Newsletter
Volume 30| 2007 | Number 2
Behavior Analysis Online
By Dr. Joseph D. Cautilli
The BAO SIG is easily one of the largest special interest groups within the Association for Behavior Analysis International. While membership estimates vary, registered members are over 2,000. The Behavior Analyst Online is run by its 22 member governing board, and is without question one of the most dynamic professions with significant impact in behavioral medicine, mental health, health, sports and fitness, developmental disabilities, school wide positive behavioral support, special education, organizational dynamics, criminology, offender rehabilitation, and education today. The emphasis on prevention, early intervention, accurate comprehensive functional behavioral assessment, collaboration, and problem solving demands behavior analysts to be creative thinkers who command a tremendous range of evidence-based procedures based on principles of the science of human behavior. Keeping up with best practices is critical to ensuring that the client’s right to effective behavioral intervention is achieved. The Behavior Analyst Online organization is dedicated to helping behavior analysts keep up with current research and methodology in this rapidly progressing field.
The BAO SIG will develop and deploy new resources making them available on the internet free of charge to the public. These resources will be dedicated to educating the public about behavior analysis as well as serving as a resource for professionals involved in research and/or application of principles of behavior analysis.
The BAO SIG will be responsible to its membership to develop resources that the membership will find useful in everyday research, education, and application of the science of behavior.
The BAO SIG will be operated under the guidance of its Senior Membership Board.
This site provides behavior analysts with:
- Theory, basic and applied research, model development based on behavioral principles, behavioral development, and behavioral practice.
- Expectations and roles of the behavior analyst.
- Collaboration and communication with other stakeholders.
- Assessment strategies including functional assessment and analysis, curriculum based measurement, direct and analogue assessment.
- Behavioral Interventions.
- Laws, funding, and public policy.
- Organizational Behaviors Management level strategies and interventions for mental health, developmental disabilities, and educational interventions and systems for intervening.
- Training and professional standards.
Vision
The vision of BAO SIG is to develop specific resources including, but not limited to: journals, online referral services, professional placement service, behavior analysis Web boards, document shares, email newsletters, and online behavior analysis storefronts.
To meet our mission, we currently run four journals and are in the process of starting two more journals. These journals are: The Behavior Analyst Today, Journal of Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention, The International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy, and The Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Behavior Analysis. All the journals are peer reviewed and currently our editorial boards on existing journals are over 200 editorial slots. In addition, the two journals, which will start in 2008, have seated an additional 110 editorial slots. The journals are in multiple indexing sources including Google scholar, J-Gate, Directory of Open Access Journals, and EBSCO publishing. Current efforts are being made to expand the number of indexing sources. The Subcommittee on Databases is spearheading this work and indexing chaired by Michael Commons, Ph.D. Currently, the governing board has a committee to review quality and improve the journals. This governing board subcommittee is co-chaired by Mary Jane Weiss and David Richman. Currently, seven editorial slots exist for reviewers on the, Behavior Analyst Today; all other journals have completely filled editorial positions. In addition, we currently have three site director slots filled.
The journals are having an excellent year. The current Lead Editor for BAT is Mike Weinberg, Ph.D. For the editorial board for BAT see http://www.behavior-analyst-today.com/EDBoard.html The Behavior Analyst Today’s mission is a commitment to increasing the communication between the sub disciplines within behavior analysis, such as behavioral assessment, work with various populations, basic and applied research. Through achieving this goal, we hope to see less fractionation and greater cohesion within the field. The Behavior Analyst Today strives to be a high quality journal, which also brings up to the minute information on current developments within the field to those who can benefit from those developments.
Founded as a newsletter for master level practitioners in Pennsylvania, those represented in the Clinical Behavior Analysis Special Interest Group at ABA, and those who comprised the BA SIG at the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, BAT has evolved to being a primary form of communication between researchers and practitioners, as well as a primary form of communication for those outside behavior analysis.
Thus, The Behavior Analyst Today will continue to publish original research, reviews of sub disciplines, theoretical and conceptual work, applied research, program descriptions, research in organizations and the community, clinical work, and curriculum developments. In short, we strive to publish all which is behavior analytic.
The co-lead editors for The Journal of Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention (JEIBI) are Joseph Cautilli, Ph.D. and Doug Greer, Ph.D. For the complete editorial board for JEIBI see http://www.jeibi.com/JEIBI-ED-BOARD.html The mission of The Journal of Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention (JEIBI) is to provide up to the moment information on critical issues and research in early intervention and intensive behavioral interventions. The journal perceives itself as being a primary source of information for those who work within the field of early childhood interventions and intensive interventions from a behavioral perspective. Topics will include issues, literature review, and research on successful interventions for children with various mental health, medical (pain, obesity, etc.) or developmental disorders. In addition, articles and research conducted on organizational behavior management to facilitate program design and development of early intervention centers will also be accepted.
