EABA 2022

EABA 2022 konferansen markerte den 10ende konferansen for “the European Association for Behavior Analysis” og IAA var godt representert. I anledning til konferansen sendte vi inn forslag til to symposium, med totalt 8 innlegg til sammen. Dette ble fordelt over to dager, og oppmøtet var veldig bra! En av flere potente positive forsterkere for oss her på IAA er å kunne bidra til å utvikle faget og praktiseringen av det. Det å presentere på konferanser representerer en fantastisk mulighet til å gjøre nettopp dette. Vi blir utfordret til å sammenfatte kunnskap og erfaring inn i noe som kan presenteres, og vår formidlingsatferd shapes slik at vi klarer å si det vi ønsker å si, på en slik måte at lyttere kan reflektere over det og inngå i verbale episoder sammen med oss. Ikke minst er det å treffe andre prominente fagfolk og klinikere unike læringssituasjoner for oss, som vi får ta med tilbake til resten av folket på IAA, og som da videre kan påvirke de tjenester vi kan gi til dere alle sammen.

Det er et ønske fra oss at vi kan legge ut presentasjonene vi holder her på siden som ressurser for dere. Ta gjerne en titt på “Ressurser” siden, og ikke nøl med å gi tilbakemeldinger til kontoret ved IAA dersom dere skulle ønske det var mer programmer eller foredrag å få tak i på sidene til IAA. Her er en oversikt over sammendragene for samtlige innlegg vi holdt!

EABA, Tampere, Finland, June 15.-18.22. Symposium: Early intervention for children with developmentally delays. Part 1 – Viewpoints from clinical experience.

Chair: Jens Erik Skår, specialist in clinical psychology, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway.

Abstracts

1. A parental perspective on early intervention ABA based training.Tørres Joa, parent of a boy with Downs syndrome. The situation in Norway is challenging because evidence-based practices within psychology and pedagogy is not the mainstream. Development towards a more scientific approach is slowed down by politicians resisting a more rapid selection of services. There is also a resistance towards more cost-effective services because they often are private. Several laws must be renewed in order to program effective services for developmentally disabled children, therefore a collaboration with politicians is crucial. The situation within the field of applied behavior analysis have also been complicated by therapeutic off-springs like low-effective approaches, positive behavior support and pivotal response variants. Splitting up the ABA-field has its disadvantages and is confusing to us parents.
   1. Keywords; parental perspective, evidence-based practices, ABA, developmentally disabled, health-care system, health-care services, health-care politics
2. Fads and fashions in the treatment of problem behaviorslike aggressiveness, self-injurious behavior, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Ilias Kyriakou, teacher, Master in Learning in Complex Systems, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway. We will argue that one of the fads developed in ABA, is that positive behavior support, PBS, alone can decrease all kinds of problem behavior. Positive reinforcement is important in building alternative behavior repertoires, but for (positive) reinforcement to work, the behavior must occur. Often both negative punishment and negative reinforcement of avoidance behavior has to be used to establish wanted behavior in situations where triggers for the unwanted behavior is present. And often we have to combine procedures based on both respondent and operant behavior. Triggers for emotional responses might have to be unconditioned, and the operant components have to be altered by different consequences.
   1. Keywords; positive behavior support, aggressiveness, self-injurious behavior, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, treatment, behavior reduction, behavior procedures, operant conditioning, respondent conditioning
3. Disadvantages of discrete trial training and its alternatives. Eleni Vlahokyriakou, teacher, Master in Behavioral Science, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway. ABA therapy in general, is often associated with this one method of teaching: discrete trial teaching. While discrete trial teaching often plays a critical role in helping children with autism to learn, it is only part of a comprehensive program. Even the 1987 research by Lovaas mentions other important components of treatment, like incidental teaching. Incidental Teaching and Natural Environment Teaching operate on the belief that natural scenarios should be used to assist your child in learning, speaking and better understanding the world around them. This is backed by the research that shows if a child is taught in a natural environment, like during play or mealtime, instead of a structured classroom atmosphere, they are able to move those skills more easily into real-world situations. Programming “loose training“ as a strategy to facilitate language generalization. Video examples will be presented.
   1. Keywords; discrete trial training, incidental teaching, natural environment teaching, autism, loose training, learning, language, generalization
4. How to bring forth a behavior for the first time? Jens Erik Skår, specialist in clinical psychology, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway. In order to teach children to talk, echoic responses have to be established. Many children make sounds prior to ABA-training, but speaking cannot be established before sound-making is under the control of the parents or the teachers. Negative reinforcement and escape extinction can establish the first echoic responses (sound duplication), as avoidance responses. This session contains video demonstrations.
   1. Keywords; speaking, language, echoic behavior, negative reinforcement, escape extinction, avoidance behavior

