The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

In Session 185, AKA Inside JABA Series #11, I'm joined by Drs. Linda LeBlanc, Jeff Tiger, and Javier Virues-Ortega for a deep dive into automatically maintained behavior. This session was inspired by the study Javier and his colleagues published in the Spring 2022 issue of JABA (Virues-Ortega, Clayton, Perez-Bustamante, Gaerlan, and Fahmie, 2022).  In this episode, we discuss the nature of, and ch...

I'm really excited to introduce a new special podcast series that I'm publishing with Dr. Jim Moore of  Apollo Behavior . In this series, we're going to talk about a lot of practical topics that we hope will resonate with BCBA's of all experience levels. We have great plans to discuss topics like supervision, functional assessment, skill acquisition, and much more. Real world challenges that just...

I've seen posts on social media here and there about World Behavior Analysis Day, but honestly I did not know a whole lot about it. And this is why I was really excited to sit down and chat with WBAD President, Elizabeth Drago, for a deep dive.  It turns out that WBAD is more than a 'high five' amongst like minded behavioral scientists. In fact, the WBAD Alliance is doing a lot for dissemination,...

Dr. Kevin Luczynski  joins me for a really fun conversation in Session 182 of The Behavioral Observations Podcast. If you're not familiar with Kevin, he is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Director for the recently initiated Virtual Care Program at the Munroe Meyer Institute.  In this episode, we cover the following: How Kevin discovered Behavior Analysis...

In Session 181, Dr. Francesca Degli Espinosa, Ph. D, BCBA-D, joins me for a wide-ranging conversation that in my opinion, got better and better as it went on! If you're not familiar with Francesca or her work, she is director and consultant at  ABA Clinic Ltd. , adjunct professor at the University of Salerno, and a guest lecturer at Queen's College, Belfast, and Pennsylvania State University. She...

This recording was a fun and way-overdue Patreon member hangout with the incomparable Dr. Merrill Winston. In this episode, we discussed how Greg Hanley influenced Merrill's departure from his previous employer, how he wanted to do more than be considered as the restrain and seclusion guru, his new enterprise, Winston Behavioral Solutions , when it's OK to break the rules, and much more.  As a mat...

Dr. John Michael Guercio joins me again to discuss a topic that we briefly covered in his last appearance; Behavioral Relaxation Training. In this show, John does a deep dive into this work, drawing on the research of Drs. Roger Poppen, Duane Lundervold, and of course John himself.  Along with the aforementioned Drs. Poppen and Lundervold, John is the co-author of the third edition of the text,  B...

In Session 178, we're going to hop in the time machine and take a trip back to April 2021. That's correct.  This episode of The Behavioral Observations Podcast comes from the recorded panel discussion at last year's Verbal Behavior Conference. The panel consisted of Drs. Pat McGreevy, April Kisamore, Nicole Rodriguez, Alice Shillingsburg, Hank Schlinger, and Vince Carbone. With regard to Vince's a...

As far as podcast go, this episode was kind of tough to write a headline for (a task that I probably devote  way  too much time to doing!). My guest in Session 177, John McElwee, has been in the field - to paraphrase a line from  Aubrey Daniels  - before there was a field. John has had a long and productive career that's had some very interesting twists and turns. He's still going strong these day...

In the 10th (tenth!!!) installment of the  Inside JABA Series , Dr. Linda LeBlanc and I are joined by Drs. Jenn Austin and Dithu Rajaraman to discuss the paper they co-authored with Drs. Holly Gover, Tony Cammilleri, David Donnelly, and Greg Hanley. The paper is titled,  Towards Trauma-Informed Applications of Behavior Analysis , and you can find it in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Be...

As noted in the first few minutes of this episode, Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed has been one of the most-requested guests by audience members, and I'm thrilled to have her back on the show for a one-on-one chat.  Dr. DiGennaro Reed , better known as Flo by friends and colleagues, is the Chairperson of the  Department of Applied Behavioral Science  as well as the Director of The  Performance Managem...

