Given the empirically validated success of behavioral intervention based on applied behavior analysis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities, the demand for knowledgeable and skilled paraprofessional teaching staff is very high. Unfortunately, there currently exists a widely recognized shortage of such practitioners. This paper describes the development of an online training program aimed at preparing paraprofessionals for face-to-face training and supervision, as part of a solution to the growing demand. The focus of the program has been on moving beyond traditional online pedagogy, which has limited interactivity. Instead, the approach to teaching fundamental knowledge and implementation skills in behavioral intervention methods incorporates first-person simulations, typical of live mentor/mentee training. Preliminary program evaluation data are also described.

The present study asked whether naive learners would accurately implement discrete trial training (DTT) methods in a live setting following asynchronous training delivered entirely via computer. Seven naive adult participants received training from portions of a previously developed online program that were relevant to DTT implementation. A unique feature of the training was the use of simulated interaction exercises with an on-screen virtual child. The dependent measure was the accuracy with which participants taught simple skills to an experimental confederate using DTT. A multiple baseline across participants design showed that the computer-based training resulted in accurate live DTT implementation for all participants. Most participants also demonstrated accurate DTT teaching with a novel task. The implications of the study results are discussed in terms of their potential impact on the shortage of trained practitioners of early behavioral intervention methods.

In this factor-analytic study of imaging and thinking, measures of vivid visual and auditory imaging loaded onto a unitary “vivid imaging” factor, on which no measures of thinking loaded. This first factor-analytic finding, like previous findings of no correlation between vivid imaging and productive thinking, is consistent with Külpe's classic argument and Kunzendorf's contemporary argument that visually and auditorily imaged sensations are not building blocks for “spatial” and “temporal” thinking, respectively, but are sensory representations which vivid imagers construct from their imageless thoughts. Moving beyond individual differences in vivid imaging to individual differences in imageless thinking, this factor-analytic study found, in addition, that radically different measures of styles of thought load onto a unitary “heterarchical versus hierarchical thinking” factor. These differing measures of thinking styles instructed research participants to find embedded spatial and temporal patterns, to organize two unstructured data sets into matrices or outlines, and to rank their preferences for 12 competitive events—6 events defined by “how close, “how high,” or “how far” competitors can perform on a heterarchical measure, and 6 events defined by “how well synchronized,” “how long,” or “how fast” competitors can perform on a hierarchical measure. Engineering students in this research exhibited significantly more heterarchical thinking and significantly less hierarchical thinking; management students exhibited significantly less heterarchical thinking and significantly more hierarchical thinking; and male students and female students exhibited, on average, no significant differences in their modes of thinking. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that people's “imageless thinking” can be characterized in terms of two orthogonal modes of thinking: heterarchical thinking and hierarchical thinking.