The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

If you're a student, supervisor, or university instructor, this is an episode for you. In Session 259, I speak with Dana Meller and Dr. Steve Eversole, of Pass The Big ABA Exam and Behavior Development Solutions, respectively. In this conversation, they reflect on what they've learned about helping thousands of people pass the BCBA exam over many years. In this conversation, we covered why they go...

Dr. Alycia Halladay  joins we to discuss the topic of Profound Autism. If you're not familiar with Alycia's work, she is the Chief Science Officer for  The Autism Science Foundation , and host of the excellent show,  The ASF Weekly Science Podcast .  In this episode, we discuss the changes in Autism diagnosis from the DSM IV to V, the Lancet Commission paper on Profound Autism, why there is a need...

I'm thrilled to be joined by none other than Dr. Tim Vollmer. In this podcast, we talk about a wide variety of research and practice topics, as well as some funny stories from his long and prolific career. Specifically, talk about how his dog ate his copy of Strategies and Tactics, how he and his colleagues analyzed 2 and 3-point shot patterns in basketball games, his line of research that examine...

Las conversaciones acerca del alcance de nuestra práctica y de nuestras competencias son muy comunes hoy en día en nuestra profesión. Los fonoaudiólogos y los analistas de conducta coinciden frecuentemente en los apoyos e intervenciones para el desarrollo de habilidades comunicativas. Coinciden en la práctica y en algunos casos en competencias desde un mismo enfoque o en otros desde un ángulo dist...

In the 18th installment of the Inside JABA Series, Dr. Dorothea Lerman joins Editor-in-Chief John Borrero and I to talk about her dissemination efforts, which are described in the Winter 2024 issue of the journal. Specifically, we talk about her discussion paper, "Putting the power of behavior analysis in the hands of nonbehavioral professionals: Toward a blueprint for dissemination."   This paper...

Fan-favorite Dr. Andy Bondy joins me again to talk about... you guessed it... AAC! In this episode, we discuss a paper he published last year in the journal, Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, that is titled, " Issues Related to AAC and SGD Use by Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder ." We get into why he felt this paper was necessary to write, how he chose to communicate hi...

If you've completed a VB-MAPP at some point in your career, you're familiar with the EESA component of the assessment protocol. In today's podcast, I had the chance to talk with Dr. Barbara Esch, who created the Early Echoic Skills Assessment, which has evolved into the stand-alone product called the Early Echoic Skills Assessment and Program Planner.  In this conversation, we talk about how Barb...

Session 252 is the recording from the 2023 Verbal Behavior Conference Panel discussion. The participants were Troy Fry, Drs. Lina Slim, Sam Bergmann, Sarah Frampton, Einar Ingvarsson, Pat McGreevy, and Andresa de Sousa; and the voice at the beginning and end of the panel is Kelle Rich, who founded and currently leads these great conferences. In this Q and A segment, the panel addressed the followi...

In this 12th and final installment in the Apollo Case Study Series, Dr. Jim Moore joins me along with Lauren Elliott , Jeanne Ambrose , and Dr. Lyndsy Macri .  In the first few minutes of the podcast, Lauren fields some follow up questions from our episode on DRO interventions. Huge thanks to Jenna Mazzillo for sending in these great questions (and by the way, be sure to follow her in Instagram at...

Shhh! I'm not supposed to be working this week... However, I am somewhat of a traditionalist, and as such obligated to publish the annual Year in Review show with my friends at ABA Inside Track . So here's a really quick rundown. As usual, we reviewed the passings of several behavior analysts in 2023. This is always sad, but at the same time, we tried to highlight the achievements and contribution...

It's kind of a podcast cliche - one that I'm certainly guilty of - to refer to an interview as, "wide-ranging." However, in this case, that description certainly fits. I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Hank Schlinger , who, amongst other pursuits , teaches in the Department of Psychology at Cal State Los Angeles.  During this conversation we talked about the state of ABA when he entered the...

Drs. Whitney Ence and Elisabeth Sheridan joined me to talk about the diagnosis of Autism. You might be thinking that this sounds like an impossibly broad topic... and you're right. But in this show, we tried to narrow it down a bit to discuss the various routes in which people can acquire an Autism diagnosis, which of these routes represent best practice, the critical diagnostic features of Autism...

