Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
6/29 O’Brien, M. J., Pauls, A. M., Jeglum, S. R., Martinez-Perez, C. N., Franck, C. T., Aggarwal, I., & Podlesnik, C. A. (2026). Latency and persistence of renewal in an intensive outpatient clinic. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70071. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70071
(Open access) In a case series of 98 participants, latency to behavior was not associated with renewal or persistence, but greater renewal magnitude predicted duration of persistence. Context change type (people, settings, tasks) did not have a differential effect

Behavior Analysis in Practice
6/29 Anonymous Author Invisibility and Vulnerability of International Latin American Female Students in the U.S. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-025-01069-6
(Open access) We have never seen an article published by an anonymous author. Then again, for Latin American people in the United States, this year has been...interesting

Britwum, K., Chong, I.M. & Leon, Y. A Participatory Action Research Collaborative (PARC) Approach to Building Research Infrastructure Across ABA Agencies. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01203-y
(Open access) To increase research, the authors recommend a university-agency partnership model

6/30 Symons, R.M., Bukspan, A. & Harper, J. Beyond the Scoreboard: Reshaping Youth Sports Culture Using an Applied Behavior Analysis Framework. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01205-w
How ABA can contribute to sports training and culture. For more on training, see Garry Martin

7/1 Casas, K.O., Blair, KS.C. & Risse, M.R. An Evaluation of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce Secondary (PTR-SEC) Model for Middle School Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01195-9
(Open access) Prevent Teach Reinforce is a manualized ABA treatment marketed to school personnel that decreased problem behavior and increased on-task behavior in 3 students with EBD

Niland, H.S., Hamrick, J., Ahmed, A. et al. Evaluating Structured Group Supervision to Support Practice-based Research Skills in Applied Behavior Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01206-9
(Open access) A 6 week group supervision process taught university-based practitioners to create and publish research. Their knowledge improved but direct training on various skills is probably necessary to increase publication

Li, J., Luna, O. & Choi, E. Enhancing Supervisor Feedback Quality Using a Checklist, Performance Feedback, and Self-Monitoring. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01198-6
Self-monitoring, a checklist, and feedback improved supervisory feedback during role play for 5 participants, and 3/5 generalized the skills to a new role play

Bolívar, H.A., Fernand, J.K. & Buxton, E.K. Ethics Continuing Education Events at Association for Behavior Analysis International Annual Conventions (2016-2024): A Topic Modeling Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01207-8
The authors examined ethics presentations at ABAI from 2016-2024 to survey the topics, finding about 25 common themes

Behavioral Interventions *
7/4 Fletcher, Victoria L., Sarah A. Lechago, and Julia M. Emery. 2026. “Teaching the “Why?” Mand for Information to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Behavioral Interventions: e70124. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70124
They taught 3 autistic kids to mand “Why?” under 3 different EOs using a progressive echoic prompt delay. But...why

Journal of Behavioral Education
6/30 Lanovaz, M.J. On the External Validity of Single-Case Designs: A Bayesian Approach. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09639-6
A suggestion that prior experience and outcomes in literature can be combined into an estimate of treatment success

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
July 2026 Preview

Episodes will include:

• Preparing for Public School Practice w/ Dr. Kristin Foley + Dr. Fina Robertson

• Ethics for Today and Tomorrow w/ Dr. Jon Bailey

• Inequitable Discipline w/ Dr. Mawule Sevon

• So You Want to Teach Reading (When Text Speaks Book Club) w/ Dr. Denise Ross + Dr. Douglas Greer

All Things Behavior
A Mediational Theory of Verbal Relations with Hank Schlinger and Eb Blakely

Behavioral Observations
Essential for Living in Action: Building Meaningful Skills Through Everyday Events | Session 334 with Kristina Montgomery and Emily Beal Wilkinson

Functional Relations
#44 - Leveling Up the Respondent-Operant Distinction w/ Dr. Michael Domjan

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
Our Discipline’s Paper Trail, Part 1: What Exactly Are Behavior Analysis Journals For?

Our Discipline’s Paper Trail, Part 2: How to Declutter the Journal Closet
Tom Critchfield makes the case for consolidating journals

Sharing Sustainability Successes: Organizational Green Networks
A few organizations described

OAR
When Autism Is Misread: Helping Autistic Individuals Prepare for Police Encounters
Is it a problem that we have to talk to various populations about how the police will probably try to murder them at some point?

Licensing & professional organizations

EAHB
Community Updates: call for papers on creativity as behavior

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

The promising fix for mental health crises that hospitals can’t afford is: dedicated mental health units that direct people away from the emergency room. These types of “we can’t afford effective treatment” stories are always questionable. When the #1 mental health problem is depression and each ER visit costs $13k on average, why keep shunting people into inappropriate treatment in an emergency department? Well, specialized units apparently have trouble getting reimbursed, so the actual problem is the existence of insurance companies

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Why Americans are living longer again, Vox
Americans aren’t just living longer – all cause mortality could be at the lowest level in American history. Virtually the entire reason: a sharp decline in overdose deaths. Why might this be the case, when “we can’t afford effective treatment”? As this Vox article notes, the US has cracked down on international supplies of precursor chemicals for synthetic drugs, but also lots of addicts have simply already died. Maybe we can get contingency management covered by health insurance companies before the next gas station heroin is invented?

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 7/9, 7/15, 7/20, 7/22 (ETH), 7/23 (SUP), 7/27 (SUP), 7/29

Flashback

Congress on behavior modification

The first issue of JABA was published in 1968, and just six years later the chairman of the subcommittee on constitutional rights was opining:

At this point, behavior modification was new and being applied to both prisoners and to institutionalized people with developmental disabilities – communities with a desperate need for compassionate treatment, but with a definitionally compromised ability to consent. In particular this applied to punishment procedures, in what became known as the “aversives controversy.”

There are some interesting court cases discussed, but also this is congress, so they fundamentally misunderstand the topic at hand:

In a decade beginning in 1915, perhaps 1 million people around the world caught a disease, encephalitis lethargica, with a still-unknown etiology. A small number of those people became “frozen” – alive, but with little-to-no motor movement or speech. (This is a distinctly different condition from “Locked-in Syndrome.”)

In 1966, Sacks consulted at a “long-term residential care facility” in New York wherein he recognized that some of the 500 patients – up to 80, in his estimation – might have survived the encephalitis lethargica outbreak. And in observing their condition, he recognized similarities with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition, that was being treated with a drug called levodopa. The first peer-reviewed publication on levodopa in Parkinson’s arrived in 1968. Sacks began to treat his patients with levodopa in 1969. This was cutting edge – or rather, experimental – treatment.

The effects of levodopa were almost unbelievable: patients, unable to move or speak for up to 40 years, began walking and talking within days of starting levodopa. And not only that, but writing their names, dancing, and having conversations.

The bitter end to the story is that the drug quickly wore off, stopped working over time, and sometimes induced frustrating side effects such as tardive dyskinesia.

But a close reading of Awakenings would reveal problems.

A 2025 New Yorker profile by Rachel Aviv raises concerns with Sacks’ writing. The reporting used access to Sacks’ archives to confirm that, at least in some cases, Sacks was…what, exactly?

He was characterizing his patients, as a writer does. But his characterization was sometimes, charitably, fictionalization. An uncharitable person could easily call these lies.

Notably, Aviv writes about a patient from Awakenings called “Leonard L.” Sacks quotes Leonard using the poetry of Rilke, spelling on a letter board to compare himself to a caged panther. It’s a beautiful poem.

As Aviv notes, Sacks himself used the panther metaphor several times in his own personal correspondence, to characterize his own feelings as a closeted gay man.

Later, after treatment with levodopa, Leonard would write an autobiography. While encephalitis and levodopa were both understood to induce hypersexual behavior in some cases, Leonard’s autobiography includes several gleeful descriptions of sexual assaults that he committed as a young man.

Was Leonard a fan of Sacks’ favorite poet, by coincidence? Or was Sacks fictionalizing his patient?

Anna Stubblefield was a philosophy professor at Rutgers who threw herself wholeheartedly into Facilitated Communication, serving as a facilitator in her free time. She began working with a man, DJ, afflicted by cerebral palsy. While he had never spoken and had very limited control over his movements, with Anna’s help he began to spell words using a letter board.

Anna found that DJ could spell, despite a lifetime of special education. In fact, he wanted to become a writer. He loved poetry. And he liked red wine. Improbably, he enjoyed many of the same things that, say, a philosophy professor might.

But of course, that’s because the words he wrote were authored by Anna.

There are many people who independently use letters – a letter board, a keyboard, etc. – to communicate. But in almost all cases, FC messages are authored by the facilitator. This is perhaps due to a phenomenon called the ideomotor effect, familiar to anyone who has used a Ouija board. Skinner described a similar effect in Verbal Behavior as being responsible for “automatic writing,” which was sometimes attributed to various imaginary forces, like ghosts or the subconscious. Indeed, one of Skinner’s earliest publications (if you don’t count the poetry he wrote at 15) was an Atlantic piece regarding Gertrude Stein’s automatic writing.

Anna Stubblefield surely did not know she was the sole author of DJ’s communication. She couldn’t have known because she believed that she fell in love, and began a relationship that caused her to be arrested, tried, and convicted of abuse.

It’s true that she fell in love, but she fell in love with communication that originated with her. She fell in love with herself.

Facilitated Communication has failed scientifically. It has even failed on television, in an excellent episode of PBS Frontline from 1993.

The debunking is rather simple: show a picture to the facilitator and to the communicator. In some cases, the image will be the same, while in others the image that each person sees is different. In all cases, the communicator types what the facilitator sees – even when the communicator didn’t see it. There is a reenactment of this process in the Frontline episode, as well as several peer-reviewed experiments to this effect.

If you’re more of a book reader, there’s a comprehensive chapter devoted to FC in Controversial Therapies for Autism and Developmental Disabilities.

Still, it persists as a strange cultural artifact. FC has been repackaged and resold as rapid prompting. It has been credulously rediscovered in a mainstream podcast, fittingly entitled “The Telepathy Tapes.” There are even books “written” via FC.

What is left to debunk?

The most surprising aspect of Facilitated Communication stories is the homogeneous mainstream striving of most communicators.

Set aside the myriad other problems: they want to go to college, write books, get married. They quote Rilke and develop a taste for red wine.

Nobody wants to type about trains or buses? Not one expresses a desire to transition? None want to be a YouTuber, or play video games all day? Not every communicator is autistic, but are they all so…neurotypical? (Lest you think we exaggerate, here is an example of 8 qualitative interviews, with the interviewees mentioning dating and friendships. While these are a common human experience, it is remarkable how conventionally the sentiments are expressed.)

Why is every communicator a secret poet?

