ABA Inside Track

Now, everybody loves functional communication.  Only problem: at some point, the delay between functional communication and reinforcement has to reach a natural timing.  And that's where everything falls apart.  Rather than hope for the best, why not plan for it instead? Dr. Mahshid Ghaemmaghami joins us to discuss her research on this very topic and flips the script on the skill formerly known as...

Throw on your sweater and grab a big ol' mug of pumpkin spice latte. It's a spooky preview for this month's episodes. Between attending conferences and raking leaves, we'll be hearing from Dr. Christopher Tullis about updates to preference assessment methodology, practicing delay tolerance training with Dr. Mahshid Ghaemmaghami, and exploring the utility of ceding instructional control in classroo...

As a capper to Supervision September, we follow up last week's episode on ethical supervision to explore just what it takes in the ABA Workplace to create strong leaders that promote ethical practice in every way. And since that requires discussing business things, we tapped Dr. Manny Rodriguez to share his extensive work on researching that very topic in OBM. But first, he shows us how to file ou...

Due to the exponential growth of certified behavior analysts in the world, the number of supervisors needed per year requires more and more newly-certified individuals to step into this role. How can a field continue to grow skilled and ethical members when there aren't enough seasoned practitioners to go around? This week, we review the state of supervision in the behavior analytic world and some...

It's the final reckoning for our How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club with our book club muse, Alan Haberman. We round out our discussion by getting to the leadership portions of the book and give our final judgments as to whether following these tips for "a new way of life" will have you supervising like a boss or like a Depression-era door-to-door salesman. This episode is available...

To kick off Supervision September, we're going back to the ur-supervision book, "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. And, like most of our book club episodes the recording was a) too long and needed to be broken into two parts and b) features Alan Haberman with hot takes for days! Will HTWFIP stand the test of time or be banished to the remainder bin of history? This episode...

Huzzah! It's the 5th annual Supervision September!! Enjoy all the episodes about supervision that you'll need for the year including our definitive podcast about the classic business/supervision book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" with book club superstar, Alan Haberman. And if that weren't enough, Dr. Manny Rodriguez joins us to talk about promoting ethics in the ABA workplace for a be...

Though more than ever humanity is waking up to the need to improve our sustainability efforts, doesn't it still feel like looming environmental crises keep getting worse? This week, Dr. Meghan Martineau joins us to discuss the barriers and treatment options to improving human behavior around practices of sustainability. I mean, if an elementary school student can increase neighborhood recycling, s...

After recording our latest patron book club on the dog behavior book, "The Other End of the Leash", we were ecstatic to have the opportunity to learn even more about applied animal behavior from the author herself, Dr. Patricia McConnell. We discussed how "The Other End of the Leash" isn't a typical dog training book, how human behavior is intertwined with animal behavior, and what Dr. McConnell w...

We were so excited to be a part of the inaugural BABA conference this June as sponsors and attendees. But we still wanted to learn more once the talks wound down. Fortunately, we were able to catch Adrienne Bradley and Dr. Danyelle Beal on a break from preparing next year's conference to hear about the successes and the last minute stressors of pandemic conference planning. Plus, what makes Detroi...

While token economies may be one of the earliest well-known examples of applied behavior analysis in practice, this may have led to two larger issues: overreliance and misunderstanding. This week, we review some older articles leveraging token economy technology in applied areas both old (classroom behavior!) and new (mining!) to see whether everything is as rose-colored as we might have remembere...

As summer winds down, we're still brining the heat with some hot research topics to discuss. First up, what's the deal with token economies? Is one of our oldest applied technologies still all it's cracked up to be? Then Dr. Meg Martineau has some thoughts on sustainability research for those of us who'd prefer some of our surface areas don't become beachfront property in the next 50 years. And, w...

As voted on by our patrons, we read and discussed Dr. Patricia McConnell's "The Other End of the Leash".  Jackie was thrilled to suggest that our summer book club choice feature one of her favorite writers/speakers about dog behavior.  But, this book wasn't just another training manual: It delved a lot deeper into both dog and human patterns of behavior.  We learned that humans love to talk, dogs...

