We evaluated the effects of assessment-based interventions on the treatment of sleep problems in 3 young children, 2 of whom had been diagnosed with autism. We used sleep diaries and infrared nighttime video in the child's bedroom to obtain measures of sleep onset, sleep-interfering behaviors, night waking, total sleep, parental presence, and medication administration each night. We then identified environmental factors that contributed to sleep problems using an open-ended interview called the Sleep Assessment and Treatment Tool. Individualized treatment packages were designed with the children's parents based on the idiosyncratic results of the assessment. Treatment packages included adjustment of the sleep schedule based on developmental norms and current sleep phases, design of a sleep-conducive environment, elimination of inappropriate sleep dependencies, and function-based interventions to decrease sleep-interfering behaviors by disrupting the contingency between the interfering behavior and its likely reinforcement. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across subjects revealed that treatment was effective for all 3 children. In addition, social acceptability measures showed that the parents were satisfied with the assessment process, the treatment, and the amount of behavior change.

The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that by 2044, the United States will become a majority minority nation, meaning no group will have a majority portion of the total population (Colby & Ortman, 2014). Therefore, training on working effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds is critical. We surveyed Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) to assess the amount of training they received during their coursework, fieldwork or practicum, employer training, and continuing education on working with people from diverse backgrounds. In addition, we assessed whether BCBAs thought training on this topic was important, how skilled they thought they were in this area, and whether behavior-analytic course instructors included material on cultural diversity in their courses. The majority of respondents reported that training on working with individuals from diverse backgrounds is very or extremely important. Interestingly, although the majority of respondents reported they felt moderately or extremely comfortable and were moderately or extremely skilled at working with individuals from diverse backgrounds, the majority of respondents reported having little or no training in this area. We discuss the implications of these results for the field of applied behavior analysis and future directions.

We assessed teacher—child relations with respect to children's name calls, instructions, and compliance in a preschool classroom. The most frequent consequence to a child's name being called was the provision of instructions. We also observed a higher probability of compliance when children attended to a name call. Next, we evaluated the effects of teaching preschoolers to attend to their names and a group call on their compliance with typical instructions. We used a multiple baseline design across subjects and a control‐group design to evaluate whether gains in compliance were a function of treatment or routine experience in preschool. Results showed that compliance increased as a function of teaching precursors for all children in the experimental group, and the effects on compliance were maintained despite a reduction of the occurrence of precursors. Moreover, it appeared that precursor teaching, not routine preschool experience, was responsible for the changes in compliance.

We used a multiple baseline design across behaviors to evaluate peer-mediated behavioral skills training to improve a complex repertoire of conversational skills of an undergraduate student diagnosed with a learning disability NOS. Following treatment, we observed a decrease in interrupting and content specificity and an increase in questioning. Treatment effects maintained with naïve peers during unstructured conversations and outcomes compared favorably with normative data on the conversational skills of three undergraduates without learning disabilities.Keywords Behavioral skills training . Conversational skills . Intraverbals . Mands . Peer mediation A largely under-researched area of verbal behavior is that of conversational skills, which are important in developing and maintaining peer relationships (Krasny et al. 2003). Intraverbals play an important role in conversational speech. Skinner (1957) defined an intraverbal as a verbal response that has no point-topoint correspondence with the verbal stimulus that occasions the response. There is a fair amount of research on the acquisition of intraverbals, but few studies have evaluated methods to improve intraverbal behavior related to the conversational speech of adults without disabilities (Sautter and LeBlanc 2006).With respect to conversational speech, the challenge to the learner is more than the acquisition of intraverbals; it also includes learning to balance the timing of the emission with the form of the response. Related to timing, one must learn the appropriate moment to emit the intraverbal, so that the response does not disproportionately interrupt the speaker. With respect to form, one must learn the appropriate amount of detail and autoclitics to include within the response. Lastly, the individual must learn to discriminate when it is appropriate to emit an intraverbal versus a mand for information (e.g., ask a question). Other important aspects of conversational speech include the duration spent in the listener versus speaker role, and the qualitative aspects of behavior emitted by the individual while in the listener role. Unfortunately, normative measures of conversational skills are rarely assessed. In a notable exception, Minkin et al. (1976) asked naïve judges to rate conversation samples of female college and junior high school students during unstructured conversations, and the judges rated the college students more favorably. The authors found that the college students engaged in more questioning and positive feedback than the junior high school students, suggesting that these two behaviors are important conversational skills. The authors then successfully taught questioning and positive feedback to pre-delinquent girls using behavioral skills training (BST; a teaching package that includes instructions, modeling, role play, and feedback). However, the authors did not measure Analysis Verbal Behav (2014) The better we become at teaching verbal behavior, the greater the need for establishing methods to improve conversational ...