Woody Brown is a published author, with an interesting backstory. He is an autistic man with a limited vocal repertoire, and he communicates via FC. His mother has a master’s degree in English literature, and she serves as his facilitator. It’s a fortuitous coincidence that Woody wanted to be a writer.

The first chapter of his 2026 book about an adult day program, Upward Bound, includes references to Charles Dickens and the Carter administration, as well as an admission that, despite “typing” with FC, he can’t dial 3 digits on a phone (?).

A later chapter refers to “political correctness,” a concept that, let’s just say, has been overshadowed for nearly the entire lifespan of one Woody Brown:

The second chapter of Upward Bound is about Tom, a man with cerebral palsy. The chapter describes his inner monologue, his dreams, his hopes. There’s an aside that Tom has no method of communication.

It is, strictly speaking, fictional.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
6/22 Lemons, A., & Wilder, D. A. (2026). The effect of varied versus constant high-probability instructional sequences on cooperation. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70073. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70073
3 children got either varied or constant high-p sequences; 1/3 performed better with varied sequences, while 2/3 saw the same performance in both conditions

Behavior Analysis in Practice
6/24 Kestner, K.M., St. Peter, C.C., Cucinotta, K.A. et al. Variations of Shaping to Increase Academic Engagement. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01202-z
Two variations of a percentile schedule, plus standard shaping, were used in an extended school year program with 3 students. The percentile schedules were not effective in teaching skills, perhaps because changes were sometimes too small to contact reinforcement

Sun, T., Chang, H. & Sivaraman, M. Effects of a Contingent Imitation Intervention on Generalized Imitation in Young Children with Developmental Delays. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01204-x
3 children with developmental delays were taught with a generalized imitation procedure wherein they introduced imitation for known actions, then novel actions. When probing additional novel actions, all learners improved their imitation skills

Yeo, Y., Sivaraman, M., Sun, Y. et al. Establishing Oral Motor Imitation Using Video Modeling. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01199-5
3 autistic preschoolers were taught oral motor imitation using video models and the selfie screen on a tablet (instead of a mirror); all learned 9 movements. Additionally the participants increased accuracy on echoics and engaged in novel vocalizations

Behavioral Interventions *
6/22 Mitteer, Daniel R., Casey I. Helvey, Andrew R. Craig, Grace E. Sigwanz, and Samantha L. Breeman. 2026. “Sexual Harassment in Behavior Analysis: Findings From a Preliminary Sample of Practitioners and Recommendations for the Field,” Behavioral Interventions: e70119. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70119
(Open access) In a survey of 345 practitioners, 82% of respondents had experienced some type of sexual harassment, mostly remarks or unwanted attention from coworkers or families served, particularly in junior roles

6/26 Leow-Dyke, Natalie, Rhys Jones, Maria Rossi, and Athanasios Vostanis. 2026. “Teaching Mathematics to Autistic Students in Special Education by Integrating Learn Units Within Precision Teaching,” Behavioral Interventions: e70118. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70118
(Open access) 4 kids with special needs were taught using precision teaching to match equivalent amounts of money, using flashcards and worksheets. All increased fluency in the skill

Behavior and Social Issues
6/22 Zagury Tourinho, E. Sustainability, Inclusion, and Negative Cultural Cusps. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00263-7
(Open access) Some “sustainability” projects will displace native communities, and the author labels these “negative cultural cusps”

Ijanc Neto, C., Aggio, N. Assessing the Explicit and Implicit Attitudes of Brazilians Toward Venezuelan Immigrants. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00262-8
(Open access) 102 Brazilians were subject to using the FAST to measure attitudes towards displaced Venezuelan immigrants. None had explicit negative attitudes, but performance on the FAST showed that some participants may have implicit negative attitudes

Behavior Modification *
6/24 Walker, V. L., Carpenter, M. E., Edwards-Bowyer, M., Pinczynski, M., Aiono-Conradi, L., Snodgrass, M. R., & Harris, R. (n.d.). A Systematic Review of School Personnel’s Involvement in Function-Based Intervention for Students With Extensive Support Needs. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261449774
In a literature review, the authors find that, in the case of students with Extensive Support Needs (ESN), researchers are often designing function-based interventions while school personnel are often implementers, but there are few studies

Journal of Behavioral Education
6/22 Joslyn, P. ., Najafichaghabouri, M. & Preston, E. Toward Improved Measurement of Academic Engagement. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09638-7
The authors used measures of “on-task behavior” (e.g., looking at materials, holding materials, etc.) and compared them to work products (e.g., completed worksheets) with 6 students in 5 different reinforcement conditions (e.g., work completion, on-task, work accuracy). In 3/6 students, there was a correspondence between on-task behavior and work completion. In 3/6 students there was at least 1 condition with high on-task behavior but low work completion

6/23 Kirkpatrick, M., Peña, H., Rogers, J. et al. Using a Video Activity Schedule and Social Scripts to Teach Cooperative Game Play and Social Communication to Autistic Children. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09640-z
6 autistic children at an inclusive summer camp were put in 3 dyads, then used antecedent social scripts and video modeling to teach games. The children increased their appropriate game play but there was no clear effect on social communication

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Medical Toleration

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
Carolina Bori and Creating the Conditions for Science
The story of one of the first Brazilian behaviorists

Screen Time Behavior Regulation & Some [sic]
A guest post discussing “behavior regulation” that we might characterize as allocation

Behavior Analysis Meets Artificial Intelligence: A Framework Built on Ethics First
no

Steve Hayes
We Were Built to Be Seen: Why I am getting on planes again — and why some things still do not travel through a screen.
Why Steve Hayes personally goes to trainings instead of using Zoom

OAR
Culturally Adapted Approaches to Supporting Arabic-Speaking Individuals with Autism

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAT
Clinically Significant Outcomes of Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis

CCBS
Hiring executive director

ASAN
ASAN Condemns OLC Memo Threatening Community Living

Take Action to Protect Our Health Care!
Continuing the fight against work requirements

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

GLP-1 drugs may reduce the risk of substance abuse disorders up to 75% and the federal government is publicizing Medicaid fraud from behavioral health providers, including one that fraudulently billed $75 million
Would it be unreasonable to suggest that behavioral health patients will someday be pushed into taking GLP-1s, while federal funds for standard treatments dry up?

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

‘I get a gold star when I go to the gym’: the adults using sticker charts for motivation, The Guardian
These types of articles often have a certain tongue-in-cheek nature – “sticker charts are for kids,” they begin, as does this article. But the author herself notes that, while she doesn’t use stickers, she tracks various behaviors she wants to increase, including exercising and eating fruits and vegetables.

While we do tend to agree with Catania that “self-reinforcement is a misnomer,” there are known benefits of tracking behavior in and of itself.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 7/2 (ETH), 7/9, 7/15, 7/20, 7/22 (ETH), 7/23 (SUP), 7/27 (SUP), 7/29

Flashback

The Harvard pigeon lab

BF Skinner and RJ Herrnstein give us a tour of the pigeon lab, complete with pigeon ping pong and green light-induced pigeon fights. This was released in 1960.

We also see teaching machines, and speculation that maybe this crazy pigeon stuff can be used with people.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
6/18 Dowling, E. W., Sloman, K. N., McGarry, K. M., & Martinez-Perez, C. N. (2026). Relations between heart rate and precursors: A replication and extension of prior research. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70072. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70072
Previously, attempting to predict challenging behavior from measures of heart rate alone was a failure. The authors attempted to examine whether heart rate changes around precursor behaviors would lead to effective predictions, but this was not the case

Behavior Analysis in Practice Volume 19, Issue 2 (40 articles, 14 open access)
Most intriguing: Exploring the Epistemological Significance of Qualitative Research in Behavior Analysis
(Open access) Interesting to see what could be a mainstreaming of qualitative research

6/16 Gunnarsson, K.F., Rzeszutek, M.J., Malkin, A. et al. A Function-Based Examination of Social Media Demand. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01197-7
(Open access) The authors analyzed operant demand for social media using a hypothetical purchase task with university students, finding that demand and cost sensitivity depended on function of use. People who use social media for attention (e.g., receiving likes) were most sensitive to cost, implying that they were most at-risk for problem use

6/17 Burnham Riosa, P., Robertson, T., Malkin, A. et al. Community Insights on Autistic Self-Advocates’ Perspectives and Experiences Regarding ABA. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01186-w
From an online panel, the authors identify 3 themes: 1) listening, 2) person-centered approach, and 3) continuous improvement

Behavioral Interventions * Volume 41, Issue 3 (13 articles, 2 open access)
Most intriguing: The Effects of Observation Conspicuousness on Data Collection Timeliness
People take data more accurately if they think someone is watching

6/20 Ochoa, Claudia A., Zachary C. LaBrot, Margaret Powell, Fiso Ncube, Amarah Sweaks, and Brad Dufrene. 2026. “Collaboration in the Digital Age: Virtual Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Effective Instruction Delivery for Children With Autism,” Behavioral Interventions: e70120. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70120
3 parents who were trained via computer to effectively deliver instructions to their children learned the skills and maintained them for 5 weeks

Behavior and Social Issues Volume 35, Issue 1 (23 articles, 4 open access)
Most intriguing: On Community and Revolution: Connections between Walden Two and The Conquest of Bread
(Open access) We have noted the public information that implies that Skinner was an anarchist, and while the authors of this piece don’t seem to reference News From Nowhere, they correctly identify the themes of Walden Two

6/19 Tourinho, E., Borba, A. & Cihon, T. Fascist Cultural Practices in the Twenty-First Century. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00261-9
(Open access) Fascism: what is it from a behavioral perspective, and what can be done to combat it (focused on what is happening in Brazil)

Behavior Modification *
6/19 Haidar, B., Alqunaysi, R., Meadan, H., Martin Loya, M. R., & De Alwis, M. (2026). Cultural Adaptation of a Caregiver Training Program for Arabic-Speaking Families: Feasibility and Social Validity. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261444277
14 caregivers in Saudi Arabia were trained asynchronously to use behavior strategies, and qualitative interviews examined the effects, which were largely positive

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior * Volume 126, Issue 1 (9 articles, 6 open access)
Most intriguing: The Genoeconomics of Impulsive Intertemporal Choice: A Critical Review
(Open access) Posted this week, this article goes into detail about the history of delay discounting

6/16 Palomino, M., Sosa, R., Mateos, Á., Pellón, R., & López-Tolsa, G. E. (2026). Shaping the extinction burst: Increasing its probability and preventing its emergence across topographies. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70119. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70119
(Open access) In a translational experiment, rats received 3 food pellets on an FR1 schedule, then were exposed to extinction. If target behavior was reinforced, extinction bursts persisted. In the rats exposed to extinction without reinforcement, later topographies did not experience extinction burst, implying that there was a generalization effect. Given the findings of this study, the authors speculate that extinction bursts are effectively learned behavior

