility of an antecedent descriptive analysis by comparing probabilities of both antecedents and consequences of problem behavior to results obtained during a functional analysis.

This symposium will include three papers on the assessment and treatment of sex offenders with developmental disabilities. In the first presentation, Jorge R. Reyes will show data from an investigation on the manipulation of pre-session factors on responding during an arousal assessment. In the second presentation, Astrid Hall will discuss the development of the portable plethysmograph and show data related to the assessment of arousal in community settings.. In the third presentation, Timothy R. Vollmer will provide an overview of the general model of assessment that we have developed for working with this population as well as some implications of this model. The discussant is Carrie S. W. Borrero who has published extensively in the areas of behavioral assessment and developmental disabilities.

We present four papers on functional or correlations between instructional history interventions and the emergence verbal developmental cusps and capabilities. These include the relation between naming and other measures, the relation between the observational training and verbal social behavior and empathy, a comparison of single and multiple exemplar instruction on emergence of Naming, and the effect of MEI induced Naming on advanced listener comprehension. The acquisition of these higher order operants allow children to learn from instruction they could not previously learn from or accelerate learning in several realms.