William H. Ahearn- Best Practices in Autism Treatment: The Importance of the Analysis in Applied Behavior Analysis

1.0 Type II CE Credits/ 1.0 Ethics CE

This presentation was recorded at the 2015 CCBS West Coast Conference on Autism.

About the presentation:

The concept of best practice is elusive. Applied behavior analysis is acknowledged as a best practice approach to providing educational and clinical services to children with autism spectrum disorders; however, applied behavior analysis consists of individually tailoring interventions to meet the educational and clinical goals of each child and diagnosis is not particularly pertinent. This is a complex task for a clinician, but when a systematic approach that involves regular review of progress through data analysis is utilized, best practices may become apparent. This address will discuss systematic evaluations of teaching procedures conducted with children, adolescents, and adults. Procedures evaluated include response prompting and prompt fading techniques for establishing behavior chains; response prompting techniques for establishing verbal behavior; and remediational strategies implemented when learners do not acquire educational objectives. The discussion of remediation procedures will focus on increasing response opportunities and evaluating differential reinforcement for prompt dependency. How to incorporate simple research questions into everyday practice will also be described.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe what is meant by best practice.
• Participants will be able to describe characteristics of autism as they relate to effective treatment with best practice procedures.
• Participants will be able to describe best practice for treating stereotypy.

**Note to anyone purchasing this video:  During the live filming of this video, there were technical difficulties with the audio connection.  The speaker is audible throughout the presentation, but there is some audio interference noise intermittently throughout the presentation**