EABA, Tampere, Finland, June 15.-18.22. Symposium: Early intervention for children with developmentally delays. Part 2 – Theoretical presentations and hypotheses.

Chair: Søren Jensson Skår, psychologist, Habilitating Services for children and the young, Helse Stavanger, Norway.

Abstracts

1. Brain and behavior. Søren Jensson Skår, psychologist, Habilitating Services for children and the young, Helse Stavanger, Norway. Behavior does not occur in a vacuum. Our central nervous system is a complex organ which lies in the center between stimuli and responses. But how do millions upon millions of bio-electrical signals lead to behavior, and why should we care? Bridging the gap between neurobiology and behavior analysis not only strengthens the scientific foundation of behavior analysis but might lead to a better clinical practice. Research in neurobiology supports the notion of different types of behavior classes and might also give rise to fruitful discussions that challenges established hypotheses in behavior analysis. Most of all, research supports early intervention and the importance of the interplay between respondent and operant behavior.
   1. Keywords; brain, neurons, learning, ABA, neurobiology, behavior classes, early intervention, respondent behavior, operant behavior
2. Adjunctive, or schedule-induced, behavior.Jens E. Skår, specialist in clinical psychology, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway, Søren Jensson Skår, psychologist, Habilitating Services for children and the young, Helse Stavanger, Norway. Adjunctive or schedule-induced behavior has proven its existence in many species. Some forms of aggression, self-injurious behavior and obsessive-compulsive behavior among developmentally disabled children seem to resemble adjunctive behavior. In that these behaviors appear suddenly, seemingly without a function that can be explained, and relative insensitive to consequences. Adjunctive behavior is discussed in relation both to the respondent and operant paradigm. The two-factor model of Mowrer can shed some light on what schedule induced behavior is and how it can be treated.
   1. Keywords; adjunctive behavior, schedule-induced behavior, developmentally disabled children, learning, challenging behavior, treatment,
3. Programming for complex behavior.Jens E. Skår, specialist in clinical psychology, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway. There are children with developmental delays who learn to like to learn, and who proceeds past basic training curricula of echoic behavior, matching and discrimination behaviors. Introduction of conditioned discrimination training curricula seems necessary in order to develop complex forms of verbal behavior. Joint attention and fluency are also skills that seem important on the road toward a normal behavior repertoire. This presentation will show different types of training like establishing rule governed behaviors, me-you relations, what-if relations, taking perspective, who knows and who believes to know, establishing resistance behaviors (what not to do), etc. The presentation is supported by video demonstrations.
   1. Keywords; developmental delays, children, programming, conditioned discrimination, verbal behavior, complex behavior, joint attention, fluency
4. Is ABA not for everyone? Thoughts on the perceived discrimination of children and their families in the Norwegian public health- and educational system. Ingeborg Oprann, Master in Learning in Complex Systems, Institute of Applied Behavior Analysis, Stavanger, Norway. Norway’s educational- and health care system ranks among the best in the world but getting the right resources and enough of them are a forever on-going struggle. Children with autism receive ABA intervention, but despite clinical research showing ABA intervention as beneficial for children with a variety of diagnosis, those with comorbid intellectual disabilities and/or genetic syndromes do not automatically receive the same follow-up from the public health- and educational system. As an ABA therapist working 10+ years in both public and private health- and educational services, I find myself wondering why there is such a systematic differentiation in what interventions are given. Interventions work on the basis of the brain´s ability to adapt, which in turn relies on neurobiological mechanisms of learning. This brings up the question; are the fundamental mechanisms for learning different between diagnoses?
   1. Keywords; ABA, interventions, early intervention, learning, children, Norway, health-services, autism, comorbidity, diagnoses, differentiation, neurobiology