2019-20 Events and Colloquia
The Department of Psychology at Western Michigan University hosts presentations and a variety of events each year.
SEPTEMBER
Dr. Nelson Miller
Workplaces challenge reform efforts to improve productivity and outcomes. While not unique in this respect, academic workplaces, especially those in higher education, present special challenges in getting faculty members to accept needed reforms, given faculty members’ high expertise and academic-freedom-based independence. This presentation, data-based in part, summarizes insights from a three-year research-lab-supported project implementing successful behavior-based reforms at one unit of a multi-unit organization. The reforms raised the unit’s critical outcome, graduate passage of a licensing exam, well above the organization’s other units. Passing a licensing exam is the organization’s primary validated outcome, the statistics for which it confirms as reliable for accreditation purposes. Under the positive influence of the project’s organizational-management initiative, half of the unit’s faculty members volunteered to participate in the reforms, and their participation further induced reforms by non-participating faculty members in the same unit. The project eschewed managing by policy and mandate in favor of recognition reinforcement, supportive change context, participant control and choice, evidenced-based practices, and knowledge showcasing. The project focused participants on the behaviors that they wished to induce and on measuring those behaviors, while fostering team approaches within a unit culture that inoculated participants against adverse conditions imposed centrally across the organization.
Dr. Marianne Jackson
Despite the importance of humor in day-to-day interactions, it has attracted relatively little attention in the scientific literature. Much of the literature in psychology has focused on conceptual accounts of humor and the related physical and mental health benefits. The behavior analytic literature has even less to say about it, with only a few conceptual discussions and very little empirical work. As a socially important skill, humor comprehension seems a worthwhile topic of study from a behavior analytic perspective; however, much of the existing literature on this comes from a developmental approach. This presentation will discuss a recent study conducted using multiple-exemplar training and a three-step error correction procedure to teach comprehension of double-meaning jokes to children, 5 to 6.5 years old. All participants demonstrated humor comprehension and appreciation, across multiple exemplars, and maintained responding at a 2-week follow-up probe.
Dr. Jon Baker
Upcoming changes to BCBA/BCACA Experience Standards are outlined in the 5th edition task list and related materials. These changes will go into effect beginning Jan 1st, 2022, however, many processes and systems need to be developed to ensure a smooth transition prior to then. To review these changes, discuss potential updated processes, and answer questions related to this topic, BAGSO has arranged a brown bag discussion with Dr. Jon Baker, WMU’s VCS Coordinator.
OCTOBER
Dr. Caio Miguel
Alumni Achievement Award Recipient 2019
We often solve problems by engaging in mediating strategies such as talking to ourselves. In order to accurately use and respond to these strategies, we must understand what we are saying. The term bidirectional naming (BiN) has been used to describe the integration of both listener and speaker behaviors that leads to speaking with understanding. In this talk, I will describe a series of studies showing that in the absence of either speaker or listener behaviors, participants often fail to solve problems in the form of matching-to-sample and categorization tasks. These results suggest that to solve complex tasks participants must be verbal. Thus, I will propose that the BiN repertoire is one of the most important skills to be taught during early intensive behavioral intervention.
Lt. Col. Kirk L. Rowe, Ph.D.
This event will discuss Air Force psychology from the perspective of retired lieutenant colonel Dr. Rowe. He is a neuropsychologist that retired after 24 years of service, and was a clinical psychology training director for 9 of those years. There will also be a discussion about internship and opportunities for people interested in working with this population. Additionally, Dr. Rowe will discuss interesting case examples from his experience working with the Air Force. Currently, he is a civilian working with operational support teams. Attending this brown bag will be a great opportunity to hear about a unique career route.
NOVEMBER
Yvon Dalat
Certified Performance Technologist
Past President of International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI) Yvon Dalat – will walk the audience through performance improvement techniques. His real world experience working for Raytheon using 6 Sigma in the company, and being a program manager will highlight effective workplace interventions and the programs he championed. The principles and standards of performance improvement will be outlined and he will guide the audience through real world examples while explicitly showing the contribution each principle has towards improving employee performance in the workplace. He will also touch on the history of ISPI and the influential people who pioneered performance improvement and started ISPI, including Joe Harless, Geary Rummler, and Thomas Gilbert; many of which are renowned Behavior Analysts as well.
Sponsored by IOGSO
DECEMBER
Dr. Liliana Mayo
Founder and Executive Director, Centro Ann Sullivan del Peru (CASP)
How is it that the best businesses in Peru hire people with autism and some of those people have been working continuously for 23 years? Because they have found that people with autism are good workers, don’t gossip, ask for more work and are loyal to the business where they work. Centro Ann Sullivan of Peru (CASP) has more than 100 students working in 44 business. Sixty percent of them have autism. All receive the same pay and benefits as other employees and are included in all social activities in their work places. Many help their families economically by paying the costs of the water and electricity, paying for the medication of their parents or even starting the construction of their own home. And CASP student/workers receive the same social benefits as all Peruvian workers.