6/18 Deng, W. Q., Belisario, K. L., Doggett, A., Elsayed, M., Cooper, A., & MacKillop, J. (2026). The Genoeconomics of Impulsive Intertemporal Choice: A Critical Review. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70120. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70120
(Open access) Delay discounting is examined as a genetic factor, though the authors admit that it is possible to alter

The Psychological Record
6/16 Grisante, P.C., Morais, S.M., de Moraes Hamasaki, E.I. et al. Emergent Reading of Japanese Hiragana via Stimulus Equivalence: A Preliminary Approach. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00691-2
(Open access) 3 Portuguese speakers used an MTS procedure to learn Hiragana (nonalphabetic sound symbols). All 3 had signs of emergent relations, with 2 showing emergent reading of Hiragana

Journal of Behavioral Education
6/18 Buttigieg, S., Greer, R. Establishment of Reinforcement for Looking at Books in Free-Play Settings Accelerates Preschoolers’ Learning to Read First Words. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09636-9
(Open access) All but one of 11 special ed and 5 gen ed preschoolers learned their first words 1.6-10.8 times faster after books were conditioned as reinforcers. This is a replication/extension of some of Greer’s other work

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Conceptual Learning w/ Dr. Catherine Williams

All Things Behavior
The History of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board’s Ethics Codes with Tyra Sellers and Holly Seniuk

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
World Cup Special Edition: The Beautiful Game, Magical Mands, and Divine Intercession
“No atheists in a foxhole” but make it World Cup

So, you passed the BCBA exam, now what?
Growing concern around the obvious AI slop in the ABAI blogs

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAT
A Treatment Summary of Dietary Interventions for Autism
They don’t work, but at least most aren’t harmful

ASAN
Moving Department of Education Offices Will Hurt Students with Disabilities

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

RFK Jr. Will Oversee Disability Education Policy and DOJ memo stokes fear among disability advocates of a return to institutionalization and More Than 770,000 Children Are No Longer Receiving SNAP Benefits After Trump Changes Federal Food Program and Medicaid cuts are beginning to have effects
Sure it all sounds bad, but to be fair, we need to focus on fighting a war (on algae)

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?, Quanta
Previously we highlighted this story in a note; it is a follow-up to earlier stories of replication and extension of McConnell’s work. However, the author talks to some experimenters who were not able to condition learning behavior with planaria, despite some heroic efforts. She concludes that perhaps planaria cannot learn.

We believe that this is an error, attributable to the vague definition implied by “learn.” Are planaria not subject to evolutionary pressures? That seems to be implausible. Even bacteria “learn” – because, as we wrote previously, “learning” in these organisms is strictly limited to “phylogenetically important events” (PIEs).

Why couldn’t the experimenters condition behavior with planaria? We can only speculate.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 6/23, 6/24, 6/25

Flashback

The Harvard archives through Watters’ eyes

Audrey Watters wrote an interesting book entitled Teaching Machines. On her blog, she detailed 5 days in the Harvard archives, frantically sifting through dozens of boxes of Skinner’s personal correspondence.

• Day 1

• Day 2

• Day 3

• Day 4

• Day 5

Among her findings: Skinner wrote and received a lot of letters. In her estimation, he wrote frequently to complain to businesses, sometimes about the ethics of their salespeople. He wrote letters to the editor, correcting their mistakes reporting on science. He also wrote to support a former student who became a conscientious objector.

It is the NCAA tournament title game in 2016. Villanova, a small (less than 7,000 undergrads) Philadelphia-area university is playing the University of North Carolina, a larger (20,000 undergrads) and more established program. While Villanova had won a single NCAA tournament in 1985 – still viewed by some as the biggest upset of all time – UNC had won 5, and won their 6th the very next year. There’s also a chance you’ve heard of the most famous UNC grad.

Villanova led by 3 when UNC’s Marcus Paige hit an incredible, impossible-looking 3-pointer. Villanova will inbound the ball. There is enough time for a single play.

The game cannot start. A kid mops sweat off the floor – important work, because the floors can be slippery.

Daniel Ochefu, a Villanova senior, takes the mop from the boy. On national TV, before his team inbounds the ball in a make-or-break moment, in what could be the most stressful moment of his college career, he mops. He appears to mop cheerfully, in fact. He wants to ensure that all the sweat is mopped up.

Ochefu (or was it the coaching staff?), by some cosmic coincidence, likes to say, “Be the best street sweeper you can be.”

The ball is inbounded, and one of the most famous 3-pointers in history ensures that the best court-mopper will not be forgotten.

The point guard who passed to the winning shooter was not world-famous Knicks player Jalen Brunson. It was significantly less-famous NBA journeyman Ryan Arcidiacono.

But Brunson was a freshman on that Villanova championship team. In fact, he started the championship game.

Brunson was, at this point, already an outstanding player. But he would repeat as NCAA champion two seasons later, and win an NBA championship a decade after that.

And few people get there without values-directed action.

“Be the best” implies values. Values are qualities, but not goals. That is to say, “honesty” is a value because it directs action but can never be achieved – a person has never reached the goal.

Meanwhile, the statement subtly avoids a trap. If it were phrased as “You are” or “I am the best street-sweeper,” it would imply, according to Steve Hayes, self-concept. The problem with a statement about a fixed quality is that nobody behaves perfectly in line with their values at all times.

A person who says, “I am the hardest worker” sleeps through their alarm. It’s a small mistake, but the mistake has implications for their self-concept. If you’re not the hardest worker, what are you?

But a person who says, “I want to be the hardest worker” can view behaviors more objectively. Success and failure are akin to movement along a continuum.

“Be the best” is a statement of values that directs action. “Best” as a superlative implies certain behaviors, including expending effort and using care.

“Street sweeper” is a real job, though anachronistic even in 2016. It’s obviously metaphorical (or it was, prior to Ochefu), and the meaning is probably two-fold: 1.) it’s not a “meaningful” job, and 2.) it’s a “dirty” job. While it’s important to keep streets clean, we can probably agree that American society does not place a high value on the job.

The value-judgment is a necessary part of the metaphor. They didn’t say “Be the best surgeon,” or even “Be the best NBA player.” The literal meaning is to do the best even when it isn’t “meaningful” – “Be the best at the little things.”

Metaphor has been well-understood to be an effective teaching tool. The Big Book of ACT Metaphors is like a bank vault, but the value therein is metaphors. Or, you know, it’s a book. The final lines of the foreword suggest that metaphors open up new territory, and:

“Try very hard” or “be optimistic” don’t contain the same punch as “be the best street sweeper you can be” or “look for the pony” (?).

Is a metaphor of unknown provenance the only reason that Jalen Brunson became an NBA champion?

If the shoe fits.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
6/8 Bottini, S., Kortanek, E., Rajagopal, S. et al. Guiding Principles for Researchers to Use Culturally Responsive Language in Publications: An Example Regarding Autistic People. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01196-8
The authors argue for clear language informed by the target population

Cifuentes, J., Goyal, M. & Shawler, L.A. Effects of Antecedent and Consequence Secondary Targets on Intraverbal Teaching. Analysis Verbal Behav (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-026-00229-1
(Open access) The authors compared secondary targets as antecedent and consequence stimuli, finding that either condition was superior to a control condition, and that ST as a consequence was more efficient

Behavioral Interventions *
6/8 Saral, Dincer, Seray Olcay, Kubilay Celik, and Halil Ozturk. 2026. “The Effects of Simultaneous Prompting and Choral Responding to Safety-Related Intraverbal Responding in Autistic Students,” Behavioral Interventions: e70117. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70117
3 preschoolers were taught simultaneously using choral responding to respond to intraverbal safety questions, and all students learned and maintained the skills

Perspectives on Behavior Science
6/9 Passarelli, D.A., Mizael, T.M. & de Rose, J.C. A Systematic Review of Empirical Data from Behavior Analysis on Anti-Black Bias. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00506-3
(Open access) The authors identified 23 behavior analytic studies over 62 years that dealt with examining or combatting anti-Black bias. Relational tests like the IRAP show utility in measuring bias, and relational training has been effective with adults and children in combating racism; values clarification has been effective with adults. There is a need for more high-quality research

Behavior and Social Issues
6/10 Belisle, J., Sickman, E., Lopez, G. et al. Evaluating Complex Relations Within Social Class and Economic Inequality: A Translational Relational Density Theory Analysis. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00253-9
Abstract symbols were shown to participants and trained to represent concepts “rich” and “poor.” The trainees showed a bias towards the symbol for “rich,” even when it came to abstract concepts like “trust,” representing how bias can form

Behavior Modification *
6/8 Portell, A. L., & Niec, L. N. (2026). Efficacy of a Brief Video Intervention to Improve Parenting Attitudes, Knowledge, and Use of Time-Out: A Randomized Control Trial. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261449744
When shown a 2-minute video with accurate information about time-out from positive reinforcement, parent understanding increased, but attitudes toward time out did not change

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
6/7 Vitale, N. L., Lewon, M., Peters, C. M., & Hayes, L. J. (2026). Interactions between the effects of food and water motivating operations on concurrent food- and water-reinforced responding in mice. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70115. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70115
Food, water, food and water, or control were tested as MOs. They each had different effects on behavior and on the strength of various reinforcers

6/9 Layton, K. L., Edwards, T. L., & Foster, T. M. (2026). An improved translational approach to studying persistence-strengthening effects of differential reinforcement of alternative behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70117. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70117
(Open access) In a translational study with hens, a traditional DRA reinforced alternative responding in the original context, with an alternative DRA reinforcing alternative responding in a new context, in order to test if the traditional procedure results in greater persistence of target behavior. This was the case

6/10 Drugan-Eppich, K., & Cox, D. J. (2026). Evaluating the combined effects of effort and probability on monetary discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70118. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70118
61 participants engaged in a hypothetical monetary discounting task that combined effort with probability. The general theory of discounting model fit best for most participants’ data

Education and Treatment of Children
6/8 Andzik, N.R., Pinczynski, M., Masud, A. et al. Board Certified Behavior Analysts’ Perceptions Regarding Roles in Serving Students with Extensive Support and Complex Communication Needs in Schools. Educ. Treat. Child. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43494-026-00184-5
Survey data plus 9 interviews with school-based BCBAs finds that BCBAs have experience with AAC devices, but very little training and guidance

Andzik, N.R., Perez, B.C., James, C.L. et al. Paraeducator Implementation of a Communication Intervention for Individuals with Significant Autism. Educ. Treat. Child. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43494-026-00185-4
The authors (with the same primary author as the other ETC article) trained paras to teach students to initiate AAC mands, but found that barriers include staff turnover

The Psychological Record
6/7 Rubio, A.R., Tomanari, G.Y. Molecular Analysis of Conditional Discriminations: The Sequential Pattern of Human Learning. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00690-3
(Open access) The authors tested for formation of conditional discriminations after each trial, finding that individual participants acquired the discriminations at different stages

