Editors' perspectives on the selection of reviewers and the quality of reviews.

This article describes the outcomes of a survey of 93 editors in chief and associate editors of behavior-analytic journals. We sought information about variables that influence their judgment of the selection of reviewers, selection of review panels, and quality of reviews. When selecting reviewers, participants rated highly expertise on the topic, history of conducting good reviews, and history of writing constructive and respectful reviews. When selecting review panels, participants rated highly stratifying reviewers based on their expertise, avoiding conflicts of interest, and the matching based on the area of expertise between reviewers and authors. When evaluating the quality of a review, participants rated highly considerations related to research design, the science underlying the main idea, and accurate interpretations of the data. Participants did not rate copyediting as important. Overall, the extent to which reviewer selection was influenced by membership in underrepresented groups varied. These findings can inform the development of training programs for teaching peer-review repertoires.

Reviewing manuscripts for behavior-analytic journals: A primer.

The peer-review component of the editorial process is designed to facilitate quality control, legitimize scientific research, and self-regulate scientific communities. Even though serving as a reviewer undoubtedly has direct and indirect benefits, the peer-review system and the methods of teaching scholars to conduct reviews are nascent and relatively underdeveloped. This article describes the peer-review process and provides recommendations for writing reviews for scientific journals. The recommendations were developed based on the expertise and preferences of editors in chief and associate editors for behavior-analytic journals (Cengher & LeBlanc, 2024), and they include honoring your responsibility, knowing your audience, being constructive and kind, and carefully evaluating the merits of the study or review. These guidelines may serve as a primer for scholars who want to conduct reviews for scientific journals in behavior analysis.

The Women in Behavior Analysis Hall of Fame: Description and 2021 Inductees.

The inaugural Women in Behavior Analysis Conference (WIBA) was hosted in 2017 to highlight the accomplishments of women in the field of behavior analysis, provide opportunities for early career behavior analysts to obtain mentorship, and encourage meaningful discourse about gender issues in the field. In 2021, WIBA created the Hall of Fame to identify and honor outstanding women who have contributed to the field. Four stellar and important women were inducted into the inaugural class: Eve Segal, Bea Barrett, Martha Bernal, and Judith Favell. This article provides an overview of the structure and function of the hall of fame as well as the individual accomplishments, accolades, and impacts of these women as described in the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Each year a newly selected group of women will be inducted, and their career will be highlighted in an article in Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Establishing and Leveraging the Expertise of Advisory Boards.

The advisory board's makeup tends to consist of professionals with domains of expertise relevant to the organization they serve. Organizations invite advisory board members to guide the organization's efforts over an extended period. Still, they do not have fiduciary, operational, or decision-making responsibilities for the organization in the way that a board of directors does. This article provides a framework for a behavior-analytic organization to (a) identify whether an advisory board would be feasible and beneficial, (b) establish an advisory board, and (c) engage and manage an advisory board to best leverage the unique skills and interests of the members. The article includes 2 examples of advisory boards to illustrate the suggested framework and recommendations.

The effects of transition to technician-delivered telehealth ABA treatment during the COVID-19 crisis: A preliminary analysis.

Telehealth delivery of applied behavior analysis treatment has focused on supervision or staff and parent training, rather than the direct delivery of treatment to clients. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis had the potential to significantly disrupt access to direct treatment for individuals with autism. We report a sample of 17 cases that transitioned from in-person to telehealth delivery of treatment when shelter-in-place orders were issued. Of these cases, 76% of participants transitioned to technician-delivered telehealth services whereas the rest transitioned to a caregiver-implemented telehealth model. Participants continued to access a similar dosage of treatment hours per week in spite of the treatment model transition (in-person M = 12; telehealth M = 11) and maintained or improved correct independent responding across all targets from in-person treatment (M = 75%) to telehealth treatment (M = 80%). These findings provide initial evidence that some clients with autism benefit from technician-delivered telehealth services.

Promoting Ethical Discussions and Decision Making in a Human Service Agency.

This article describes the development of a system, the Ethics Network, designed to promote discussion of ethical issues in a human services organization. The system includes several core components, including people (e.g., leaders, ambassadors), tools (e.g., hotline, training modules), and resources (e.g., monthly talking points). Data from 6 years of hotline submissions were analyzed to identify the most common concerns, and the data were compared to the pattern of violation notices submitted to the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. Recommendations are provided for creating similar systems in other organizations.

The Role of Compassion and Ethics in Decision Making Regarding Access to Applied Behavior Analysis Services During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Response to Cox, Plavnick, and Brodhead.

