Applied behavior analysis in the 21st century – where are we, how did we get here, and where are we going?  - Richard Smith

•    Characteristics of ABA – Baer Wolf & Risley 1968 – where are we today?

o    Not sure if we are willing to consider a technology of ITS OWN BEHAVIOR – ABA considers populations who are “not us”

•    Oriented towards sub-populations

o    ABA has become something different today than “somewhat tentative principles” of behavior

•    Not present today – simultaneous evaluation of process

o    As ABA professionalized – does not necessarily mean applied research to everyone – what controls behavior under study not studied, more manualized

o    1987 – “the practitioner-researcher”

•    an increasingly rare breed….

•    Some context – the emerging profession of behavior analysis

o    Most of the individuals in the audience practitioners

o    Practitioners are gaining steam – journal and certified behavior analysts – boon

o    Also an emerging sub discipline – positive behavioral supports

•    How do Baer’s work evolve?

o    Applied – chosen b/c of their importance to man and society

o    Must have implications for improving someone’s life

•    Don’t usually work with non-humans unless the issue itself is important to humans (e.g., pet behavior)

•    More translational research emerging

o    1987 – clarified and updated – encompasses “troubles”

•    functions as aversive to someone – often, not the client (or has the potential to be aversive) -> teacher, parent, caregiver -> not the person targeted for change

•    interventionist must also agree that the problem deserves a solution – values

•    we don’t analyze the source of our own values

•    some people believe that ABA for autism are misguided and unethical – a huge movement

•    we need to step back and look at our values – are they shared universally?

o    Behavioral – deal with observable and measurable acts of subject matter, and THAT’S ALL

•    Don’t discount the existence or relevance of things unseen; only record what we can sense and measure

•    We do use indirect measures – we can’t measure everything

•    Sometimes these measures are only the practical alternative or command great social validity in this society such as standardized tests

•    In the end, though, it ain’t ABA

o    Analytic and conceptual

•    Independent and dependent variable

•    Is it consistent with conceptual framework

•    Inextricably intertwined

•    Conceptual framework guides the design of analysis

•    Ethically bound to single subject design

o    Contextual control of behavior

•    Always implies that we are not always studying it, we are a part of it

•    We need to look at our own behavior and our own stimulus control and reinforcers

•    What are our reinforcers for intervention?

•    Solutions to problems ?

•    Evidence of adaptive change in consumers?

•    Production of new knowledge?

•    Are these being disseminated differentially?

•    Professional outcomes?  (publication, grants, esteem, social reinforcement)

o    Make ABA possible?

o    Does it put ABA in danger?

•    Contextual controls for our behavior?

•    Problem displays – behavior of others amenable to analysis

•    Opportunity for OUR Sr

•    Limiting factors – strict adherence to methodological prescriptions/proscriptions – take stuff out of the toolbox

•    Values – behavior of the behavior analyst (amenable to behavior analysis)

o    What are the outcomes of those values?

o    Driven and consistent with cultural norms

o    Sometimes referred to a “headless technology” – nothing in our philosophy that guides our values

o    Rarely conduct systematic analysis of cultural contingencies, but maybe we should

•    Research findings should drive

o    Long and short term effects, side effects, benefits, extent of change, etc…

o    Values –gets kind of complex

•    If not culturally valued – will not be supported or used by the culture

•    E.g., use of punishment – risks allowing values to serve as a filter through which research findings and effective treatment alternatives should pass (quote from Johnston et al)

•    Are we taking treatments off the table b/c of our values? Do some people suffer?

o    Technological – well described enough to produce similar outcomes

•    Variance in topography could be desirable – does not have to be a direct replication

•    Depends upon the situation

•    What happens when treatment is withdrawn?  How can we promote maintenance and generalization?

•    JABA – multiple schedule and mixed schedule of treatments – what happens when you screw up?

•    Treatment effects endure for a short period of time when tx is d/c

•    We need to determine the limits of our treatment effectiveness

•    What are the parameters of these treatments?

•    Might get in the way of larger-scale interventions

•    We need to move towards there – are going to be left to other disciplines

•    Wacker – teleconsultation work in JABA – using teleconferencing technologies to conduct functional analysis

o    Effective interventions – they need to have practical value

•    Measure of behavior change

•    Is the problem solved? We don’t always measure

•    Does it benefit the consumers?  Do we ever measure this?

•    THIS IS SOCIAL VALIDITY!

•    Are people better off?

•    Rob Hawkins

•    Generalization – must define what we mean about generalization

•    Must be programmed – we select these options and target behaviors

•    Indigenous change agents

•    Assessing and programming for resistance and persistence

•    A thought for consideration:  What is we thought of these characteristics as features of a comprehensive literature, as opposed to a given study or application?

o    What if we didn’t expect every study to do all of these things but expected them to grow in the discipline

o    Benefits

•    No single study

•    Permits activities o highlight some features and others to focus on other features

•    Encourages variability with promotes the evolution of new practices

•    What are the essential characteristics of an ABA activity?

o    Research or practice

o    We are at a turning point – research one way, practice another

•    Is it liberating?

•    Applied?  Always important – implications for something troubles humans – we don’t have to solve the problem

•    But, attention to the cultural contingencies to insure promotion of survival and sustainability

•    Rather than accept the problems that come at us

•    Behavioral? Non-negotiable, but we might be stuck with indirect measures if we want to tackle big problems

•    Analytic?  If you’re producing new knowledge, you bet (researchers)

•    Service – the analytic dimension might be compromised

o    Ethics – e.g., reversal designs in SIB

o    Doesn’t relieve you of responsibility of doing everything you can that the behavior change was a result of what you did

o    Conceptual?  - not using experimental controls, stay close to the conceptual systems

•    Research – careful analysis – contributing to the development of the system

o    Technological?  Always – to the extent that outcomes can be replicated

•    What are those limits?

•    So that practitioners are relieved of responsibility

o    Effective?  Practice, yes. If research, not necessarily

•    Needs to tell us something new about an issue

•    Failures are important  - keeps us from replicating high-quality failures

•    Some studies don’t produce immediate benefit but produce knowledge

o    Generalized?

•    Practice, yes – research – not necessarily – at least not in every effort

•    What is not a defining feature of ABA?

o    Topography of the intervention (e.g., DRA, functional analysis)

o    Not just DTT,  Incidental Teaching, Tokens, Time Out, etc….

•    All are examples of ABA IF the critical characteristics are present (e.g., you MUST collect data)

o    ABA is a process, not a set of procedures!

o    There are many practitioners who might think that these are procedures

•    All of our procedures might go away if there are data to support them

•    We haven’t begun to understand the involvement of respondant contingencies

•    Havel:  “ Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it”

•    Skinner:  “Regard no practice as immutable”