6/11 Harman, M.J., Evers, Q. The Relationship between Subjective Time Perception and Measures of Delay Discounting. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00688-x
(Open access) 39 college students engaged in a time-estimation task, then a hypothetical monetary delay task. People who overestimated durations tended to discount more steeply, providing some evidence for an individualized effect of delay discounting

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
6/8 An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Self-as-Context Scale
Some suggestions to improve the self-as-context scale, including eliminating “neutral” as a response

6/10 A comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for the Youth 8-item short form in a large sample of Finnish adolescents
The AFQ even works in Finland

6/11 Workplace training based on the ACT Matrix for Ugandan hospital staff: A feasibility and acceptability trial
(Open access) The ACT matrix and related training even works in Ugandan healthcare workers

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
A Very Dual-Diagnosis Grab Bag (Summer 2026 Grab Bag)

Behavioral Observations
Beyond 80% Correct: Rethinking Mastery Criteria in ABA: Session 333 with Sarah Richling & Dan Fienup

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI

Structuring Ethical Dialogue in ABA Supervision
Some guidelines with a hypothetical example

Knowing What You Don’t Know: A Student Guide to Competence in ABA
AI was used to compose this article and it shows

Lessons From My Two-Year-Old on the Power of a Language-Rich Environment
The lessons of Hart and Risley

Licensing & professional organizations

APBA
APBA Statement on recent media coverage of ABA
Not much to this statement

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

With No Clear Market Leader, Clinicians Hold the Fate of the Autism Therapy Industry in Their Hands
Agree: fraud is not systemic and is in the hands of a small number of bad actors (though their fraud was enabled by systems)

Disagree: “No clear market leader” means that some company can dominate based on quality and make a lot of money – isn’t this attitude how fraud begins?

What in the: “But what the national media have shined a light on when it comes to dubious practices is a far cry from the out-and-out fraud that has been executed against the Minnesota public benefits system, which has been perpetrated by an international cabal of fraudsters exploiting their affinity with immigrant populations from Eastern Africa, according to the prosecutions of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

At this point why not insert speculation about covid-19 origins

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

IQ’s link to brain structure, function in children may be a mirage, The Transmitter
At minimum, we have known this for 30 years

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 6/23, 6/24, 6/25

Flashback

Tracking Skinner

The timeline is known, but here are some primary sources:

In 1942, he is engaged with Project Orcon/Project Pigeon, according to the University of Minnesota:

Then moving on to Indiana:

Though he was also completing a “manuscript” at the time –perhaps Walden 2?:

At Indiana, you could take experimental analysis of behavior classes with Skinner (as well as “verbal behavior” and “practical control of behavior,” with other classes taught by Kantor):

Then at Harvard he would become a “Junior fellow,” and if you really want to know what that means you can read all about it:

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
6/1 Dales, J., Vansandt, L., Vanderelst, D. et al. Preference Stability for Various Textiles Within and Between Domestic Cats and Implications for Clinical Applications. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01193-x
Cats show strong preferences for different materials, but these preferences are not stable between sessions, suggesting that effective assessments are repeated and flexible

Sarto, E., Greer, R.D. & Singer-Dudek, J. The Effects of Observing Others Versus Self-Observation on Teacher Accuracy in Presenting Learn Unit Instruction. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01183-z
Teachers used a checklist to monitor a video for fidelity of presenting teaching units. When watching others, the teachers required booster training to meet fidelity, but they did not require extra training after watching video of themselves

de los Santos, M., Eslava, V.H., Guerra, M.A. et al. Correction: Applied Behavior Analysis in Mexico: Efforts and Challenges in Public Policy, Advocacy, and Autism Intervention. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01194-w
This is called a “correction,” but is actually an addition of a full Spanish-language translation of the manuscript

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management *
6/2 Gravina, N., Nastasi, J., & Wine, B. (2026). Leveraging qualitative methods in organizational behavior Management. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2026.2683182
Qualitative measures and how they can be helpful

6/4 Denegri, S., Catrone, R., Slowiak, J., & Paliliunas, D. (2026). Training supervisor perspective-taking abilities to enhance compassionate practices toward supervisees and stakeholders. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2026.2683721
Asynchronous BST training for perspective-taking, broken into 4 component skills, increased trainee skill

Perspectives on Behavior Science Volume 49, Issue 2 (8 articles, 3 open access)
Most intriguing: Toward a Modern View of Pavlovian Conditioning in Applied Behavior Analysis (Open access) First line: “The characterization of Pavlovian conditioning in behavior analysis is outdated.”

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
6/3 Prompt carefully! ChatGPT displays rule-based insensitivity to contingencies
(Open access) When given initial rules, “AI” is insensitive to new rules, similar to how organisms in general behave. This is the most interesting study on “AI” we have seen yet

Acta Comportamentalia Vol. 34 Núm. 2 (Articles in Spanish and/or Portuguese; abstracts in English) (9 articles, 9 open access)
Most intriguing: Difusão e ensino de Comportamentalismo nos EUA dos anos 1970: O Caso Behaviordelia
Dick Mallot published a behavior analysis comic in 1970, which apparently had an impact on Brazilian behavior analysis. It was something like this

Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis (RMAC) Vol. 52 No. 1 (9 articles, 9 open access)
Most intriguing: Charlie’s gradient (Open access) Killeen on Catania, in a special issue dedicated to Catania

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
June 2026 Preview

Episodes will include:

• (DUAL DIAGNOSIS) A Very Dual-Diagnosis Grab Bag (Summer 2026 Grab Bag)

• Conceptual Learning w/ Dr. Catherine Williams

• Medical Toleration

All Things Behavior
Leaning Further into the Education and Better Treatment of Children in Schools: An Editorial with Robert Pennington

Functional Relations
#43 - Analyzing Complex Teacher-Student Interactions w/ Dr. Corey Stocco (BCBA-D) and Molly Dwyer (BCBA)

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI

Learning To Speak Behavior
A guest post about moving from neuroscience into behavior and the language changes that occur

If AI Wrote This Post, Do We Still Need Me? A Behavioral Look at the Cult of Personal Credit
“On having a post“ doesn’t have the same ring to it

OAR
Additional IDEA Funding Available to States
$144 million in returned funds

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
New Medicaid Expansion Changes Hurt People with Disabilities

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Federal Data Reveal Top Earners in Medicaid’s 403% ABA Spending Surge
In another illustration of impending funding pressures, in 5 years Medicaid spending on ABA increased 403%. The top 4 billers are all funded by private equity, though the #1 biller, Centria, only accounted for about 4%.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Habits form far faster than science previously thought, research shows, Johns Hopkins University
Ok, sure, it’s a press release written for a lay audience – but read it at your own risk:

“The fact that it is so sudden implies that something is controlling it,” Kuchibhotla said.

[...]

“The fact that there may be a controller means maybe we can reverse maladaptive habits back to goal-directed behavior,” Kuchibhotla said. “Rather than thinking of habits as always being there no matter what, it’s possible that bad habits need not be there forever.”

What are you even talking about

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 6/9, 6/11(ETH), 6/23, 6/24, 6/25

Flashback

“Letter blind” for ‘99

In an 1899 issue of The Lancet, Dr. Hinshelwood recounts a patient who, after a possible bout of meningitis, could read whole words but no longer write most individual letters. In fact, he couldn’t even sing the entire alphabet anymore. (He recounts 4 other similar cases)

Fluent readers can read a word faster than they can name a picture. Is it possible that letter sounds and letter names are different, discrete tacts?

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
5/24 Aydin, O. (2026). Integrating five linear trend techniques into performance-criteria-based effect size measurements: Impressions and recommendations. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70070. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70070
The author examined various types of analysis for 87 graphs and found “ordinary least squares (OLS) provided the most accurate and reliable adjustments.” There is a Google Sheets tool here and a Youtube tutorial here

Behavioral Interventions *
5/25 Hickey, Carleana R., Sharon A.Reeve, Kenneth F.Reeve, Meghan A.Deshais, and Jason C.Vladescu. 2026. “Toward Increasing the Efficiency of Computer-Based Instruction for Staff Training,” Behavioral Interventions: e70113. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70113
The authors found that pre-training and general case analysis can increase recombinative generalization of computer-based training. One would expect this to have a positive effect on skill acquisition and work behavior, though that is not yet clear

Perspectives on Behavior Science
5/29 Strapasson, B.A., Morris, E.K. What John B. Watson Meant to B. F. Skinner: The 1979 Symposium. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00498-0
(Open access) An interesting account of a symposium honoring John Watson, wherein James Mcconnell, Fred Keller, and BF Skinner all presented. Skinner’s portion is a very interesting account of his influences and development

Behavior and Social Issues
5/26 Pendergrass, J.A., Bell, M.C. & Marshall, A.R. Hair Practices Within Black Culture: Considerations for Behavior Analysts Serving the Black Community. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00256-6
Considerations for working in the Black community

5/27 Busch, L., Julie, K., Ben, R. et al. Advocacy in Practice: An Evidence-Informed Primer for Behavior Analysts. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00260-w
More necessary than ever?

