baam.emich.eduBAAM - Behavior Analyst Association of Michigan

• Conference • News • Resources • Science • History • Autism • Bookshelf • Membership • Contact Us BAAM 2025 Convention News BAAM 2025 is scheduled for February 20-21, at the Student Center at Eastern Michigan University. Look for more information here, on BAAM’s Facebook page, and in your email inbox. 2024 Convention Schedule NEW: Professional Behavior Analyst Special Interest Group Mission/Objective: The goal of the Professional Behavior Analyst SIG of the Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan (BAAM) is to disseminate information to Autism practitioners in the state of Michigan regarding insurance reform, licensure rules and regulations, and various other funding and state initiatives that affect professional behavior analysts. Dissemination would also include ensuring accurate representation of behavior analysis in publications or presentations across the state, as well as advising BAAM on content of communication disseminated to ASD professionals in Michigan. Description of Membership Membership would be open to any practitioner who is a behavior analyst, or assistant behavior analyst, associated with behavioral health services through Michigan’s Medicaid Program and Commercial Insurance, and is a current member of the Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan. Events Members of the SIG would meet annually at the BAAM conference, as well as quarterly (web based and/or face to face). Contact Information: Primary contact: Conny Raaymakers (Chair) Website: www.debh.org Phone: 616-604-8492 Secondary contact: Morgan VanDenBerg (co-Chair) Website: www.michigan.gov/autism Hear Verbal Summator Files by B.F. Skinner The Verbal Summator was a device created in the early 1930s by B.F. Skinner to present random speech sounds. Now we would use computer to do this. Skinner had to adapt what was then called an "indexing phonograph" record player designed to drop the needle in a specific groove. Dubbed an "Auditory Rorschach," listeners would seem to hear meaningful speech within what was actually meaningless output. See also: Rutherford, A. (2003). B.F. Skinner and the auditory inkblot: The rise and fall of the verbal summator as a projective technique. History of Psychology, 6 (4), 362-378. Skinner, B.F. (1936). The verbal summator and a method for the study of latent speech. Journal of Psychology, 2 (1), 71-107. Free, Full Text of B.F. Skinner’s 1948 William James Lectures. Read the lectures that would eventually become B.F. Skinner 1957 classic book, Verbal Behavior . ​ Courtesy of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies Behavior Classic: Read it again, or for the first time "Some Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis" "Some Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis," by Donald Baer, Montrose Wolf, and Todd Risley, is a classic in the field, describing the fundamental features of ABA as a science- and evidence-based practice. It is, at its core, an excellent program evaluation tool with which you can measure any treatment approach for quality and potential for success. "Some Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis" appeared in the first issue of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and has been a standard reading in most behavior analysts curricula since. Archive of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior ( JEAB ) View the contents of all back issues from 1958-2012. Archive of The Behavior Analyst View the contents of all back issues from 1978-2013 (vol. 1) Get Operants , The B.F. Skinner Foundation Newsletter Organizations taking on pseudoscience. See BAAM’s compilation of resolutions repudiating Facilitated Communication Archive of the Analysis of Verbal Behavior View the contents of all back issues from 1985-2013 (vol. 1) and issues of Verbal Behavior News 1982-1983 ABAI Practice Board Responds to Time Magazine Failure on the Concept of Time Out. Time Magazine , which has had a history of endorsing dangerous (Facilitated Communication) and empirically unsupported (Floortime) autism treatments, attacks "time-out," an empirically validated and well-tolerated method originally designed as an alternative to physical punishment. The Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) Practice Board responds. Behavior Analyst Licensing Now in Force in Michigan See the Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs website for more information. Gentle Teaching? Gentle? Perhaps. Teaching? Not So Much. Gentle Teaching is back, required in some Michigan service agencies. We are getting reports of mandatory GT workshops in which ABA is characterized as "torture" while doing essentially nothing to teach functional independent living skills is advanced as a laudable goal. What is Gentle Teaching? Basically, it’s an empirically unsupported philosophy of "Gentleness" and dependency that is more likely to interfere with efficient teaching than facilitate it. Read Jon Bailey’s excellent and still current analysis here. For a more recent take on Gentle Teaching, see Arnold-Saritepe, Mudford, & Cullen’s chapter, "Gentle Teaching," in Foxx and Mulick’s Controversial Therapies for Autism and Intellectual Disabilities. Introduction to Early Intensive Behavior Intervention of Autism Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan clinical psychology programs both make list of top ten "Hidden Gems" in clinical training. Objective data on licensing exam pass rates, internship placements, and other measures put both the Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan Clinical Psychology training programs, which include training in behavior analysis and BCBA preparation, in the top ten of programs in the nation. ( Full article here; may require subscription .) Behavior Science Saving Lives From JABA : "Using Trained Pouched Rats to Detect Landmines ." Ok, Pigeons Can Play Ping-Pong. Now Let’s Read the Rest of Skinner’s "Two Synthetic Social Relations." Everyone seems fascinated by the pigeons B.F. Skinner taught to play a version of ping-pong. But, that was the not the most important part of his article, " Two ’Synthetic’ Social Relations ." It was just the introduction. Basically, if you teach a couple of pigeons to peck at a ping-pong ball, and then put them on opposite sides of a small table, they will "play" ping-pong. That was a big deal at the time because the hand shaping of behavior was new. But, conceptually there aren’t a lot of implications. The second part of the article is the one to really pay attention to. What Skinner did was set up a contingency that required two pigeons separated by a pane of glass to peck corresponding keys at the same time. One pigeon spontaneously became a "leader," looking for which one of three keys produced food. The other pigeon, the "follower," came to mirror the behavior of the leader very closely, and the two seemed to be mirror images. This behavior generalized, and the pigeons would seem to mirror other behaviors as well. The follower pigeon showed the ability to engage in new forms of behavior simply by seeing them in the leader. Why is this very important? Skinner had demonstrated how sophisticated generalized imitation can be established quickly with just contingent reward for imitating a relatively simple response. If a bird can do it, why not a child? Archive of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis ( JABA ) View the contents of all back issues from 1968-2012. They Actually Said It!Math Edition It has been estimated that sexual abuse rates for children with disabilities are four to ten times the 25 percent rate for the general population. That means, claims Nora Baladerian (1991) that there is a better than 100% likelihood that a disabled child will be molested before he or she is eighteen. (Haskew & Donnellan, 1993, p. 31). Reference Haskew, P., & Donnellan, M. (1993). Emotional maturity and well-being: Psychological lessons of facilitated communication. Madison, WI: DRI Press. The Generality of the Matching Law as a Descriptor of Shot Selection in Basketball ​ BAAM Science Comedy CEUs now...