Cox, Plavnick, and Brodhead (2020, "A Proposed Process for Risk Mitigation During the COVID-19 Pandemic") published a position statement in the emergency section of Behavior Analysis in Practice in response to the COVID-19 crisis. They argued against a blanket interpretation that in-person applied behavior analysis services for all patients should continue during the pandemic. They strongly argued that the risks of continued services are almost always prohibitive and that only in rare cases would the continuation of in-person services be warranted. Colombo, Wallace, and Taylor (2020, "An Essential Service Decisions Model for Applied Behavior Analytic Providers During Crisis") soon thereafter published a response to the article pointing out the potential dangers associated with the position of the article by Cox et al. They included a detailed decision model to assist providers in making nuanced and informed data-based decisions that provide the opportunity to honor the ethical responsibility for not abandoning patients. We echo the importance of the Colombo et al. response and add points of response centered on balanced ethical decision making informed by compassionate family-centered care.

The Training Experiences of Behavior Analysts: Compassionate Care and Therapeutic Relationships with Caregivers.

Successfully working with families of children with autism requires technical behavior-analytic skills and critical interpersonal relationship-building skills. Taylor, LeBlanc, and Nosik (2018) suggested that many Board Certified Behavior Analysts might have been trained in graduate programs that focus primarily on conceptual and technical skills with little coverage of skills related to building therapeutic relationships. The current paper provides the results of an online survey of the precredential and postcredential training experiences of behavior analysts. The majority of behavior analysts surveyed indicated that they received no explicit didactic training or reading assignments on relationship-building skills in their graduate coursework in behavior analysis. Approximately half indicated that their practical experience supervisor provided guidance and mentoring on these skills. The majority of behavior analysts indicated that it is very important or extremely important that professional training programs develop formal training in this area.

Procedures and Accuracy of Discontinuous Measurement of Problem Behavior in Common Practice of Applied Behavior Analysis.

Discontinuous measurement involves dividing an observation into intervals and recording whether a behavior occurred during some or all of each interval (i.e., interval recording) or at the exact time of observation (i.e., momentary time sampling; MTS). Collecting discontinuous data is often easier for observers than collecting continuous data, but it also produces more measurement error. Smaller intervals (e.g., 5 s, 10 s, 15 s) tend to produce less error but may not be used in everyday practice. This study examined the most common intervals used by a large sample of data collectors and evaluated the effect of these intervals on measurement error. The most commonly used intervals fell between 2 and 5 min. We then analyzed over 800 sessions to evaluate the correspondence between continuous and discontinuous data at each commonly used interval. Intervals of 3 min or less produced the greatest correspondence, and MTS outperformed interval recording.

Behavior analytic contributions to public health and telehealth.

The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis is launching a special series on the topics of public health and telehealth. The special series begins with the articles in this issue and will continue for the next 2 to 3 issues with an open submission window until September 1, 2020. Behavior analysis has much to offer with respect to public health and much to gain from continued and expanded use of telehealth. This paper outlines the importance of these topics in the current crisis and in our ongoing evolution as a field. The historical literature in behavior analysis is reviewed for each topic along with suggestions for future research. The articles from the special series will be combined with historical contributions from JABA into a virtual issue. We encourage continued submissions on these topics even after the special series is completed as future papers will also be incorporated into the special issue.

The Effects of Standard and Enhanced Data Sheets and Brief Video Training on Implementation of Conditional Discrimination Training.

Grow and LeBlanc (2013) described practice recommendations for conducting conditional discrimination training with children with autism. One recommendation involved using a specially designed datasheet to provide the preset target stimulus for each trial along with counterbalancing the location of stimuli if a three-item array of comparison stimuli. This study evaluated whether the recommended data sheet would lead to higher procedural integrity of counterbalancing trials compared to a standard data sheet (i.e., targets and arrays are not pre-set). Forty behavior therapists from two provider agencies participated. Participants were randomly assigned to either the standard data sheet condition or the enhanced data sheet condition. Participants watched a short video on Grow and LeBlanc's practice recommendations for a matching task and an orientation to the datasheet for the assigned condition, and then implemented the matching task with a confederate serving in the role of the child with autism. The enhanced data sheet resulted in higher accuracy of implementation on counterbalancing than the standard data sheet, with the largest difference for rotation of the target stimulus across trials and for counterbalancing the placement of the correct comparison stimulus in the array.

Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to tact auditory stimuli.

Studies on teaching tacts to individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have primarily focused on visual stimuli, despite published clinical recommendations to teach tacts of stimuli in other sensory domains as well. In the current study, two children with ASD were taught to tact auditory stimuli under two stimulus-presentation arrangements: isolated (auditory stimuli presented without visual cues) and compound (auditory stimuli presented with visual cues). Results indicate that compound stimulus presentation was a more effective teaching procedure, but that it interfered with prior object-name tacts. A modified compound arrangement in which object-name tact trials were interspersed with auditory-stimulus trials mitigated this interference.