5/30 Williford, H., Rapp, J. & Anderson, A. Does Information About Behavior Interventions or Psychotropic Medication Bias Child Welfare Service Providers’ Perceptions of Intervention Effectiveness?. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00254-8
(Open access) 115 child welfare service providers watched a 5-minute video of a child engaging in low- to moderate-challenging behaviors, then were told they received an intervention (medication, behavior, or no treatment), then they watched a video with the same child engaging in slightly more challenging behavior. The “behavior intervention” group was the only group rated worse in the second video, implying a bias against behavioral interventions (a real theme this week)

Behavior Modification *
5/26 Ringdahl, J. E., Bass-Ringdahl, S. M., Molony, M. A., Morlino, R., Schieltz, K. M., & Crook, K. (2026). The Impact of Extinction for Alternative Responding on Vocal Behavior. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261451165
The authors detail examples of variability in FCT that arises under extinction, which has included vocal responses from AAC users

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
5/24 Queiroz, J., Pinto, C., & Machado, A. (2026). Temporal and nontemporal control in a midsession reversal task with variable intertrial intervals. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70108. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70108
(Open access) Pigeons learned to discriminate between 2 tasks, then task 1 was reinforced for the first 40 trials and task 2 reinforced for the last 40 trials. The pigeons switched responding near the end of the 40 trials. The authors lengthened the inter-trial intervals to see if timing influenced responding -- the expectation is that, if length of time is related to reversal, then longer ITI would result in switching in fewer trials. This effect did happen, but was not as strong as expected (see JEAB article from last week that discusses adjunctive behavior and timing)

Taylor, A. J., Miller, B. P., & Copeland, A. (2026). Value-based decision-making and behavioral economic constructs that distinguish people with and without cannabis use history. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70110. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70110
(Open access) 30 participants with a history of cannabis use and 30 without engaged in a value-based decision-making task. People with a use history value cannabis more than people without

5/27 Hall, S. S. (2026). A tribute to Peter Killeen: The Sun King of behavior analysis. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 126(1), e70114. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70114
The Sun King, not the SungWoo Kahng

The Psychological Record
5/27 Bernardy, J.L., Sayegh, Y., Mucheroni, N. et al. Evidence of Autoclitic Functions on Stimulus Class Formation through Intraverbal Naming. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00686-z
(Open access) 4 undergrads tacted stimuli vocally. Then they were trained intraverbally using the autoclitics “equal to” or “opposite to”. When tested with MTS and vocally, 3/4 participants exhibited emergent relations and response class formation, indicating that autoclitics can influence derived relations. Also see the ABAI blog this week for an argument against derived relations

Silvestre, M.H., Mesquita, B.C., Santana, G.D. et al. Over a Decade of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) in Brazil: A Systematic Review. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00683-2
(Open access) From 2012-2024, the authors found 25 studies, and found that the IRAP is mainly used alongside other tools. The authors believe it can be used in the future as a functional-analytic tool

Journal of Behavioral Education
5/25 Hampton, L., Chow, J., Lane, J. et al. Getting the MOST out of Single-Case Experimental Intervention Development: An Application of the Multiphase Optimization STrategy. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09634-x
(Open access) MOST is a framework used in single case experimental design wherein the investigators essentially use ongoing component analysis through phases of pilot studies in order to design a more effective RCT and, subsequently, intervention

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
5/30 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Interventions for Digital Technology-related Issues: A Scoping Review
(In press) (Open access) 21 interventions, mostly on adolescents and young adults in Asia, targeted a wide variety of use cases (pornography, gambling) but have methodological limitations

European Journal of Behavior Analysis
5/25 Cortez, E., Wilson, A. N., Jordan, K., & Hofman, H. (2026). Exploring rule following on electronic scratch-offs. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021149.2026.2678265
7 participants played a computerized lottery simulation. After being given rules, 5/7 participants changed their bets, with more consistency from the group who was initially given accurate rules

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice, Layng, Andronis, Codd, Abdel-Jalil (Eds.) (Nov 2026)
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Forensic Interviewing w. Dr. Ray Joslyn

Behavioral Observations
Helping Complex Kids Thrive Through Practical Behavioral Parenting Strategies: Jenny Demark, Linda Reinstein and Conrad Leung | Session 332

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI

A Mediational Theory of Problem-Solving: It’s What We Do
A guest post by Schlinger & Blakely where the topic is nominally mediation (e.g., “talking to yourself” or “thinking”) but is also a discussion about how they believe that derived relations may not exist

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Hurts Autistic People
See the CASP post this week for a (indirect) response

CASP
CASP Responds to New York Times Articles
Glad someone else wrote this

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

EXCLUSIVE: ABHW Makes Its Case for Standardizing Autism Therapy Protocols
The ABHW? Apparently the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness; it sounds like a group of people who are very concerned about healthcare access. But also, very concerned about waste and fraud. It is a lobbying group located in DC whose members are all insurance companies. Concerning!

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Still no proof for facilitated spelling methods, The Transmitter
Still? Still? But we know why:

Advocates for spellers argue that message-passing tests are unethical, and that the tests generate anxiety, making the spellers more likely to fail.

Similarly, we can fly, but nobody is allowed to observe.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

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Flashback

Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the pigeons of war.

More on the Limited War Laboratory: footage of how they planned to use dogs for “anti-ambush” work. According to sources, this was used, albeit on a limited scale, in Vietnam. (Footage begins around 6:22 and is from training; no disturbing images)

And from this document, pages 10-11:

Targets, you say?

Dropping bombs, yes. Using drones, of course. Sending in troops, maybe. (Pigeons? Not yet.)

But the sum total – what should we call it?

“Excursion,” “military operation,” “conflict,” “skirmish,” but not war. Please don’t print in the newspaper that we are at war. The “Iran war” has the lowest popular support of any American military action on record.

It’s clear that, as viewed by politicians, the word war itself is a virtual, um, landmine. Something to be avoided at all costs.

Perhaps because the word itself has crowned a dozen failing metaphors across two generations.

The first American usage of the war metaphor might be “The War on Crime,” which appears in 1898 in the Boston Evening Transcript, describing what sounds like a posse, which is itself typically illegal:

The “War on Crime” phrasing had been used by an Irish politician, and reported in American newspapers, as early as 1882. If this usage could be traced back further, it wouldn’t be surprising. War is waged with intention to defeat an enemy, and who wouldn’t want to defeat crime itself?

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would later adopt the phrasing in the 1930s in reference to his effort to destroy organized crime. In the preceding 30 years in America, the war on crime had yet to be won.

This is a perfect example of the war metaphor at work. It’s perfect because it was for a good cause, but was clearly doomed to fail.

Punishment, of any type and severity, in the known history of humanity, has never eliminated crime. It’s true that reward (or reinforcement) of any kind has also never eliminated crime – but then again, it has rarely been suggested. (If it is suggested, it’s often for a relatively narrow application)

Punishment by the state, or a posse, or a nosy neighbor: these are uncertain consequences. You might get away with it. On the other hand, the crime itself typically involves certain, immediate consequences.

The first strictly American policy usage of the war metaphor appears to be “The War on Poverty” in 1964. (Just 3 years later, a columnist decried criticism of the War on Poverty as “The War on The War on Poverty”)

The War on Poverty was borne out of the same movement that sparked the establishment of Head Start the following year. An increasingly prosperous American society was growing uncomfortable with inequity. In 1963, the poverty rate was nearly 20% – 1 in every 5 Americans, including many children.

By some measures, The War on Poverty was a success. In just 10 years, the poverty rate was nearly halved. The associated legislation included the establishment of Social Security, food stamps, and federal funding for public schools. We would argue that these programs have been largely successful, and even politically popular.

Poverty, we might concede, is bad. Yet declaring war seems misplaced. Returning to the War on Crime: crime, and criminals, face defeat. The same analogy applied to poverty implies defeating both poverty and the impoverished.

Does that sound like a stretch? In the seminal 2001 book Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition, the function of metaphor is examined through the metaphor cats are dictators.

The seeming frivolity of the phrase belies its complexity. Cat is altered by qualities of dictator: cats are – we understand – like dictators; presumably cats are demanding. Indeed, the metaphor is nonsensical if reversed; dictators are cats would have to mean that dictators recognizably have cat-like qualities.

What is the quality of war that characterizes the war metaphor?

The relations implied by war include destruction, eradication, winning – but not support.

The War on Drugs is an infamous boondoggle that promised to eliminate…drugs.

As noted by David Farber in a book entitled (what else?) The War on Drugs, war was declared federally by Richard Nixon in 1971. But in 1966, the governor of New York called for a “war on narcotics.” In 1962, the governor of California called efforts against drug trafficking “a war.” In 1954, Eisenhower’s attorney general declared a “war on narcotics.”

Separately from Farber, we found it referenced in 1911 as a “worldwide war,” though it couldn’t begin until a scheduled meeting in 1912. In 1914, it was the “war on drugs.” In 1922, California led “the war on dope.” In 1935, even neighborly Canada urged a “war on drugs.” For the sake of time we are going to skip right over Prohibition.

The same problems are immediately clear: drugs, as a category, can never be eliminated amongst a species that invented toilet wine. Drugs are produced via the common chemical reaction of fermentation, from growing plants, and from chemistry that can be performed by a precocious high schooler.

While there are reasonable steps to take in order to limit or prohibit drugs, the most effective addiction treatment has proven to be contingency management. An effective antecedent – that is to say, preventing drug addiction in the first place – may be giving people more activities. These would be two simple, cost-effective, and proven methods to reduce drug consumption and addiction. But they’re not war.

Has the war metaphor destroyed any chance of supporting drug consumers, or as we like to refer to them, people? Politically speaking, CM is “paying people to stay sober” – a sadly unpopular opinion. Environmental enrichment would include investment in community spaces when we’re afraid to make public restrooms. We’re afraid to make public restrooms, in part, due to the drug users. Who we won’t pay to stay sober. But they only want drugs because there are no public spaces with activities, and –

The War on Terror is an infamous boondoggle that promised to eliminate…terror?

Terrorism, like most concepts on which we have declared war, suffers from an imprecise definition. But broadly, terrorism is an act (including threat) of violence carried out on noncombatants. Generally this is in an asymmetrical conflict: a smaller or weaker force, who in officially declaring war would immediately be defeated, commits violence in order to achieve goals.

The War on Terror, according to Wikipedia, began on September 11, 2001. The Wiki page is full of bizarre asides, such as the fact that the “current focus” of anti-terror efforts is “narcoterrorism,” an absurd neologism that considers the capitalist practice of selling a product to a consumer to be secretly motivated by, what, the destruction of the customer?

No less a dullard than the end of history guy notes that terrorism is less a description of an enemy per se than of a tactic. And on this point, we have to agree: defeating terror is akin to a war on war. (The War on War, not being American government policy, will not be discussed)

Have we Americans moved away from war? At least, as a metaphor?

As we see it, this is a two-pronged question:

1. Is the war metaphor unpopular with Americans, and

2. Are politicians using the war metaphor for official policy?

The War on Poverty, while introducing successful legislation and reducing the poverty rate, has a strange legacy. It gradually became a bipartisan point of agreement that the government can’t make a real impact, which conveniently allows both parties to fail without consequence. Thus, one rarely sees modern politicians using the war metaphor in regards to poverty. Overall it doesn’t seem to have a cultural impact – outside of the 50th anniversary in 2014, there are few polls or opinion pieces.

The War on Drugs has a mixed perception. While public opinion was at an all-time low in a 2023 Gallup poll, it had a strangely large reversal in 2025, with Americans more confident than ever that progress had been made. There were large decreases in overdose deaths in 2024 and 2025, perhaps driving optimism. (The reasons for the decline are complex but surely involve a large decline in opioid prescription) As for policy: in discussion over strikes on Venezuela, critical Democrats make note of “the war on drugs” or militarization, while supportive Republicans say things like,

“If we’re having the same discussion and the same things are going on a few months from now, and it’s not a dozen or so, but 50 or so, then we have to have a real discussion about whether or not we’re engaging in some sort of a hybrid war,” [Thom] Tillis said.

The War on Terror suffers from the fact that most people don’t know how long it’s been going on. But it’s clear that, while opinions were high after 9/11, they’ve since declined. Even still, this is the case where politicians use the most bellicose rhetoric. Current conflicts are often justified by politicians who insist that one state or another “funds” or “supports” or “sponsors” terrorism – not that they commit terrorism, but something akin to a transitive relationship.