Behavior Analyst and sleep educator extraordinaire Emily Varon joins me in Session 247 to talk about how to understand sleep problems in children. In this episode, we cover how she first got interested in the area of sleep intervention, what research and resources she used to expand her scope of competence in this area, how sleep challenges can be met without using extinction, sleep problems speci...

Dr. Jim Moore, Chief Clinical Officer of Apollo Behavior, joins me in the 11th installment of the Apollo  Case Study Series . In this podcast, Jim also brought three of his Apollo colleagues into the discussion: Lydia Lindsey, Christina Nylander, and Lauren Elliott. We started off the show with Lydia providing some background on her ABA career and how it brought her to Apollo. Spoiler alert: we ma...

Si no queda claro con el título, este episodio está lleno de temas que son algo esotéricos para la corriente dominante de practicantes de análisis de conducta. Sin embargo, la conversación con Valeria nos aterriza varias veces en la relevancia de la atención integrada para optimizar la colaboración e integración de esfuerzos por parte de profesionales de la salud y equipos multidisciplinarios; la...

Frank Bird and Dr. Jill Harper join me, along with JABA Editor in Chief, Dr. John Borrero, in the 17th installment of Behavioral Observations' Inside JABA Series.  Both of our guests hail from Melmark . Jill is their Senior Director of Professional Development and Training, and Frank is the Executive Vice President of Clinical Services of this storied institution. As an aside, if you're not famili...

In Session 243, Dr. Casey Dupart joins me to talk about School Psychology, and in doing so, we touched on a range of related topics including the challenges of military families, multi-tiered systems of supports, socio-emotional learning, school refusal, educational policy, and so much more.  As you'll hear in the interview, Casey has been a School Psychologist in various roles across several stat...

Merrill Winston returns to the podcast for what seems to be the umpteenth time (and if you didn't catch the SNL reference we discussed, see here ). In this episode, we discuss a presentation he recently gave that dove into the seminal Catania paper, The Myth of Self-Reinforcement . In this episode Merrill distinguishes between procedures and processes, why what we think of as self-reinforcement is...

Dr. Jim Moore and I get back together to talk about a few specific client outcomes that we thought would be helpful for the audience to learn about.  In this podcast, we talked about: The general profile of learners across the Apollo clinics. They pace at which learners make progress in their programs. Skinner's Attitudes of Science . Universal Behavioral Protocols . The Seven Steps to Instruction...

Rich Brooks returns to the podcast to talk about how he's grown as a business owner. And while he's in a different industry, there are tons of parallels to what we do in the world of Applied Behavior Analysis.  Rich has historically discussed all things digital marketing (see here and here ), but this is a more personal story of how he had to step out of his role as a website designer and marketer...

Anika Costa and Dr. Paulie Gavoni joined me in Session 239 to discuss their latest book, Quick Wins: Using Behavior Science to Accelerate and Sustain School Improvement . In our conversation we talk about why they felt this book was necessary, who represents their ideal reader, and whether we ask too much of school leaders. That last point is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, as w...

What exactly is Joint Attention? How does Joint Attention interact with Eye Contact? What does the literature say about these repertoires, and how does that coincide with self-reports of the aversive nature of eye contact from Autistic people?  These have been a few of the questions rolling around in my head for some time. A few years ago, we briefly touched on this subject with my guest today, Dr...

While I don't personally use TikTok, I am aware of the considerable influence it has across a range of topics. As many listeners can imagine, Autism is one of those topics that generates unfathomable amounts of content on the platform.  Unlike other forms of medical and scientific dissemination, there are really no barriers to saying whatever one wants, not only on TikTok, but on any other interne...

Dr. Callie Plattner  joins me in Session 236 to talk about her work in the area of Motivational Interviewing. Callie is the Vice President of Clinical Operations at  Mosaic Pediatric Therapy , and happens to be a fellow  Auburn  grad ( War Eagle !).  Now longtime listeners will know that we've covered MI on the podcast before. Back in  Session 158 , my friend Dr. Jim Murphy, who incidentally also...

Drs. Jane Howard and Gina Green join me today in a podcast that could've spanned several hours. In the time we had, we did manage to cover quite a bit of territory, including the following: What Gina has been up to since retiring from the Association for Professional Behavior Analysts (spoiler alert: she's not hanging out at the beach reading mystery novels). We talk about Jane's career in behavio...