The ABACLive Cambridge Center Series Presents Dr. William Ahearn: Best Practices in Autism Treatment: From Stereotypy to Social Skills – Thursday 7/12/18 pm

Intensive behavior analytic intervention for young children diagnosed with autism can produce large gains in social, cognitive, and language development. One critical area to address is repetitive behavior such as stereotypy. Some applied research on evaluating and treating stereotypic behavior will be reviewed, focusing on effective interventions for building core adaptive living and social skills, in addition to procedures for treating stereotypic behavior directly. Response Interruption and Redirection (RIRD) research for treating stereotypy has shown that many variations of this procedure can be effective even with individuals with limited vocal, verbal skills. Variations of the procedure and when they are most appropriate will be discussed along with videos depicting the procedure. This presentation will also describe automatic reinforcement as a concept briefly and repetitive behavior associated with anxiety.  However, the primary focus will be on problem behavior that is automatically reinforced and the challenges in altering response hierarchies in a pragmatic manner.

Learning Objectives:

1.      Participants will be able to describe characteristics of autism such as stereotypy as they relate to effective treatment with best practice procedures.
   
   2.       Participants will be able to describe response interruption and redirection procedures as they relate to effective treatment for stereotypy.
   
   3.       Participants will be able to describe skill building procedures as they relate to effective treatment for stereotypy.
   
   4.       Participants will be able to describe social skill procedures as they relate to effective treatment for stereotypy.
   
   

Bill Ahearn joined The New England Center for Children® in August 1996, and serves as the Director of Research.  He is also Adjunct Faculty in Western New England University’s masters and doctoral programs. Bill was named the 2009 American Psychological Association – Division 25 awardee for Enduring Contributions to Applied Behavioral Research.  His work has been published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Behavioral Interventions, Behavior Modification, The Lancet, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and has written book chapters on teaching children with autism and pediatric feeding problems in children with autism.  Bill is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Behavioral Interventions and serves on several Editorial Boards. Bill is a past-President of APBA and BABAT and serves as the chair of the board that licenses behavior analysts in MA.

Dr. Ahearn does not receive speaker fees for presenting as part of the ABACLive Cambridge Center Series. These fees are donated directly to The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (TM).