As far as the current whatever, it is immensely unpopular. But what about war in general? You know, not the war, but a war.

We weren’t able to find any general polls on feelings about nonspecific wars. Maybe it would be too strange for a poll: how do you feel about war, as a concept? Still, American opinion on historical wars also seems to be declining; in 1945, 85% of Americans surveyed approved of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, around 50% by 1990, and just 35% by 2025. Opinions on the Iraq war have declined. 50-60% of Americans surveyed supported the Iraq invasion directly after 9/11, and by 2023 approximately 60% said it was a mistake.

Retrospectively, metaphorically, perhaps the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Source

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
5/18 Bernstein, A.M., Wheeler, J., Call, N.A. et al. Leveraging Behavior Analysis in Healthcare Through Quality Improvement. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01184-y
Quality improvement is a process for refining healthcare treatment, but the authors note that behavior analysis has largely developed in parallel to healthcare. They describe potential effects of embracing quality improvement

Johnson, C., Roylance, A. & D’Agostino, S. Systematic Review of the Use of Multiperson Activity Schedules for Individuals with Disabilities. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01191-z
(Open access) 146 reviewed articles and dissertations were whittled down to 11, which revealed that group activity schedules positively impact “engagement, cooperation, and task completion.”

5/19 Bernstein, A.M., Reindeau, A. & Romani, P.W. Contextualizing Patients’ Physical Aggression Resulting in Staff Injuries in Two Pediatric Healthcare Systems. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01188-8
960 reported staff injuries from 2022-2024 were analyzed, with the findings that direct staff were most at-risk, and antecedents included intrusive strategies (e.g., response blocking) and aversive conditions (e.g., medical care)

5/22 Zhao, X., Cengher, M. Learning-to-Learn: A Comparison of Monolingual and Bilingual Instruction. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01192-y
(Open access) Initially, monolingual instruction for bilingual kids is more efficient (the authors published on this surprising finding in March in JABA), but the authors found that this effect decreased over time

Behavioral Interventions *
5/22 Milata, Eileen M., Sharon A.Reeve, Kenneth F.Reeve, Tina M.Sidener, Chata A.Dickson, and Rachel R.Thomas. 2026. “Examining Generalization Within Video Feedback Procedures for Individuals With Intellectual Developmental Disorders: A Literature Review,” Behavioral Interventions: e70112. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70112
21 studies reviewed appeared to have large effects from video modeling, which was often enhanced by including self-management strategies

Perspectives on Behavior Science
5/21 Witts, B.N. Skinner’s First Publication?. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00505-4
Dr. Witts found a poem published in 1919. We previously found that Skinner wrote in to a magazine in January 1920, so Witts may have beaten us here

Behavior and Social Issues
5/20 Napolitano, D., Jennings, A., Crosland, K. et al. Interprofessional Collaboration and Practice in Behavior Science: Toward Ethical, Sustainable, and Effective Practice. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00259-3
Some basic foundations for collaboration, including definitions and future directions (full text available on ResearchGate)

Behavior Modification *
Pangalangan, J. M. L., Frates, E. P., Tollefson, M., Farewell, C. V., Abramonte, E., Brooks-Russell, A., & Puma, J. E. (2026). Health Behavior Changes in a Lifestyle Medicine Program: A Convergent Mixed Methods Study. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261437752
A group intervention that targets multiple areas (exercise, sleep, nutrition, etc.) was effective overall

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
5/17 Cox, D. J., Diaz-Salvat, C., Weil, L., & Javed, A. (2026). Choice with ethical outcomes: Sign effect, commodity effect, and ethical theory preference. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70109. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70109
Discounting with hypothetical monetary rewards was different from hypothetical discounting of ethical outcomes; people tended to discount less steeply for ethical decisions (at least, presumably for Endicott students). The authors conclude that discounting tasks may have different outcomes with different commodities

Wearden, J. H. (2026). Before BeT: Behavior and timing in the age of introspection. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70106. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70106
Killeen and Fetterman posited in 1988 that “biological clock” explanations of behavior could be explained by adjunctive behavior or by sensations from adjunctive behavior. Wearden notes that a similar idea was proposed in the 1800s by Munsterberg (which apparently influenced Titchener)

5/18 Colombo, R. A., Mahmoudi, S., Wright, W. B., Huang, Y.-H., & Madden, G. J. (2026). Appetitive Pavlovian conditioning in two inclusive kindergarten classrooms. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70107. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70107
(Open access) In two inclusive classrooms (a mix of conventionally developing kids and those with special needs) at the University of Washington, 2 paired trials (a visual and song followed by “fun” activities) and 2 unpaired trials (different visual and song followed by no consequence) took place daily. In 1 classroom, this contingency was explained by the teacher, while in the other classroom it was not. In both classrooms, the kids reacted more to the CS+ trials, and the kids with special needs reacted more in the classroom where the contingency was explained

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
5/20 Austin, S. C., Santiago-Rosario, M. R., & McIntosh, K. (2026). Vulnerable Decision Points in School Discipline for Teachers of Latino/a/e Students. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435185
Most schools did not have disparities in discipline for Latino students, but those that did were typically high schools, but schools with disparities sometimes referred for different types of behaviors

Kern, L., & Zirkel, P. A. (2026). Differentiating Legal From Professional Lenses: A Systematic Analysis of Judicial Rulings on Functional Behavioral Assessments and Behavior Intervention Plans. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435202
Two lawyers share summaries of judicial decisions on FBAs/BIPs in schools

5/21 Aiono-Conradi, L., Jameson, J. M., Fischer, A. J., Farrell, M., Eichelberger, C., & Coleman, O. F. (2026). The Effects of the Good Behavior Game on Students With Extensive Support Needs in Inclusive Elementary Classrooms. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435208
The Good Behavior Game increased on-task behavior and reduced challenging behavior in students with extensive support needs, and it increased teacher praise toward said students

5/22 An, Z. G., Hu, X., Ai, J., & Yang, C. (2026). Development and Validation of an Instrument to Assess Cultural Responsiveness in Chinese Behavioral Support Practices. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435209
Creation of a survey

Wilkinson, S., Hancock, E. M., Majeika, C. E., Wehby, J. H., & Simonsen, B. (2026). The Effect of Instructional Choice on Classroom Behavior: A Meta-Analysis of Single-Case Research. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435206
34 studies were identified, which provide evidence that instructional choice increases academic performance but does not decrease challenging behaviors

Education and Treatment of Children
5/19 Stango, A.A., Blakely, E.Q. Effects of High-Probability Instructional Sequences as a Programmed Consequence. Educ. Treat. Child. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43494-026-00182-7
A high-probability request sequence without a low-probability request functioned as a reinforcer for two children’s behavior; for one child, praise was effective, while for the other, praise alone was not effective

The Psychological Record
5/19 Zilio, D. The Elusiveness of Social Contextual Analysis: A Commentary on Guerin’s Approach. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00687-y
(Open access) Zilio criticizes Guerin’s framework as being overly focused on selectionism at the societal level, deprioritizing behavior analysis at the individual level

Journal of Behavioral Education
5/20 Shin, M., McKenna, J.W. Exploring the Research Landscape on Single-Case Design Methodology Using Technology Through Text Mining and Large Language Models. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09630-1
(Open access) Does a sentence like this interest you? “Word co-occurrence networks and Bayesian negative binomial piecewise regression verified changes in the knowledge detected in word patterns.”

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Communities of Practice (LISTENER CHOICE SPRING 2026)

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
Why Behavior Analysts Should Care About Digital Attachment: A B.F. Skinner Lecture Preview
This blog post truly does not make a case as to why anyone should care

Follow Your Bliss: An Intellectual and Literal Journey Around the World
Colin Harte’s journey

Steve Hayes
Belonging Is Something You Do: A new study shows what college students have to teach us all.
Steve Hayes makes the case that a sense of belonging is dependent on behaviors that can occur in spite of negative emotions

Licensing & professional organizations

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Short Naps, Long Hours: How Autism Clinics Squeeze Medicaid Dollars Out of Preschoolers
Bad news: the NYT documented some trash clinics (kids in cubicles not allowed to nap for more than 7 minutes) which will potentially intensify ABA funding scrutiny. Pair this with HHS using “AI” to audit contracts and there’s a potential mess on the horizon.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

A mop, a broom and a calmer mind. Why some find mental health benefits in everyday tasks, AP
Many people have heard of this practice as mindfulness, and it features prominently in ACT, where it is sometimes called present moment awareness. Rather than focusing on a happy but imaginary future (“I’ll be happy when I’m done cleaning”), the focus is instead about fully enjoying the present moment. Paradoxically, embracing the discomfort or boredom eases distress.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 5/26, 5/27 (ETH/SUP)

Flashback

Really? Very interesting!

In a 1961 paper in JEAB, Nate Azrin & Israel Goldiamond (et al.) found that students were not able to control conversation with reinforcement alone – though it was quite badly designed. They mention that it was a replication of Verplanck 1955, wherein he reported that students controlled a speaker’s rate of sharing opinions by agreeing or disagreeing/ignoring:

But of course, Ayllon and Michael had demonstrated this effect, to some extent, with at least one subject in 1959:

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
5/11 Sivaraman, M., & Pelaez, M. (2026). Contingency drives children’s vocal behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70067. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70067
The authors discuss “parent-ese,” the cross-cultural phenomenon of parents speaking to babies with a high pitch, as well as contingent imitation (imitating the baby’s sounds), and its positive effects

5/13 Fergus, R. A., Ahearn, W. H., Matthews, A., & Pandola, O. (2026). Functional analysis and treatment of higher level restricted repetitive behavior displayed by individuals with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70066. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70066
The authors conducted a variety of assessments for 4 participants that engaged in “arranging and ordering,” and discovered competing activities through an augmented competing stimulus assessment

Behavior Analysis in Practice
5/11 Kranak, M.P., Mitteer, D.R. Peeling Back the Curtain: A Primer on the General Peer-Review and Publication Process in Behavior Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01189-7
A wide-ranging overview of peer-review, specifically in behavior analysis

Behavioral Interventions *
5/12 Newman, Zoë A. D., Eileen M.Roscoe, Emily C.Stevens, and Shannon P.Campbell. 2026. “Treatment for Improving Sleep in Residential Setting,” Behavioral Interventions: e70108. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70108
3 autistic adolescents in a residential program were treated with a multi-component package, including bedtime fading, a routine, and a white noise machine. After successful treatment, a component analysis was conducted where units of the intervention were removed. The complete package was most effective for all 3 participants