Using a Prerequisite Skills Assessment to Identify Optimal Modalities for Mand Training.

This study examined the utility of a brief prerequisite assessment in predicting the subsequent effectiveness and rate of acquisition of mand training in each of three response modalities (sign, picture exchange, and vocalizations). Overall, the picture exchange was the most effective and efficient modality for acquiring the targeted mand. The vocal modality was the least effective except when the prerequisite assessment indicated that two-syllable vocal imitation was intact. The implications for selection of response modality for early mand training are discussed.

Evaluating the Effects of Similar and Distinct Discriminative Stimuli During Auditory Conditional Discrimination Training With Children With Autism.

Children with autism are often taught auditory conditional discriminations in the form of personal information questions that might prove useful in conversation (e.g., "What is your favorite food?" "Pizza" and "What is your favorite color?" "Purple"). In these questions, the auditory stimuli presented as part of the compound discriminative stimulus (i.e., what, favorite, color/food) do not always simultaneously control responding. If all components of the auditory stimulus do not control responding, a child may master 1 target but have trouble acquiring subsequent targets that have a component of a previously learned auditory stimulus because the previously learned response is emitted. One way to avoid this problem is to teach many targets that have no overlapping component stimuli before introducing targets that include a previously learned component. Another way to avoid the problem is to systematically introduce overlapping stimulus components simultaneously to facilitate control by all relevant components. Three children with autism were taught auditory conditional discriminations. An adapted alternating-treatments design was used to compare the use of training sets with programmed overlap of component auditory stimuli to training sets with no overlap of stimulus components. The effects of these 2 arrangements were evaluated on trials to criterion and percentage accuracy during acquisition. All participants reached mastery faster with at least 1 target set in the nonoverlap condition compared to the overlapping condition; 2 out of the 3 participants met the mastery criteria for both overlapping and nonoverlapping targets at a similar rate by the 3rd training set.

Evaluating Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Basic Computer Skills to a Young Adult with Autism.

The current study evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on acquisition of basic computer skills using Microsoft Word®, Microsoft Excel®, and Microsoft PowerPoint® by a 15-year-old male diagnosed with autism. A concurrent multiple-baseline design across computer programs (i.e., Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint®) was used to evaluate the effects of BST on the acquisition of basic computer skills. BST was successful in teaching the participant to learn basic functions in each of the three programs, and he was able to use the programs to complete schoolwork independently following completion of the study.

Compassionate Care in Behavior Analytic Treatment: Can Outcomes be Enhanced by Attending to Relationships with Caregivers?

The practice of behavior analysis has become a booming industry with growth to over 30,000 Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who primarily work with children with autism and their families. Most of these BCBAs are relatively novice and have likely been trained in graduate programs that focus primarily on conceptual and technical skills. Successfully working with families of children with autism, however, requires critical interpersonal skills, as well as technical skills. As practitioners strive to respond efficiently and compassionately to distressed families of children with autism, technical skills must be balanced with fluency in relationship-building skills that strengthen the commitment to treatment. The current article provides an outline of important therapeutic relationship skills that should inform the repertoire of any practicing behavior analyst, strategies to cultivate and enhance those skills, and discussion of the potential effects of relationship variables on treatment outcomes.

Planning and Leading Effective Meetings.

Behavior analysts spend a great deal of time in meetings regardless of their specific professional role (e.g., academic, practice, administration), so effective meeting skills are important. Meetings can serve a variety of important purposes if they are planned and led well. However, many people are not explicitly taught how to plan or lead meetings effectively. The purpose of this paper is to describe the common purposes of meetings and to provide recommendations and tools for planning and leading effective meetings.

Establishing Consumer Protections for Research in Human Service Agencies.

Conducting research in practice settings is the primary mechanism for establishing a strong foundation of evidence for clinical decision making. In behavior analysis, this type of research frequently originates from university-based systems that have established institutional review boards. Independent human service agencies that want to contribute applied research to the literature base that is clinically meaningful and conducted in an ethical fashion must establish a research review committee (RRC). The purpose of this article is to provide information and guidance for establishing and maintaining the activity of an RRC in a human service setting.

Live training versus e-learning to teach implementation of listener response programs.

Discrete-trial teaching is an effective teaching procedure that must be implemented with high integrity to produce optimal learning. Behavioral Skills Training (BST) has proven effective for staff training; however, BST is time and labor intensive. Computer-based instruction (CBI) programs may provide a more efficient and cost-effective alternative to live training if the CBI program is as effective as BST in producing accurate implementation. The current study compared CBI to BST to train novice undergraduate students to conduct discrete-trial teaching. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions and assessed prior to and after the completion of training. Results indicated that although both BST and CBI were effective at training participants to implement discrete-trial teaching, BST was slightly but significantly more effective whereas CBI quickly created a return on the investment of product development.