Recent research suggests that a modified habit reversal procedure, including awareness training alone or combined with competing response training, is effective in decreasing speech disfluencies for college students. However, these procedures are potentially lengthy, sometimes require additional booster sessions, and could result in covariation of untargeted speaker behavior. We extended prior investigations by evaluating awareness training as a sole intervention while also measuring collateral effects of treatment on untargeted filler words and rate of speech. We found awareness training was effective for all participants without the use of booster sessions, and covariation between targeted filler words and secondary dependent variables was idiosyncratic across participants.

A growing workforce of behavior analysts provides services to individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities as legislative initiatives have spurred a growth of funding options to support these services. Though many opportunities currently exist for serving individuals with autism, the growing demand for these services may wane or, at some point, the growth in service providers will meet that demand. Other consumer groups could benefit from behavior analytic services, but typically have limited access to qualified providers. Individuals with dementia and traumatic brain injury are used as example consumer groups to illustrate the necessary tasks for a behavior analyst to expand their scope of practice to a new population. This paper provides strategies for developing competence and creating employment opportunities with new consumer groups.

Recent literature supports using an awareness training treatment package to decrease speech disfluencies for college students delivering short speeches. This package includes identifying speech disfluencies first via a video recording (video training), then during in vivo speech practice (in vivo training). However, the literature lacks an evaluation of these subcomponents, which poses a barrier to better understanding the efficiency, social validity, and potential underlying behavioral principles of awareness training. We conducted an add-in component analysis with 8 college students by implementing either video or in vivo training first, evaluating treatment effects via a posttest, then implementing the remaining subcomponent, if warranted. We found that in vivo speech practice may be sufficient for reducing disfluencies for some participants, but a treatment package including the sequential application of both video and in vivo training is more likely to result in marked behavior change.

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to complete a systematic evidence-based review of published behavioral treatment studies employing single-case designs with both children and adults with acquired brain injury. Peer-reviewed journals were searched using PsycINFO, Medline, and ERIC databases with combinations of terms such as brain injury, behavior disorder, behavior therapy, behavior modification, behavior analysis, and verbal behavior. A total of 112 acquisition and reduction studies met the established inclusion criteria. The data extracted from each study included specific details about the participants, target responses, intervention characteristics, use of functional assessment, and outcome characteristics. A data extraction software program was also used to extract data from graphs to calculate percentage of nonoverlapping data as an effect size . The studies were then evaluated along several dimensions from multiple evidencebased practice frameworks. Collectively, interventions targeted a wide range of behaviors for acquisition and reduction, but only five interventions were classified as well established according to the American Psychological Association Division 12 criteria. Furthermore, methodology of the identified studies was found to be relatively poor. A variety of methodological concerns are discussed. Copyright

Discrete trial teaching (DTT) procedures have proven effective in teaching language to children with autism. Discrete trial teaching uses a highly structured, fast-paced format of instruction that is typically conducted in a oneto-one situation at a desk or table with minimal distractions. We compared this traditional model of DTT to a version of DTT in which instruction was embedded within the context of a more naturalistic, activity-based environment. However, all of the other characteristics of DTT (e.g., pacing, tight stimulus control, targets selected by the teacher) were retained. Receptive discriminations were taught to 2 4-year-old boys, diagnosed with autism in traditional or embedded DTT. Results showed that for both boys, traditional and embedded DTT were equally effective and efficient. Additionally, measures were collected on participant affect and a concurrent-chains preference evaluation was used to determine which teaching procedure was preferred by the participants. The two procedures produced similar levels of positive and negative affect and were equally preferred by 1 participant while embedded DTT produced more positive affect and was more preferred by the other. Keywords: autism, conditional discriminations, discrete-trial teaching, embedded instruction, listener behavior, receptive discriminations ABSTRACT D