JEIBI envisions a world in which early intervention is no longer needed,
but until that time, JEIBI plans to bring to practitioners the latest in
empirically valid interventions.
The lead editor for IJBCT is Jack Apsche. For the complete editorial board
see http://www.ijbct.com/Ed-Board.html.
The mission for IJBCT reads that the behavioral psychologies are major forces
which influence many areas of human interest. These psychologies draw on
various learning theories to produce change in client and consultee’s performance
and combine in an area known as Behavior Therapy. Behavior Therapy is a
broad area that often lacks integration and understanding between the theoretical
and technological aspects of the field.
The International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy is committed to increasing the communication between various areas of behavioral consultation and therapy. As the massive body of behavioral research in psychology and education has been produced, the BAO group deemed that a new journal was needed to handle the ever increasing interest and ever-fractionating field.
The International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy strives to be a high quality journal, which also brings up to the minute information on current developments within the field to those who can benefit from those developments. Thus, the International Journal of Behavior Consultation and Therapy will continue to publish original research, reviews of the discipline, theoretical and conceptual work, applied research, program descriptions, research in organizations and the community, clinical work, and curriculum developments. Our vision is to become the voice of clinical behavior analysis and behavior therapy practices.
SPL-ABA’s lead editor is Joe Cautilli, Ph.D. For the complete editorial board see http://www.slp-aba.com/Ed-Board.html. The mission of the Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis (JSLP-ABA) is to provide a forum for SLP and ABA professionals to exchange information on topics of mutual interest. These topics may include (but are not necessarily limited to) support for disorders of prelinguistic communication, speech perception/production, oral language and literacy, speech fluency, and voice. They may also address issues related to accent reduction, culturally-based language variations and augmentative-alternative communication. JSLP-ABA welcomes articles describing assessment and treatment efficacy data based on detailed case studies, single-subject research design, and group designs. Also encouraged are literature reviews that synthesize a body of information, highlight areas in need of further research, or reconsider previous information in a new light. Additionally, this journal welcomes papers describing theoretical frameworks and papers that address issues pertaining to SLP-ABA collaboration.
JSLP-ABA is viewed as a primary source of information for speech-language pathology (SLP) professionals and professionals in applied behavior analysis (ABA) who support individuals of all ages with communicative disorders. The contents of this journal are intended to meet the interest of these professionals for information to support evidence-based practice. JSLP-ABA is also intended to serve as a vehicle to encourage collaboration between these SLP and ABA professionals.
The four journals combined to publish close to 150 articles last year and are expected to publish close to 180 this year.
The Web Site
The Behavior Analyst Online has completed a Web site reconstruction and upgrade this year. We would like to give special thanks to Craig and Rich for the new Web entry page for the site. In addition, special thanks to Mary Lou Kerwin for organizing and collecting bios and picture from governing board members for the site.
Currently the site runs three listserves, four announcement lists, and a discussion board to discuss articles that appear in the journals. The ABAPro list with roughly 250 members, the Governing Board Listserve with 24 members, the Behavior Analysis and Public Policy List serve with 56 members, and The Behavior Analysis and ADHD/ODD/ CD Listserve with 63 members. For information about joining the listserves, contact Joseph Cautilli at jcautilli2003@yahoo.com
Continuing Education
This year the site expanded its role in providing continuing education. To meet this demand, the governing board elected Michael Weinberg, Ph.D, LP, BCBA as the sites continuing education director. Mike has been providing BCBA and Psychologist continuing education for the journals. In addition, he is in the process of looking into counseling, social worker, and nursing CE’s for reading the journals.
New Projects and Collaborations
Three new sets of projects will dominate the Governing Boards Agenda over the next year. The first set is the survival set. This set of issues will largely focus on completing the BAO board’s application to become a nonprofit organization. We have received contributions from several governing board members to help with this task, including Dwight Harshbarger and Doug Greer. In addition, the board will be seeking to expand the current revenue generated from advertisement and advertising space is still available at this point. Finally in this area, it was decided by the governing board that to enhance survival, the journal Behavior Analysis in Schools, which was scheduled to be released in 2009, will be moved back to 2010. Relative to this, the governing board agreed that all new projects should include a plan for subsidizing the plan.