While many of us might think that the variables maintaining police brutality have nothing to do with us, Dr. Cody Morris may disagree. In fact, in his recent article, he and his co-author, Dr. Nicole Hollins, posit that many of those variables may be responsible for direct-care staff engaging in client mistreatment. Join us as we talk red flags and responses to protect our most at-risk clients. Th...

This week we continue our look at what makes practitioners practitioners and researchers researchers…and how we both need each other to create a symphony of best-practices. It's the researchers turn at bat so we discuss studies on how to widen the window of relevant research topics, to reframe methodology into better ways to answer relevant questions, and to put social issues front and center in t...

As a show about reading research to improve practice, you'd think we'd spent more time reviewing research on WHY practitioners should review research regularly. Well, just in case we haven't made it clear in the past five years, we're exploring both sides of the research/practitioner coin in these next two episodes. This week: how can practitioners think of themselves as researchers in their work...

A quick monthly update from our cabin in the mountains while we enjoy some summer R+R. We were inspired by the crisp, mountain air and solitude to do some reflection. What does it mean to be a practitioner? A researcher? And how can we use recent discussions of police brutality to check our own treatment of clients? We even came upon a hiking Dr. Cody Morris to join us. So, find your own zen place...

Behavior analysts sure do know everything. I mean, that's why everyone on every multidisciplinary team calls us all the time to solve all the problems. Wait, they don't?!?! Perhaps it's time to eat some humble pie and learn what real collaboration means. Starting off this (hopefully) multi-part series, we chat with BCBA/SLP/Unicorn Dr. Erin Michaud about what it means to be an SLP, best practices...

With summer just around the corner, many of us will have ample time to enjoy our leisure pursuits. But not everyone develops robust and entertaining hobby-finding behavior spontaneously. This week we're reviewing articles on supporting participation of autistic students and students with developmental disabilities in fun activities like computers, photography, and video game playing. Then Rob disc...

Gather round, employees! I've bought you all something so special.  You'll want to work twice as hard once you see what it is.  Drumroll please.  It's tickets to the opera! What's that? You don't care for hours of singing in German? You can't easily get a babysitter for a four-hour trip to the big city much less pay for parking? Well, guess I should have listened to that episode of ABA Inside Trac...

We'd all love to ensure our teaching occurs at maximal efficiency, but it can be so hard to take advantage of emergent relations. What if Dr. Brian Blair and Dr. Lesley Shawler had some simple tech tweaks that you could explore to set up your own emergent relations training systems to make teaching efficient without the need for expensive software. Well, we hope you'd say, "I'd definitely listen t...

After a year cooped inside, are you unsure how to start your summer? What if I told you that there was a podcast all about promoting new leisure skills, identifying reinforcers for adults, collaborating with other professionals, and learning new information as if by magic? Well, at least thematically, that's just what we'll be talking about all June on the show. Plus special guests Drs. Bryan Blai...

Hey, ABA Inside Track, I thought I told you not to podcast in here no more. Hey, did you record that episode on research on bullying behavior? You took notes on a meta-analysis of current bullying prevention programs and single-subject research looking closer at specific programs in behavior analysis, including a program for individuals with disabilities? Think, ABA Inside Track, think! If you put...

And yea, the functional analysis sprung from the head of Iwata et al. And the results were good. Fast forward a few decades and researchers are still exploring the limits of this game changing assessment tool, finding ways for BCBAs to conduct safer and faster procedures. And to sum up some recent touchstone moments in this journey, we're joined by researcher and FA history expert, Dr. Jessica Sla...

Unlike mercy, our quality of life does NOT droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. Instead, our perception of how well (or not) our lives are is based on a number of factors relating to job satisfaction, social relationships, and physical wellbeing. Or so we thought. Turns out, all measures of quality of life may not be created equally, especially for autistic individuals. This week, we hit the r...