Newsletter
Volume 30 | 2007 | Number 2
Master's Degree in Applied Behavior Analysis at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
By Drs. Iser G. DeLeon, A. Charles Catania, Sigurdur O. Sigurdsson, SungWoo Kahng, and Steven Pitts
The Applied Behavior Analysis Track at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), is a partnership between the Department of Psychology at UMBC and the Department of Behavioral Psychology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI), a renowned facility for children with developmental disabilities and one of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, MD. Courses and practical experiences are taught and supervised, respectively, by faculty at both UMBC and KKI. Historically, over 85% of our students (and currently 100%) have been concurrent employees of KKI. Although the two institutions are formally independent (admission into the UMBC program does not guarantee employment at KKI and vice versa), there are several attractive benefits of being both a student at UMBC and an employee at KKI. First, because the work at KKI is directly relevant to the practice of behavior analysis, students can receive practicum credit (more below) for carrying out their work responsibilities under the supervision of Board Certified Behavior Analysts. Also, several of the core courses are taught by faculty at KKI—the same individuals who supervise practical experiences. This permits a seamless opportunity, often in the same environment, for transfer of learned concepts to clinical application. In addition, a benefit of working for KKI is full tuition reimbursement. Therefore, not only are students paid for their work, but their employment also covers most of the costs of their education.
The core course sequence at UMBC, approved by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board, consists of 36 credit hours that are almost always completed in four full semesters across two years. Twelve of these credits include four core behavior analytic courses: Learning, Methods in Applied Behavior Analysis, Measurement in Applied Behavior Analysis, and Advanced Topics in Behavior Analysis. Twelve additional credits are distributed across a variety of behavior analytic electives and departmental core courses in social and biological bases of behavior. Behavior analytic electives are offered over a range of topics including Verbal Behavior, Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, and Organizational Behavior Management.
The remaining 12 credits are distributed across practicum and intervention requirements. Generally, students take Practicum I and II during their first two full semesters (Fall and Spring of their first year) and Intervention I and II during their second two full semesters (Fall and Spring of their second year). As noted above, students normally complete the practicum hours at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, although other alternatives are possible. This usually means that students take active roles as therapists, under the supervision of one of the KKI Behavioral Psychology faculty, in one of several clinics including the Neurobehavioral Inpatient Unit, the Neurobehavioral Outpatient Clinic, and the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program. More information about the specific activities of these units can be found at www.kennedykrieger.org
The Intervention sequence serves as the capstone experience for students. At minimum, students are expected to identify a behavior in need of change, typically for one or more patients at KKI, and then carry out all that is required in intervening on that behavior. This means designing and conducting necessary assessments; designing and carrying out treatment evaluations; collecting, compiling, and reducing data as needed to make clinical decisions; and presenting their results to a committee consisting of members from both UMBC and KKI. Although the intervention sequence is not a thesis requirement, many students elect to complete a research-quality intervention under the supervision of one of the faculty (the core faculty includes six members of the editorial boards of JABA and JEAB, including one former Editor of JEAB and two former Associate Editors of JABA). Some of these interventions have been published (e.g., Fyffe, Kahng, Fittro & Russell, 2004; Toole, DeLeon, Kahng, Ruffin, Pletcher, & Bowman, 2004), while several others are in preparation.
Our graduates have quickly found employment after completing their degrees. Often, they take positions in facilities that serve children with autism and other developmental disorders and several have risen to positions of leadership within these facilities. Others choose to continue into Ph.D. programs. Some of these graduates pursue doctoral degrees within the UMBC psychology department in either the Applied Developmental Psychology program or in the Human Services Psychology Program. Others have gone on to leading Ph.D. programs in behavior analysis, including the University of Florida, University of Kansas, and West Virginia University.
Baltimore is a rich environment for behavior analysts. There are several facilities that practice behavior analysis in the immediate area and we are now expanding the opportunities for supervised experience for our students. Many of these facilities employ our graduates and there is increasing recognition of the Board Certified Behavior Analyst credential in Maryland. The region’s ABA affiliate, the Maryland Association for Behavior Analysis, has been housed within our departments since its inception and there is ample opportunity for UMBC students to become involved (typically, a UMBC student has served as the student representative to MABA). The Distinguished Scientist Speaker Series at KKI has allowed our students to interact with numerous renowned behavior analysts over the past five years and the UMBC and Johns Hopkins environments provide a wealth of opportunities for students to contact leaders in numerous related fields of investigation.
More detailed information about the program can be found at the university’s Website at http://www.umbc.edu/psyc/grad/abaflyer.html and online in Catania, DeLeon, and Cataldo (2001) at http://www.behavior-analyst-today.com/VOL-1/BAT-1-4.pdf. Questions should be directed to either of the current Co-Directors, Iser DeLeon at deleon@kennedykrieger.org or Steve Pitts at spitts@umbc.edu.
References
Catania, A.C., DeLeon, I.G. & Cataldo, M.F. (2001) A master’s program in applied behavior analysis: Contingencies for initiation and maintenance. Behavior Analysis Today 1(4):
58-63.
Fyffe, C. E., Kahng, S., Fittro, E., & Russell, D. (2004). Functional analysis and treatment of inappropriate sexual behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37, 401-404.
Toole, L. M., DeLeon, I. G., Kahng, S., Ruffin, G. E., Pletcher, C. A., & Bowman, L. G. (2004). Re-evaluation of constant versus varied punishers using empirically derived consequences. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 25, 577-586.