Applied Behavior Analysis Commons^™

Evaluating The Effects Of Abbreviated And Full-Length Training Formats On Implementation Of Embedded Instruction Practices, Hannah Elizabeth Keene

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an abbreviated training package and full-length behavioral skills training (BST) on staff implementation of embedded instruction (EI) procedures in a university-affiliated inclusive early childhood center. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used with four student workers in inclusive preschool classrooms. The initial intervention included a package of didactic instruction and in-vivo modeling. Full BST was planned for participants who did not reach mastery criteria following the brief training.

The primary dependent variable was participant fidelity of EI implementation, and the secondary dependent variable measured the rate of …

The Cross Cultural Study Of Self-Ideation: Eastern Vs Western, Florencia Suhartono

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Self-Ideation behavior, a topic that although is increasing in awareness, is also increasing in victims as well. One thing is very clear however, both the Eastern and Western countries still see suicide and its related attitude in a taboo perspective. Regarding this, factors of various customs of each respective country will be further explained; taking note on how their contrasting cultural differences may potentially feed on the self-harming attitude that each victim may have developed. It will continue on explaining the more specific details on how each side of the world reacts when a person declares their self-ideating thoughts, studying …

The Effectiveness Of Behavioral Skills Training In Improving Digital Fraud Identification Among Older Adults In Low-Income Housing, Catharine Mohar

Masters Essays

Older adults, particularly those residing in low income housing facilities, are increasingly targeted by digital scams via text and email. This study evaluated the effectiveness of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) in improving fraud identification skills among this vulnerable population. BST is a structured method involving instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. A checklist was utilized in individual BST sessions with five participants aged 60 or over living in a low-income senior residential facility in the Midwest of The United States. The intervention aimed to increase participants’ ability to accurately discriminate between legitimate and fraudulent digital communications. A single case design was …

An Evaluation Of Teaching Emotion Identification And Regulation Skills Through Behavioral Skills Training On Tantrum/Challenging Behaviors In A Preschool-Aged Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Julia Petty

Masters Essays

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience challenges in regulating their emotions, which can present as challenging behavior, aggression, tantrum, and more. This research aimed to teach individuals coping skills/mindfulness techniques, using aspects of behavioral skills training (BST) to help regulate their emotions and reduce challenging behaviors. The use of behavioral skills training includes instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback to teach the skills. The intervention included the Incredible Five Point Scale for indicating emotions with mindfulness techniques to promote emotion regulation. The outcome was an increase in engagement with mindfulness techniques/coping skills, mastery of emotion identification, and a decrease …

How Does Language Influence Interest In Psychological Treatment?, Alexis B. Dixon

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In 2022, approximately 59 million adults in the United States were diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and approximately half received mental health services (NIMH, 2023). Given the number of individuals whose mental health concerns remain untreated, it is vital to investigate mechanisms predicting treatment-seeking behaviors. Health literacy, which influences treatment-seeking, is largely absent from research on barriers to mental health treatment. Health literacy is related to readability, the ease of reading (Adkins & Singh, 2001), and jargon, the technical language used by professionals in a field (Shulman et al., 2020). Health materials are often written at a high reading …

From Physical Correlation To Emotional Connection: The Role Of Passive Haptics On Empathy In Virtual Reality, Jemely Robles

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality is increasingly explored as a tool for cultivating empathy, and haptic feedback as a tool for enhancing immersion. This paper investigates the effects of combining the two.  Fifty-two participants experienced a custom-built VR scene in which a character was shown packing up a room. Participants were assigned to either a haptic condition, receiving passive haptic feedback corresponding to the character's actions, or a non-haptic control condition that did not receive any haptic input. Trait empathy was measured beforehand, and state empathy and engagement were measured after the experience. Thematic analysis was conducted on post-study interviews, and headset recordings …

Paradox Mindset In Working Parenthood: Linking Dual-Role Enrichment To Pursuit, Success, And Satisfaction, Tengjiao Huang, Xiaoyu Dai, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Managing the simultaneous demands of career and parenthood often generates tensions—particularly for women, who have historically been expected to take primary responsibility for caregiving. These gendered expectations persist, even as men increasingly express a desire to engage more actively in caregiving while maintaining their professional roles. Drawing on paradox mindset theory and work-family enrichment literature, this research investigated whether a paradox mindset—a cognitive tendency to embrace and value tensions—is positively associated with an aspiration for enrichment between work and parenting roles. In turn, this aspiration is hypothesized to predict intentions and outcomes related to dual-role pursuit. Three cross-sectional survey studies …

