Compliance training

Compliance involves the extent to which a person behaves in accordance with the demands and expectations of their social environment. The issue of compliance is important to behavior analysis as failures to comply may produce detrimental effects on learning, health, social inclusion, and general well-being. This chapter aims to address this issue by reviewing behavior analytic practices in the assessment and treatment of compliance. Specifically, this chapter first reviews skill assessments, functional assessments, and preference assessments that should be typically conducted prior to the implementation of treatment. Next, a treatment section presents both antecedent-based and consequence-based interventions that contribute to improving compliance in different populations. Finally, this chapter ends by emphasizing the importance of rigorously selecting interventions and monitoring their effects to ensure that compliance training produces socially significant changes in the beneficiaries of behavior analytic services

Preliminary effects of conditioned establishing operations on stereotypy

We repeatedly paired preferred stimuli with known establishing properties and poster boards (i.e., neutral stimuli) to examine whether these poster boards would acquire the effects of a conditioned establishing operation in five children with autism. Following pairing, the poster boards, which had been previously shown to be neutral, increased immediate or subsequent engagement in stereotypy for three of five participants. The results suggest that it is possible to condition establishing operations for stereotypy and that this process may occur inadvertently. We discuss the potential clinical implications of the results, as well as the need for future research to replicate our findings

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

Quality Improvement and applied behavior analysis: Another name for a rose that smells just as sweet

While the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) has demonstrated its effectiveness and applicability across multiple settings, there are still concerns within the field about its limited scope. To date, most of the recommendations for expanding the scope of ABA include integrating into other fields that require additional credentials and training. This could be both costly and time consuming. Given the changing landscape of healthcare systems globally, there has been a major emphasis on the use of quality improvement (QI) to enhance overall patient care. Behavior analysts have the skills and training to improve upon the current state of QI. We discuss the overlapping theoretical and methodological similarities between QI and ABA as an additional avenue for behavior analysts to expand their scope of practice. Suggestions and implications of ABA integrating into QI roles are discussed

USING NONCONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT TO INCREASE COMPLIANCE WITH WEARING PRESCRIPTION PROSTHESES

We evaluated the effects of noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) on compliance with wearing foot orthotics and a hearing aid with 2 individuals. Results showed that NCR increased the participants' compliance with wearing prescription prostheses to 100% after just a few 5-min sessions, and the behavior change was maintained during lengthier sessions. The results are discussed in terms of the potential value-altering effects of NCR