Asbury and Wai ("Journal of School Choice," 2019) perform a valuable service by summarizing much available behavior--genetic research on academic achievement. However they consider that no specific policies stem from the research body at this time. Here we do propose a policy based on some of our research using twins, namely that…

The purpose of the current paper is to describe the impact of applied behaviour analysis on language treatment for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) diagnoses. Specifically, this paper will describe Skinner's theory of verbal behaviour and its contributions to evidence-based treatments for communication deficits among individuals with…

Multidisciplinary practice has become an accepted approach in many education and social and health care fields. In fact, the right to a multidisciplinary assessment is enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2007). In order to avert a "one size fits all" response to…

Communicators of climate science seek ways to better educate and motivate individuals to personally commit to sustainable, energy-saving activities. However, critical psychological and social barriers to conservation make this task challenging. Behavioural scientists are well aware of the difficulties that individuals and groups have in responding…

This commentary for a special issue of "Remedial and Special Education" (RASE) on the perspectives of senior scholars (a) opens with some comments regarding the role of measures we use in behavioral science to pursue scientific truth and then (b) discusses the three most impactful developments in emotional and behavioral disorders over…

For more than 10 years, the "Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions" has published, among other types of articles, behavioral intervention outcome studies related to positive behavior support. Operationally defining interventions is important to facilitating replication studies and adoption of intervention in applied settings. Furthermore,…

Treatment integrity has cogent implications for intervention effectiveness. Understanding these implications is an important, but often neglected, undertaking in behavior analysis. This paper reviews current research on treatment integrity in applied behavior analysis. Specifically, we review research evaluating the relation between integrity…

Studies have evaluated a range of interventions to treat food selectivity in children with autism and related developmental disabilities. The high-probability instructional sequence is one intervention with variable results in this area. We evaluated the effectiveness of a high-probability sequence using 3 presentations of a preferred food on…

Increasing physical activity is a crucial component of any comprehensive approach to combat the growing obesity epidemic. This review summarizes recent behavioral research on the measurement of physical activity and interventions aimed at increasing physical activity and provides directions for future research.

A component analysis is a systematic assessment of 2 or more independent variables or components that comprise a treatment package. Component analyses are important for the analysis of behavior; however, previous research provides only cursory descriptions of the topic. Therefore, in this review the definition of "component analysis" is discussed,…

A popular-press self-help manual is reviewed with an eye toward two issues. First, the popularity of such books documents the existence of considerable demand for technologies that address the everyday problems (in the present case, troublesome conversations) of nondisordered individuals. Second, many ideas invoked in popular-press books may be…

Impulsivity is a central defining feature of several psychiatric disorders and a frequent correlate of many forms of psychopathology and maladjustment. Despite recognition of the importance of impulsivity to an understanding of a wide variety of clinically-relevant behaviors, this multifaceted construct remains ill-defined and not well understood.…

Three new direct-service staff participated in a program that used a video model to train target skills needed to conduct a discrete-trial session. Percentage accuracy in completing a discrete-trial teaching session was evaluated using a multiple baseline design across participants. During baseline, performances ranged from a mean of 12% to 63%…

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions. (Contains 4 figures.)

We investigated the effects of video modeling on the percentage of correctly implemented problem-solving steps by staff in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities, using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants. The treatment consisted of staff watching a video model demonstrating the correct implementation of a…