The Effects Of Auditory Stimulation On Vocal Stereotypy In An Individual With Autism In A Classroom Setting, Natalie Pastor

Masters Theses

Vocal stereotypy, which includes non-functional vocal behaviors such as babbling, grunting, or repetitive phrases, is often seen in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although this behavior is not harmful, it can interfere with learning and social interaction, especially during leisure time. When engaging in vocal stereotypy is disruptive to those around them, it may limit opportunities for meaningful social engagement with peers. The current study builds on prior research by examining the effects of different types of noncontingent auditory stimuli on vocal stereotypy in a classroom setting. This study seeks to answer the question: What is the impact of …

Effect Of Delay On Reinforcer Preference And Efficacy, Ciara Jasmine Rodriguez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Behavior intervention plans are used to increase desired behavior and decrease problem behavior, and these plans require the use of effective reinforcers. High-quality reinforcers that are delivered immediately tend to be the most effective, but optimal reinforcement parameters are not always feasible or appropriate in applied settings. Some reinforcers may be disruptive, teachers’ competing responsibilities may introduce delays to reinforcer delivery, and reinforcers may not be immediately accessible. Stimuli may lose their reinforcing value with delay to their receipt, and this is referred to as delay discounting. Thus, there is likely a point where a less preferred but immediately delivered …

Effects Of Fluency-Based And Percentage-Based Mastery Criteria On Learning, Maintenance, Application, And Learner Experience In Behavior-Analytic Skill Acquisition, Marisela Alicia Aguilar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In behavior analysis, staff are often trained to percentage-based criteria to demonstrate that they have mastered a skill. However, percentage-based mastery criteria may not result in long-term maintenance of the skill. In other areas of instruction, fluency criteria resulted in multiple positive outcomes such as maintenance, endurance, and application of the skill beyond the training context, but these outcomes have not yet been widely demonstrated in the context of teaching behavior support plan (BSP) content and implementation. Across two experiments, we attempted to evaluate the extent to which training individuals to a fluency-based or percentage-based criterion resulted in maintenance and …

Examining The Effects Of Video Modeling To Enhance Culturally Specific Social Greeting Skills In Preschoolers With Asd In Saudi Arabia, Sarah Alzahrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A lack of social communication skills, including initiation and responding, has been a prominent characteristic of children diagnosed with ASD (Kanner, 1943; Kroeger et al., 2007). Enhancing these skills in children with ASD during early childhood is crucial to their future relationships, friendships, participation in communal activities, and overall lowering the likelihood of adverse long-term effects, giving significance to this age as a pivotal period for enhancing various skills (Hart Barnett, 2018). Failure to provide interventions to address social communication in children with ASD, specifically in cultures that value this skill, can impede their integration into that society. Thus, this …

Evaluating Joint Control Teaching Procedures For Teaching Yes-No Responding With Tact And Intraverbal Questions For Children With Autism, Desiree J. Dawson

Theses & Dissertations

Responding to yes and no questions is a general language skill that allows individuals to efficiently interact with their verbal community. Few behavior analytic studies have sought teaching this skill in general, with even fewer studies seeking to teach this skill when it pertains to a tact or intraverbal context. All behavior analytic studies to date seeking to teach this skill have used direct prompting and reinforcement of the yes and no responses, but there is little guidance for what can be done if this teaching strategy is not producing desired acquisition. The current experiments examined a teaching procedure informed …

Marooned: A Western Frontier Dismal Swamp Narrative, Professor Meya E. Hargett

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

Marooned: A Western Frontier Dismal Swamp Narrative centers the erased figure of Samuel Mars, a lost Black station master whose movements through the Great Dismal Swamp have been excluded from dominant Underground Railroad cartographies. Here, the term “Marooned” refers not to abandonment, but to the maroon geographies of Black and Indigenous resistance encoded in land, lineage, and fugitive infrastructure.