Lindgren, Nicholas A., Devanio J.Cousins, Thomas S.Higbee, MinaMendoza, and MattieMecham. 2026. “Training Preschool Staff to Collect Descriptive Assessment Data Using a Decision-Making Model,” Behavioral Interventions: e70110. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70110
(Open access) 6 preschool teachers used a decision-making model designed to help take descriptive data. 4/6 took accurate data with just the model, while 2/6 needed 1 session of feedback. The model is a flowchart image embedded in the article

Graham, Scott, and MickeyKeenan. 2026. “The Inclusive Superhero Game: Increasing Inclusive Interactions in Inclusive Education,” Behavioral Interventions: e70109. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70109
(Open access) A modification of a dependent group contingency, the Inclusive Superhero Game was intended to increase positive interactions between conventionally developing kids and those with special needs. In this application, the kids with special needs had dyslexia or anxiety, and the game was effective. In this version, the “hero” kid is unknown to the rest of the class (to prevent negative interactions if the kid fails)

Calkins, Chloe A., and CodyMorris. 2026. “The Effects of Observation Conspicuousness on Data Collection Timeliness,” Behavioral Interventions: e70107. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70107
Observation conspicuousness increases timeliness of data collection. This can be the presence of a supervisor, or notifying the supervisee that data collection can be viewed in real-time in an app

Perspectives on Behavior Science
5/15 Rasmussen, E.B., Alvarado, A.Y. A Behavioral Economic Characterization of the Impact of the COVID-19 Quarantine on Reinforcer Diversity, Behavior, and Health. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00502-7
(Open access) During covid quarantines, people necessarily stayed home and consumed more reinforcement in the home (e.g., sleep, TV) than outside (e.g., socializing at a bar). The authors suggest that it is possible to plan for future reinforcer restriction, e.g., buying board games or investing in outdoor equipment

Behavior and Social Issues
5/12 Roose, K., Rakos, R., Malkin, A. et al. Editorial: Playing the Long Game: What Behavior Science Brings to the Resistance. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00258-4
Resistance movements as behavioral systems

Behavior Modification *
5/11 Capel, L. K., Knudsen, F. M., Thomas, G., Levin, M. E., & Twohig, M. P. (2026). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A Narrative Review. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261449755
15 studies of ACT for generalized anxiety disorder were identified; there was an average symptom reduction of 60-77%, but more research is needed

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
5/11 Reed, D. D., Strickland, J. C., Acuff, S. F., Gelino, B. W., Graham, M. E., Kaplan, B. A., Johansen, A., Pierce-Messick, Z., Banks, M. L., Negus, S. S., Kearns, D. N., Chiapperino, D., Reissig, C. J., Varshneya, N. B., & Hursh, S. R. (2026). Twenty-five years of simulated demand: A bibliometric and systematic review of hypothetical drug purchase tasks. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70105. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70105
The authors review every study that cited the original 1999 hypothetical purchase task

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
5/11 McChristie, A., & Wilder, D. A. (2026). Teaching Young Children With Autism: When Not to Cooperate With Instructions. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261437727
3 autistic kids were trained with BST and video modeling to refuse to remove their shirt under certain conditions. All 3 kids acquired the skill

LeJeune, L. M., Samudre, M. D., Zhao, H., Jeffords, M., & Chow, J. C. (2026). Behavioral Interventions for Increasing Group Engagement in K-12 Classrooms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435207
(Open access) Large effects were found for most interventions within 50 examined studies, including the Good Behavior Game; Tootling; teacher praise; and tangible rewards

Heuermann, L., Floress, M. T., Rila, A., Wilkinson, S., & Wilzbach, A. (2026). Teacher Acceptability and Preferences for Praise and Reprimand Across Grades (K-12): A Preliminary Investigation. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435204
In a survey of 140 teachers, praise decreases as children age, and elementary and middle school teachers are more likely than high school teachers to provide rewards

5/14 Mirielli, L. G., Rose, C. A., & Lewis, T. J. (2026). The Effectiveness of 9th Grade Social Skill Lessons in Positive Behavior Supports and Interventions. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0).https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435188
Social skills lessons for 9th graders increased teacher rating of social skills for students, while the student self-ratings were unchanged

The Psychological Record
5/15 McDaniel, M.R., Wallace, J.P., Partridge, J. et al. Examining the Hypothetical Purchase Task of Physical Inactivity: Differences in Behavioral Economic Indices among Veteran and Nonveteran Pregnant Women. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00685-0
(Open access) The authors used hypothetical purchase tasks for physical activity in pregnant veterans and non-veterans, and found that veterans valued inactivity more than non-veterans. Inactivity is associated with pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, as well as negative health outcomes for people who are not pregnant. That veterans place a higher value on inactivity suggests that this might be a group on which to intervene

European Journal of Behavior Analysis
5/11 Halbur, M., Preas, E., Nichols, B., & Carroll, R. (2026). Recent advances in chaining procedures: A literature review from 2004–2023. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021149.2026.2669693
From 2004-2023, 38 articles using chaining were identified, with the findings that few used a terminal probe or assessed long-term maintenance

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Case Studies and Applications in Nonlinear Contingency Analysis, Abdel-Jalil & Linnehan (Eds.) (Oct 2026)
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
(UNLOCKED) Divergent Minds Book Club

Behavioral Observations
Supporting Individuals With Severe Problem Behavior Through Collaboration: Session 331 with Ben Seifert

All Things Behavior
A Scoping Review of Cultural Variables in Contingency Management for Substance Use Disorder with Hailey Donohue and Jesse Dallery

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI

Behavior Analysis for Sustainable Societies SIG

Licensing & professional organizations

ACQ
The Autism Commission on Quality Seeks Nominations for Committees

BACB
RBT Professional Development: In-Service and ACE Events
Starting in 2026, all new or recertifying RBTs have to take 12 professional development units (PDUs) every 2 years

RBT® Examination Pass Rates for 40-Hour Training Providers
BDS had over 900 trainees with a 93.5% pass rate; UWF and NMU had small cohorts with 100% pass rates; about 13,000 took the free APF training but with only around 60% passing; about 13,000 used CentralReach, 19,000 used Relias, and 10,000 used Rethink, with around 80% passing for each; Jose Maria Vargas University has an 8% pass rate

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

US drug overdose deaths drop for 3rd consecutive year
This may be due to interruptions in fentanyl precursor chemicals from China, who the US has pressured; a large decrease in opioid prescriptions, due to publicity around the opioid crisis; or in some cases effective treatment. One of the most effective treatments is contingency management – a token economy.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

3rd-Grade Retention Isn’t Really About Kids — It’s About Adults Who Teach Them, The74
In Mississippi, the state has turned around their reading scores in what is increasingly looked at as a model for other struggling states. Part of the success? Kids who can’t read are held back in 3rd grade. While there is poor evidence for holding kids back generally, the author here points to how it influences adults. In a sense, when a child is held back, it reflects poorly on the teacher – a punishing consequence.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 5/19 (SUP), 5/20, 5/21 (ETH), 5/26, 5/27 (ETH/SUP

Flashback

Training pigeons to locate a “target”

We once wrote a piece about how RJ Herrnstein – he of Skinner’s pigeon lab, but also The Bell Curve – may have trained pigeons to locate enemy soldiers during the Vietnam War (though apparently never used on the battlefield). The first place we came across the story was an old, unsigned article that provided the following evidence: Herrnstein himself wrote about it. Herrnstein published a study funded by the “Limited War Laboratory,” entitled “Complex Visual Concept in the Pigeon,” about how they trained pigeons to peck on slides that contain people. Later, Herrnstein appeared to lie about his activities. While the evidence was circumstantial, we tracked down the primary sources and we came to the same conclusion.

Anyway, here’s Colonel Frank Penas presenting “Complex Visual Concept in the Pigeon” at a pigeon conference in 1970, a few years after the Herrnstein study. Some weird racist language stood out:

It reminded us of the Herrnstein study…

Was Colonel Frank a plagiarist? Well no, he was just part of the military side of Herrnstein’s study.

Colonel Frank doesn’t say these are targets for us to shoot, but what would you imagine a target to be?

Epilogue for Colonel Frank:

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
5/5 Hoffmann, A.N., Hoang, A.Q. Evidence-Based Practice: A Framework for Behavior Analytic Training and Supervision. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01190-0 e
(Open access) The authors provide ways to include evidence-based decision making in supervision

5/7 Brown, K.R., Hurd, A.M., Layman, L.N. et al. Functional Analysis Outcomes: A Retrospective Controlled Consecutive Case Review of Idiosyncratic Test Conditions. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01181-1
(Open access) In retrospectively examining 24 FAs, the authors find that 20/24 did not require modification to discover the maintaining variables. For the remaining 4 that concluded in undifferentiated results, 5 different modifications were used, which were either a different FA design or different antecedent conditions. These modifications included conditions such as compliance with mands, diverted attention, or interruption, and resulted in differentiation

5/8 Alqunaysi, R., Meadan, H. & Loya, M.R.M. It Should Support, Not Replace: BCBAs’ Perceptions of AI and the Test Content Domains. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01185-x
111 survey-taking BCBAs don’t want AI involved in treatment decisions, which sounds like a good start

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management *
5/7 Ximenez, T., McGee, H. M., Neely, L. C., & Hardesty, S. L. (2026). Evaluation of group feedback and rewards for improving infection-control adherence in an outpatient ABA clinic. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2026.2670350
Group-level feedback and non-monetary rewards were used to increase adherence to a 9-item checklist. The groups immediately met 80% criterion

Behavioral Interventions *
5/3 Abdel-Jalil, Awab, Paige M.Dauphinee, Sarah L.Cronk, Ainsley M.Wood, Heather M.Pane, and Mara L.Vanderzell. 2026. “Behavioral Skills Training for Implementation of Components of Skill-Based Treatment: Effectiveness and Social Validity,” Behavioral Interventions: e70106. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70106
BST was used to train practitioners in SBT and IWPW (it work pretty well)

Cenatus, Marqueline, and KimberlyCrosland. 2026. “A Review of Online Training Approaches for Behavior Analytic Practices and Assessments,” Behavioral Interventions: e70088. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70088
In a literature review, 29 articles identified several strategies for training, including manuals, videos, and teleconferencing. These can all be effective at teaching skills, but the authors identify limitations in the research

Perspectives on Behavior Science
5/6 Llinás, M.“., Freeman, T.R. & Blakely, E. It is Time to Retire “Noncontingent Reinforcement”. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00503-6
NCR is a misnomer because, by definition, you cannot reinforce a behavior without a contingency. The authors also highlight how the broad use of “NCR” should be discarded in favor of more descriptive or precise terminology

Schlinger, H.D., Normand, M.P. Radical Behaviorism: A Primer for the Profession and the Person. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00504-5
A history and definition of radical behaviorism

Behavior and Social Issues
5/7 Alasmari, M. Equity Through Cultural and Critical Frameworks: Rethinking Practices in Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00255-7
A review of Critical Race Theory and Disability Critical Race Theory and how we can benefit from their framework

Parham, J., Jeudy, D. & Andrews, M. ACTing for Change: Advancing Black Representation in Behavior Analysis. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00257-5
Less than 6% of BCBAs are Black while the US Black population is over 10%. Strategies are discussed about how to increase representation, including mentorship

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
5/4 Christensen, D.R. (2026), In Memoriam: Professor Warren K. Bickel, PhD. J Exp Anal Behav, 125: e70100. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70100
He was a behavioral pharmacologist at Virginia Tech, and he actually died in 2024. On 4/22, JEAB published a separate in memoriam. His most-cited work appears to be Heroin Addicts Have Higher Discount Rates for Delayed Rewards Than Non-Drug-Using Controls

The Psychological Record
5/8 Plessas, A., Bensemann, J., Espinosa-Ramos, J.I. et al. Performance Comparison of Spiking Neural Networks to Other Machine Learning Models in Predicting Pigeons’ Learning History from Binary Choices. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00682-3
A machine learning algorithm is used to code behavior, then use that data to guess which schedule of reinforcement was in effect at the time.

