Episode Details

Drs. Jane Howard and Gina Green join me today in a podcast that could've spanned several hours. In the time we had, we did manage to cover quite a bit of territory, including the following:

• What Gina has been up to since retiring from the Association for Professional Behavior Analysts (spoiler alert: she's not hanging out at the beach reading mystery novels).
• We talk about Jane's career in behavior analysis, including how she got into the field, some of her many, many accomplishments (including being recently honored as a Fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis International), and what she is working on these days.
• The basics of research design, including why some experimental questions lend themselves to certain designs over others. In this segment, we also cover group or between-subjects designs and meta analyses, which are relevant to understand when looking at the ABA outcome literature.
• The distinction of criterion vs. norm referenced assessments.
• We discussed a number of initiatives and resources in the general realm of ABA treatment, including the current state of licensure, The ABA Coding Coalition, The Autism Commission on Quality, & CASP.
• We talked at length about critical thinking, healthy skepticism, and epistemology in Behavior Analysis.

In addition to these topics, we probably spent the most time talking about the empirical support for ABA interventions for individuals with Autism. In doing so, we discussed the large research projects that Jane and Gina led, what to make of some of the criticisms of this literature that is starting to gain some notoriety, and what research questions we still need answers to.

Jane and Gina mentioned numerous studies and resources, and I've done my best to catalog them below:

• Session 21 (my first interview with Gina in 2017).
• Howard, J., Sparkman, C., Cohen, H., Green, G, & Stanislaw, H. (2005). A comparison of intensive behavior analytic and eclectic treatments for young children with autism. doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2004.09.005
• Howard, J. S., Stanislaw, H., Green, G., Sparkman, C. R., & Cohen, H. G. (2014). Comparison of behavior analytic and eclectic early interventions for young children with autism after three years.
• Stanislaw, H., Howard, J., & Martin, C. (2020). Helping parents choose treatments for young children with autism: A comparison of applied behavior analysis and eclectic treatments.
• Eldevik, S., Hastings, R. P., Hughes, J. C., Jahr, E., Eikeseth, S., & Cross, S. (2010). Using participant data to extend the evidence base for intensive behavioral intervention for children with autism.
• Klintwall, L., Eldevik, S., & Eikeseth, S. (2015). Narrowing the gap: Effects of intervention on developmental trajectories in autism.
• Padilla, K.L., Weston, R., Morgan, G.B., Lively, P., & O'Guinn, N. (2023). Validity and reliability evidence for assessments based in applied behavior analysis: A systematic review.
• Steinbrenner, J. R., Hume, K., Odom, S. L., Morin, K. L., Nowell, S. W., Tomaszewski, B., Szendrey