Hi folks, as I note in my opening comments, my friends from ABA Inside Track and I got together again for a Year-In-Review episode. Perhaps in keeping with our mood, we kept this year's review somewhat light. Instead of discussing the weighty issues of Behavior Analysis, we talked about what we've been up to in 2021. Jackie and I talk about our Covid stories, Diana shares her go to source on all t...

If you're like me, you are seeing more and more news articles about the challenges schools are facing with students engaging in problem behavior. For example, not too far from my home, a school district in Vermont recently proposed to shorten the school week in order to provide teachers with extra time to prepare for, and perhaps recover from, challenging behaviors in the classroom setting. As we'...

Mandy Mason 's road to discovering Behavior Analysis is a little different than most of my guests. When her daughter was diagnosed with Autism, she literally traveled the globe to find out how best to help her. I don't want to spoil the story too much, but what I will say is that Mandy's search for an effective treatment changed not only her daughter's life, but the lives of countless others. That...

If you're a BCBA supporting kids in public school settings, or even if you're a parent who has kids in school, you probably already know that sound classroom management is hard to come by. This phenomenon is perhaps more acute as schools have to contend with the disruptions in continuity imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, it is reasonable to ask what Behavior Analysis has to offer when it...

In the ninth installment of the Inside JABA Series, I'm joined by Drs. Claire St. Peter, Jeff Tiger, and many-time guest Derek Reed. Unfortunately the JABA Editor in Chief, Dr. Linda LeBlanc, was not able to join us, but she did choose some very cool articles for us to talk about. The articles are: Vaidya & Armshaw (2021) . Surface electromyography and gamification: Translational research to advan...

This, my friends, is a conversation that I've been looking forward to sharing with you for quite some time. In this episode, I'm joined by Drs. Mara Vanderzell and Erik Jacobson from the Upstate Cerebral Palsy Center.  As you'll hear right out of the gate, we started the episode off by attempting to operationally characterize the Boy Band pop music genre. You read that correctly... but, don't worr...

My friends at the  Virginia Association for Behavior Analysis  were kind enough to invite me to moderate their panel discussion at their annual conference that took place last April. One of the fun parts of moderating panels like these is being able to share it with the wider Behavioral Observations audience. This event was no exception. The 2021 VABA panel featured Drs.  Nasiah Cirincione-Ulezi ,...

Dr. Jim Moore  returns to Behavioral Observations in this session. And I'm so thankful he had the time to chat, because this episode is jam-packed with great information for practitioners at all experience levels. We spent a few minutes catching the audience up on some of the changes in Jim's life since his last appearance on the show. In particular, we discuss his new job as Chief Clinical Office...

I'm not a gamer... well, at least not at this stage of my life. But that aside, I really enjoyed this conversation with FIT doctoral student,  James Riswick-Estelle . We talked about his he got into ABA in the first place, a brief history of eSports, the current status of eSports, and then, how he uses behavior analytic principles to enhance the performance of athletes. To be honest, I was blown a...

In Session 165, I spoke with Brett Yarris, founder of  The Bx Movement  and co-founder of the  Pro Football Network . I first heard about Brett when he was featured on  The Controversial Exchange  podcast with Ryan and Dimitri. In that episode, I recall how passionately Brett advocated for a wider application of our science, and in this regard, he is really leading by example. In this episode, we...

Earlier this summer I had the chance to chat with  Dr. Kelsey Ruppel , who is a Senior Consultant and the Director of Operations at  FTF Behavioral Consulting . After I stopped getting tongue-tied in the introduction, we were able to cover a wide variety of topics, including: How she got into ABA. Pro-tips for remote consultation. A quick review of the Preschool Life Skills curriculum. Her researc...

Sara Litvak and Dr. Ellie Kazemi return to the podcast - this time together - to catch us up on what's new with the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, or  BHCOE  for short. Specifically, we discuss how the BHCOE has grown since Sara last checked in with us, how Ellie joined up with the organization as their Chief Science Officer, how the BHCOE determines quality standards, documentation guide...

Dr. Natalie Parks from Behavior Leader stopped by the podcast again for another fun conversation. In her  previous appearance , we talked about the importance of providing feedback "the right way." And in this episode, we extend that theme and discuss the work that she and her colleagues have done in helping several fire departments in the St. Louis area improve their operations. In particular, we...