About the presentation:
Children with autism struggle with social skills. The social world is full of “problems,” defined
as situations in which a response is in the child’s repertoire but is not immediately evoked. For
example, a child may be able to initiate conversations, but in a crowded social situation, it is
difficult to know when to do so. Problem solving is arranging stimuli to increase the probability
of arriving at a solution. This might involve looking at each group of people and deciding if it is
an appropriate time to start a conversation. Talking about the past also presents problems and
problem solving as people often have to “think back” to what happened to arrive at a response.
We also solve many of our problems by “Googling it.” The presenter will describe these
phenomena and share studies on teaching problem solving to students with autism to improve
how they talk about past events and answer social questions about planning a trip, such as “how
far” and “what’s the weather?”
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of the presentation, the participants will be able to:
1. Define a “problem” and “problem solving” from a behavior analytic perspective.
2. Explain how to use visual imagining and self-questioning as problem-solving strategies to teach children with autism to recall past events.
3. Explain how to teach children with autism to use phone apps as a problem-solving strategy to answer social questions about planning a trip
About the presenter:
Judah B. Axe, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LABA, received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Special Education and
Applied Behavior Analysis from The Ohio State University. He is currently an Associate
Professor of Education and Behavior Analysis at Simmons University in Boston, MA, where he
has taught for 12 years. Dr. Axe teaches in the master’s programs in Special Education and
Behavior Analysis, the fully online master’s program in Behavior Analysis, and the Ph.D.
program in Behavior Analysis. He conducts research with children with autism in the areas of
verbal, social, and challenging behavior. Dr. Axe serves on the editorial boards of five behavior
analytic journals. He is a Trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (CCBS) and
has previously served as Chair of the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group of the Association
for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), Co-Coordinator of the Verbal Behavior Area for the
ABAI Conference, Director of the Student Relations Committee of the Berkshire Association for
Behavior Analysis and Therapy, and the Continuing Education Coordinator of CCBS.