The second set of issues will be the growth issues. We plan to continue the growth of the BAO organization through collaboration with other ABA SIGs. We have currently applied this strategy by reaching out to members of the Behavioral Medicine SIG and the Health, Sports, and Fitness SIG to create a new journal: The Journal of Behavior Analysis in Health, Sports, Fitness, and Medicine. This journal mission is for those interested in the application of behavioral principles for promoting wellness, enhancing fitness, and sports skills development, and ameliorating disease. The bi-directional interaction between physiology and behavior can be effectively mediated through the application of elementary principles of behavior. Behavior analysis has thereby exerted its influence in the fields of health and medicine, as well as in the enhancement of the safe and skillful performance that in turn facilitates well being. Examples include, but are not limited to, the areas of exercise and dietary compliance, smoking cessation, stress reduction, diabetes management, obesity treatment, and the development of sport performance and safety skills that bring about healthy reinforcement-rich lifestyles less vulnerable to disease. This journal aims to foster a greater understanding of the impact of behavior analysis on health, sports, fitness, and behavioral medicine and seeks to publish conceptual and research articles in these areas. In addition, we seek to publish literature reviews and articles focused on behavior analytic contributions to health policy and problem reduction. In addition to the above, but to a lesser degree, we have reached out to several SIGs including the members of the Crime and Delinquency SIG and the Behavior Analysis and Positive Behavioral Support SIG for editors, reviewers, and support in the creation of our new journal The Journal Behavior Analysis of Offender and Victim - Treatment and Prevention. The mission of this journal is to highlight the role of behavior analysis in adult and juvenile crime prevention, assessment of offenders including risk assessment, and treatment programs from a behavioral orientation including but not limited to the use of behavioral counseling, collaborative goal setting, contingency management, functional assessment, functionally based interventions, respondent conditioning and counter conditioning procedures, functional analytic psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. The journal will also place a major focus articles on that present behavior analytic and social learning models of the development of criminal behavior, the behavioral treatment of victims, victimology from a behavior analytic perspective, behavioral interventions for violent crime, functional assessment of offender motivation, and other types of criminal activity, including behavioral approaches to the reduction of terrorism and insurgency reduction. We see all of these topics as suitable for publication in this journal. In addition, the journal will publish articles on behavior analysis in the treatment of the offender that are policy oriented. Articles on forensic behavior analysis, testifying, due process, and behavioral profiling of criminal behavior will be considered.
Finally, organizational behavior management and positive behavioral support articles dealing with system change issues in schools and criminal institutions will also be considered. The vision of the Journal of Behavior Analysis of Offender and Victim - Treatment and Prevention is as follows: By 2001, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that 2.7% of adults in the U.S. had served time in prison. This is almost a full percentage over the 1.8% who were estimated to have served back in 1991. This dramatic rise in those serving in prisons speaks to the need to strong offender treatment and prevention programs. We envision a world in which evidenced based practices are in place to reduce recidivism and serve as a functional alternative to reducing crime.
In addition, we are following the lead of Mark Dixon and his Behaviorists Interested in Gambling SIG in the creation of a third journal. It is the Analysis of Gambling Behavior. This journal will focus on the experimental analysis of gambling behavior. The Analysis of Gambling Behavior (AGB) is a peer-reviewed electronic publication that contains original general interest and discipline specific articles related to the scientific study of gambling. Articles appropriate for the journal include a) full-length research articles, b) research reports, c) clinical demonstrations, d) technical article, and e) book reviews.
All three of the above journals have an open call for papers out and have begun to receive submissions. In addition, we are speaking with the Development and Behavior Analysis SIG and the Standard Celeration Society in an effort to bring both the Behavioral Development Bulletin and the Journal of Precision Teaching and Celeration to the site.
The third direction for the SIG in the next year could be considered activity to achieve our mission. We have several activities in this area, which are of immediate importance. The first is our quality control subcommittee on the governing board will be designing and implementing their plan to increase the quality and productivity of our journals. In addition to this, several key editorial slots for the Behavior Analyst Today become open in the next year including the lead editor, one senior associate editor, and three associated editors. All of these positions were discussed at the governing board meeting in May at ABA. In addition to editorial board changes, the governing board is currently reviewing the titles of the existing journals to see if they most accurately reflect the content.
Conclusion
The behavior analyst online special interest group is an aggressive and multifaceted group focused on many aspects of the professionalization and internationalization of behavior analysis. Our goal now, as it has always been, is to serve behavior analysts all over the globe in an aggressive campaign of dissemination. We expect to continue with this focus in 2007 and 2008. To do this, we need your commitment to our efforts. Contact us if you seek to serve your profession as it serves you.