Guided by Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory, Lineage as Method, and the Maroon Geographies Framework, this research reconstructs Mars’s trajectory through oral testimony, spatial patterning, and ancestral land memory. Rather than casting the Dismal Swamp merely as a site of refuge, this …

Exploring The Impact Of Inpatient Mental Health Care On Adolescents, Alexandria M. Mckahan

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Adolescent psychiatric hospitalizations continue to rise, yet there is limited research on which daily practices inside inpatient units genuinely support engagement and recovery. This project examined how structure, staff tone, and therapeutic programming influence adolescents’ participation and emotional stability within a real inpatient setting. The study focused on three questions: how structured routines affect recovery, what challenges staff face when supporting adolescents with complex needs, and how adolescents’ engagement patterns reflect their perception of care. Using a mixed-methods case study at Mesa Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, I conducted approximately twenty field observations, semi-structured staff interviews, and descriptive engagement tracking across …

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2025 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

The Implementation Of Tact And Bidirectional Intraverbal Training In Teaching A Foreign Language: A Systematic Replication, Karen Parra Caballero

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The current study replicates and extends Yamaguchi and Matsuda (2024) to evaluate the effects of foreign tact and bidirectional intraverbal training on teaching foreign-language vocabulary to adults. An adapted alternating-treatments design was used to evaluate the effects of learning vocabulary of a foreign language through tact teaching (tacting a picture in French), foreign-native intraverbal teaching (vocalizing a French word in the presence of the Spanish word), and native-foreign intraverbal teaching (vocalizing a French word in the presence of the Spanish word). Each teaching condition had an assigned stimulus set for teaching, and an additional stimulus set was included as a …

Socially Interfering Sexual Behaviors In Autistic Adolescents And Treatments As Reported By Behavior Analysts, Steven Pai

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Caregivers often express concern regarding socially interfering sexual behaviors (SISB) in autistic adolescents, yet recent literature offers limited updates on this topic. Existing survey studies have primarily relied on parent, caregiver, or educator reports, with little focus from the perspective of healthcare professionals. To address this gap, the present study surveyed Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA) about the SISB they encounter, commonly utilized interventions employed, and their perceived effectiveness. Of 120 respondents, 74 qualified BCBAs provided data on behaviors such as socially interfering comments, public masturbation, touching others, and public disrobing. Public arousal, verbal remarks/comments, and sexualized gestures were the …

Examining Religiosity, Suicidality, And Internalized Homonegativity Among Ethnoracially Diverse Sexual Minority Students, Danica Christy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sexual minority (SM) individuals are at an elevated risk for suicidality, particularly those who hold multiple marginalized identities, including religious and racial minority statuses. While religiosity is generally protective against psychological distress and suicide for heterosexual individuals, its impact on SM individuals is more complex. It may function as both a risk and a protective factor. The current mixed methods study explored the relationships between religiosity, internalized homonegativity (IH), and suicidality among an ethno-racially diverse sample of college students (n = 246). Quantitative analyses revealed that SM participants (n = 123) reported significantly higher rates of suicidality than their heterosexual …

The Hidden World Of Evil: Documenting Serial Killers Through The Centuries, An Evolution., Semieca Wilson

Master of Arts in Human Services

The following is an analysis of the phenomenon of serial killers from their development over time, and why it mattered due to how they operated on society. Cases reported from the past to present century were read and analyzed in search of recurring psychological patterns, changes in methods of inspecting cases and the effects of cultural, technological transformation on both felons as well as those who trailed them. The site is a product of my professional interest in the area of criminal psychology and forensic analysis and reflects my objective to provide myself and other interested professionals, academics, law enforcement …

Exiting Commercial Sexual Exploitation, Jeanne L. Allert, Sherri L. Wyatt

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This study presents one of the largest qualitative samples of exited female survivors of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States to date. One hundred and eighty-nine female survivors participated in a national survey. The participants described their motivations for exiting commercial sexual exploitation, the pathways they followed, the forces that hindered their exit and increased their recidivism, and the assistance they received that ensured a permanent exit. Some of the findings challenge popular narratives on recidivism rates and what keeps women in exploitation, revealing complex relational, behavioral, economic, and systemic influences. Participants spoke about the unanticipated value of incarceration, …