It is important that persons with autism, especially those from extreme poverty, work in a supported employment program because it leads to including them in all aspects of society and because it leads to poverty reduction.
CASP just celebrated its 40th anniversary; so they are not only one of the first behavior-analysis-based autism centers in Latin America, but in the world. And more importantly, it is one of the very few centers that has been able to work with their clients from pre-school to adulthood, using applied behavior analysis within their Functional Natural Curriculum to make a significant change in the quality of their lives and their family’s lives. CASP uses behavior analysis in their early childhood, preschool, school, vocational, supported-employment, and inclusion programs. And all these programs put a heavy emphasis on family training and participation. A major factor in their success is that CASP provides the families with 170 hours of behavior-analysis training each year.
Dr. Liliana Mayo
Founder and Executive Director, Centro Ann Sullivan del Peru (CASP)
One key to the success of our students at the Centro Ann Sullivan in Peru (CASP) is what we call the “Power of Two”, where families and professional behavior analysts work as a team. Forty years ago, Dr. Mayo founded The School of Families of CASP, with just eight students and their families. Now they provide behavior-analysis training for more than 450 families, each year. At CASP, families are partners in the education of their children. Together with CASP’s professional behavior analysts, they work as a team to provide the very comprehensive behavior-analysis intervention and education for their students. CASP families receive a total of 171 hours of behavior analysis training annually, through group and individual sessions. Each family receives their own, annually updated, individual educational plan (IEP) that outlines the behavior-analytic skills they need to learn to be the best parents and teachers for their child. These skills are then taught in the classroom, in the community, and five times a year individual family training occurs in the home of the student. CASP believes the whole family is important to the success of the student and as such, twice a year more than 400 siblings of our students attend training to learn behavior-analytic skills that help being a sibling and also a teacher.
JANUARY
IOGSO Panel Discussion with Lauren Eagle and Hannah Houtz
Students will have the opportunity to practice consulting skills through multifaceted activities during this student-led workshop. Although IOBM coursework equips students with the skills to properly analyze a performance problem, students often express interest in gaining experience with the "soft-skills" involved in consulting practice. An important skill when consulting is to use client-friendly language around proposing solutions that meet them in the middle, shaping their view to see and understand the actual problem. During this workshop, students will have the opportunity to hear consulting advice and tips provided by our IOBM faculty, practice preparing for a client meeting by creating probe questions, and engage in hypothetical client-consultant interactions with fellow students using role-play scenarios. Students will have to navigate performance improvement situations using non-behavior analytic jargon in the presence of a variety of client types. Client-consultant pairs will take turns role-playing scenarios and providing constructive feedback. A social event will be held at a local establishment following the conclusion of the workshop.
MARCH
Dr. Thom Ratkos
Assistant Professor at Berry College
Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior has had a huge impact on the assessment and treatment of communication deficits in young children with autism. Most of these advances have arisen from the functional analysis of the basic verbal operants, relatively introductory material when compared to Verbal Behavior as a whole. However, there have been efforts to investigate more complex parts of Skinner’s interpretive work, not least of which the assertion that verbal behavior can be emitted privately and the verbal organism can respond as a listener to those private events. In this way, covert verbal mediation has been touted as an explanation for some instances of delayed matching-to-sample and sequencing tasks, perhaps ignoring conflicting data or alternative explanations. This talk will present two experiments investigating tasks which have so far been assumed to require verbal mediation, and an additional novel experiment demonstrating the control of descriptive autoclitics with adult subjects.
Sponsored by BAGSO
Lisa Toenniges
CEO, Innovative Learning Group
Lisa Toenniges is the owner and chief executive officer of Innovative Learning Group, a company she founded in March 2004. A dynamic and respected leader, Lisa has more than 30 years of experience in the performance improvement industry and has consulted with many Fortune 1000 companies about their learning and performance strategies and solutions.
ILG was born out of Lisa’s passion for building a business, providing for her employees, and doing what is right for clients. Her entrepreneurial spirit, positive outlook, and hands-on leadership style have been the drivers behind ILG’s profitable annual compound growth.
Lisa has devoted more than three decades to the International Society for Performance Improvement and last served on its board of directors as past president. She also is a Certified Performance Technologist.
In 2018, Lisa began a two-year term on the Board of Trustees of On My Own of Michigan and was named a Transformative Leader by MichBusiness.
Sponsored by IOGSO
may
Dr. Amanda Karsten Brown Bag
Faculty Specialist II at Western Michigan University, Department of Psychology
The purpose of this event is to help graduate students develop their scholarly writing repertoires. First, we will briefly discuss common pitfalls for students writing up their theses or dissertations. Next, I will suggest strategies to help students respond to their work as “[writer] and [reader] in the same skin.” We will conclude with time for questions and resource sharing among attendees. Finally, I invite student attendees to sign up for an optional, small-group workshop to apply new strategies to their writing sample with my support. Please email amanda.karsten@wmich.edu before 5PM on Thursday, May 14 to reserve your spot. May 15 workshops will take place from 2-3PM, 3-4PM, and 4-5PM.
Sponsored by BAGSO