8:00-9:00 a.m. Reception Area (2nd Floor)
Registration (Open all day)
Note: Continental breakfast will be available in the Ballroom during registration. Free for convention registrants.

---

Keynote Speaker

Jon S. Bailey, Ph.D.
(Florida State University)

9:00 - 10:15 am
Ballroom

 

Representative Publications

   

---

Addresses and Symposia

Cognitive Psychology from the Standpoint of a Radical Behaviorist. Jay Moore (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Cognitive psychology is the name for a class of positions that embrace mentalism: appeals to explicitly nonbehavioral states, mechanisms, processes, structures, and the like, operating in an explicitly nonbehavioral dimension of the mind, as causally effective antecedents in explanations of behavior. The present article reviews the background and nature of cognitive psychology, especially as contrasted with behaviorism. Of particular interest are the theoretical and philosophical differences between cognitive psychology and behaviorism, for instance, as those differences concern their respective explanatory practices. We conclude that cognitive psychology has conceptual affinities with mediational neobehaviorism, and that the radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner differs from them both.

The present paper critically examines the bold claims of Relational Frame Theory (RFT) advocates that RFT is a comprehensive approach to the phenomena referred to in traditional parlance as language and cognition, and is manifestly preferable in both scope and detail to that found in B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior. Although some data do indicate a high positive correlation between derived relational responding and verbal behavior, in keeping with RFT, other data indicate at best a low correlation. The reasons for the differences between expected and actual correlations across the several data sets are not clear. We conclude that despite the value of RFT, the nature and causes of derived relational responding, as well as the relation between derived relational responding and verbal behavior more generally, remain an important area of investigation.

Special Showing: PBS Frontline--Prisoners of Silence.

Prisoners of Silence, PBS/Frontline's revealing 1993 critique of facilitated communication (FC), which features BAAM Keynote speaker Howard Shane, remains as relevant today as it was when first broadcast 15 years ago. After a decade and a half, FC proponents have not yet provided appropriate empirical evidence of the effectiveness of their technique. During the same time, numerous scientific studies have shown that FC reliably fails to work when tested under properly controlled conditions. Rather than abandoning FC for something better, FC advocates simply assert that FC cannot be scientifically tested and continue to promote it. As a result, FC continues to do harm. In just the last 12 months, criminal, civil, and appellate court cases on on FC have occurred in Michigan, Illinois, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. In Michigan, a man spent 80 days in jail falsely accused of abuse through FC. In Chicago, recent lawsuit centered on a child who wasted valuable time doing FC at a doctor's recommendation rather than receiving an effective intervention. In England, James Pinnington, accused of abuse through FC but later cleared, remains unemployed because he cannot get his name removed from a sex offender registry. Prisoners of Silence serves as an important reminder about the need for the careful consideration and empirical examination of the ever-present problems of unconscious cueing, prompt dependency, and expectancy biases when dealing with mediated communications from individuals whose own expressive abilities are or can be compromised.

---

How to Get Into Graduate School
Chair: TBA

Advice, guidance, and hints about getting into graduate school. Will cover GRE, letters of recommendation, statement of purpose, selecting a school, masters versus doctorate, Psy.D. versus Ph.D., how many schools to apply to, meeting dates and deadlines, interviewing, and many more topics. Will include question and answer period.

BAAM Annual Job and Practicum Fair

BAAM's annual Job and Practicum Fair will feature presentations by local and regional organizations and agencies that hire behavior analysts and sponsor practicum opportunities. Following the formal presentations, job seekers may meet with representatives of the agencies and organizations.