Event Details:
Thursday, September 7, 2017, 4:00pm EST - 5:00pm EST

Applied Behavior Analysis in the Classroom: An evaluation of assessment and treatment of severe destructive behaviors in classroom settings

Professional Continuing Education Series

Join us for this workshop that is part of our intermediate to advanced-level workshop series for human services and behavioral healthcare professionals working in clinical, educational, medical, and rehabilitation settings.

Speaker:  Amanda N. Zangrillo, Psy.D., BCBA-D

Description: The functional analysis (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994) enables clinicians to identify variables maintaining destructive behavior and ultimately provides a clear prescription for intervention. Interventions that manipulate the specific, functional reinforcers maintaining destructive behavior are more likely to be effective in treating destructive behavior (Didden, Duker, & Korzilius, 1997; Didden, Korzilius, van Oorsouw, & Sturmey, 2006). One such function-based intervention is functional communication training (or FCT), which involves teaching an alternative and more socially appropriate response as a means of accessing the same functional reinforcer maintaining destructive behavior (Carr & Durand, 1985; Fisher et al., 1993). While both functional analyses and FCT are two of the most widely used, researched, and cited procedures for assessment and treatment of destructive behavior (Beavers et al., 2013; Hanley, Iwata, & McCord, 2003), implementation of these procedures outside of a tightly controlled clinical settings can prove difficult and labor intensive for practitioners. Barriers to implementation may result in omission of these critical assessment and treatment components altogether or possible treatment failure in the natural settings.

This presentation seeks to provide an overview and adaptations to the assessment and treatment of severe destructive behavior, and a discussion of factors to enhance generalization of intervention. Specific aims include: (1) a description of traditional and modified versions of the functional analysis methodology; (2) a description of functional communication pre-training and procedures used to thin schedules of reinforcement for functional communication responses from dense (i.e., acquisition) to naturally occurring schedules of reinforcement (i.e., schedules appropriate in the classroom); and (3) a discussion of barriers to implementation in the classroom (e.g., possible resurgence and renewal) and strategies to mitigate these barriers.

This event will offer 1 BCBA CEU

Register Below. Registration is required for all who attend. Registration for this event does commit you to attendance at this CE workshop. If you need to cancel, cancellations must be received 24 hours prior to the event by e-mail to vthompson@mayinstitute.org

Fee: $30 for guests; May Institute employees may attend free-of-charge. Guests can pay by cash or check on the day of the event.