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
5/6 A Partially Hardcoded Computational Model of Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding
(In press) The authors used software based on RFT to model relational responding

European Journal of Behavior Analysis
5/7 Houlihan, D., Hensel, Z. L., & Langley, M. M. (2026). Applied behaviour analysis, the proliferation of conversion therapies, and the discipline’s struggle to self-correct. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021149.2026.2669692
The authors seem to believe that ABA has “struggled” to “self-correct” from conversion therapy, but this seems an inaccurate framing. While clear missteps have occurred (e.g., a failure to retract the Rekers and Lovaas study), conversion therapy has -- how should we put this? -- never worked. “Not using it” seems to have been a relatively struggle-free self-correction

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
May Preview 2026
Episodes will include:

• Divergent Mind book club

• Communities of practice

• Questioning eyewitnesses with Dr. Ray Joslyn

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI

The Role of Prosody in the Stimulus Control of Verbal Behavior
David Palmer post about how enunciation can the difference in how you speak

OAR
Development and Evaluation of a Community-Informed Assent-Based ABA Approach
A description of a project that is receiving funding from OAR

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
ASAN speaks out against the Supreme Court’s attack on the Voting Rights Act

BF Skinner Foundation
New issue of Operants
Includes two excellent real-world stories about using a constructional approach, as well as information on constructional dog training

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Massachusetts ABA Clawbacks Are a Warning Shot for Every State Medicaid Provider
In Massachusetts, the state is demanding that some providers immediately pay back certain Medicaid funds from 2024. Why?

Starting in February, officials with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) and MassHealth (its Medicaid program) directed its contracted managed care organizations to recoup 2024 Medicaid payments from organizations that did not maintain a ratio of 10 hours of paraprofessional therapy to 1 hour of supervision by a Licensed Applied Behavior Analyst (LABA), the state’s name for Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs). [Emphasis added]

You may say: supervision at a ratio of less than 10% is probably insufficient. In some cases, it could be; nevertheless, this was not a contract requirement. In any case, this is an ongoing concern with funding.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Autistic Writer’s Novel Is Getting Rave Reviews, OAR
This is one of our weekly blog sources, so why is it posted here? We have more to say about this entry, which is: this is a clear-cut case of facilitated communication, a debunked practice. If you watch video of his “typing,” his mother holds the board (why?) in the air (why?) and she “interprets” (why?) what he types, often while he is not looking at the board. Here is an example of his typing. So, who wrote his book? His mom, presumably.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 5/13 (ETH), 5/14 (SUP), 5/14 (ETH), 5/19 (SUP), 5/20, 5/21 (ETH), 5/26, 5/27 (ETH/SUP

Flashback

Conversion therapy and facilitated communication? In this economy?

This week finds apparent internal criticism over conversion therapy, and a newly popular use for facilitated communication. In common, they have a complete failure to work as intended.

Conversion therapy – in particular, represented by Rekers and Lovaas – was criticized contemporaneously by Nordyke, Winkler, and Wolfe.

Facilitated communication was criticized contemporaneously by PBS Frontline.

These are practices unsupported by the scientific literature – in fact, directly contradicted by it. In both cases, for decades.

We look forward to having this same conversation in about two weeks

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
4/29 Gilroy, S. P., Tincani, M., & Podlesnik, C. A. (2026). Recommendations and guidance for enhancing systematic reviews of single-case experimental design research. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(3), e70064. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70064
Recommendations for conducting a literature review of SCEDs

Behavior and Social Issues
4/29 Bowman, K.S., Tereshko, L.M., Marshall, K.B. et al. Behavior Analysts’ Perceptions of and Experiences in Interprofessional Collaboration. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00252-w
In a survey, behavior analysts believe that their colleagues lack collaboration skills, but report that they engage in frequent collaboration

Behavior Modification *
4/29 MacNaul, H., & Nguyen, A. (2026). Response Interruption and Redirection for Stereotypy: A Quality Review and Ethical Considerations. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261434871
(Open access) In a literature review, using strict criteria (from WWC), 42 articles using RIRD to reduce stereotypy were examined. Most reduced stereotypy and were rated as acceptable by the participants

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
4/27 Denner, M., Toegel, F., Holtyn, A. F., & Silverman, K. (2026). Employment outcomes of abstinence-contingent wage supplements for adults experiencing homelessness and alcohol use disorder. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70104. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70104
Among impoverished adults, providing an employment stipend dependent on abstinence from alcohol increased abstinence, increased employment, and reduced poverty. In this study, a further analysis of the data found that most of the abstinence group found a job, and most were able to earn enough to be above the poverty line

4/29 Palmer, D. C., Ayres, J. J. B., & Millard, W. J. (2026). In Memoriam: John W. Donahoe, 1932–2026. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70101. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70101
Donahoe’s own words, followed by those of his students. His most-cited work appears to be A Selectionist Approach to Reinforcement

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
4/30 Calvert, H. G., Lowe, M., Anderson, N., Lewis, T., & Turner, L. (n.d.). Supporting SWPBIS Implementation in Rural Schools: Mixed Methods Findings and Actionable Strategies From a 3-Year Trial. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007261435196
(Open access) In a 3 year-long randomized trial of school-wide PBIS in 40 rural schools in Idaho, findings include that in-person visits are highly valued, but that most of the same barriers in any implementation apply (e.g., buy-in, turnover, etc.)

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior
4/27 Vesely, S.E., Frampton, S.E. The Use of Self-Study and Matrix Training to Teach Sign Language. Analysis Verbal Behav (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-026-00228-2
(Open access) 3 adults used a self-study series of videos to teach sign language according to a matrix; 2 participants learned 6 targets, which lead to 30 untrained compound targets, while 1 participant required additional training

4/28 Sayo, H., Cengher, M. The Effect of Preference on the Acquisition of Echoics and Transfer Across Verbal Operants. Analysis Verbal Behav (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-025-00225-x
3 preschoolers were trained on preferred and neutral echoics. While they learned the echoics in all cases, 2/3 participants mastered the preferred echoics more quickly. Tacts emerged across conditions, while mands did not

The Psychological Record
4/27 Ardila-Sánchez, J.G. A Commentary on “Observing How Groups Shape Individual Behavior”: Scope, Precision and Scientific Aims. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00679-y
(Open access) The author discusses Guerin’s model of behavioral systems

4/29 Garcia, Y. Editorial. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00681-4
Introducing the first issue of 2026

Journal of Behavioral Education
4/27 Larsen, E., Caldarella, P., Wills, H. . et al. Improving Behavior in a Middle School Art Classroom using CW-FIT. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09628-9
(Open access) CW-FIT is essentially a version of the Good Behavior Game; when a middle-school art teacher implemented it in a classroom of 36 students, their on-task behaviors increased, despite the fact that the teacher’s fidelity was uneven

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Peer Mediation (DUAL-DIAGNOSIS)

All Things Behavior
Guest Editorial: The Power of the Science of Behavior in Today’s Literacy Crisis with Shannon Hammond and Denise Ross

Functional Relations
#42 - The Status of Radical Behaviorism w/ Dr. Bill Ahearn

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
The Molar View of Behavior
A guest post by William Baum

Conference Tips From and For Students of Behavior Analysis

Mickey Keenan Says There’s More To Science Than Being Right
Tom Critchfield introduces a video from Mickey Keenan about good dissemination

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
What RFK Jr. said to Congress shows he doesn’t understand disability policy
Could easily cut two words from the end of this sentence

ASAN Alarmed by IACC Process Without Public Input

Reasons You Didn’t Realize You’re Autistic

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

12 new behavioral health study findings to know

“Nearly half of the U.S. states were found to meet 25% or less of their estimated mental health workforce needs, according to a March report from Inseparable. At least 14 states reported “catastrophic shortages” in their psychiatric hospitals, 17 reported such shortages in community mental health providers, and 13 in behavioral health crisis systems. Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa and Nebraska reported catastrophic shortages across all three.”

While there are implications that funding sources are finding ABA to be too expensive, perhaps more funding would attract more workers?

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

‘Relentless’ focus on literacy undermines reading for pleasure, says report, The Guardian
The popular movement towards “whole language” reading – a technique which, overall, does not work – caused many children to be poor readers. When a person is bad at something, do they enjoy doing it? Paradoxically, the sentiment that children should enjoy reading before they can read results in poor teaching and a failure to enjoy reading.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 5/4, 5/5, 5/6, 5/13 (ETH), 5/14 (SUP), 5/14 (ETH), 5/19 (SUP), 5/20, 5/21 (ETH), 5/26, 5/27 (ETH/SUP

Flashback

Beyond Freedom and Dignity in 1872

In the first issue of The Popular Science Monthly, an article by sociologist E.B. Tylor from May 1872 discusses the philosophy of M. Quetelet, a Belgian statistician. While the philosophy of a Belgian statistician from 1872 is bound to have some…problems, it seems that M. Quetelet was quite forward-thinking about human freedom:

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
4/21 Silbaugh, B.C. Quality Assurance Concepts in Applied Behavior Analysis for Clinical Supervision. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01178-w
While there is a lack of experimental research on improving quality provision of services, the author details universal principles of quality assurance

Bernabe, E., Colantuono, V., Freedman, B. et al. Embedding an Autism-Friendly Hospital Initiative into a Pediatric Healthcare Enterprise. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01179-9
Detailing the development of an initiative that improved hospital care for autistic patients

4/24 Klinepeter, E., Reece, J., Dalton, E. et al. A Comprehensive Behavior Analytic Consultation Program in a Pediatric Acute Care Hospital. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01177-x
(Open access) A description of a complete hospital program, with some helpful details (e.g., an intake flowchart)

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management *
4/24 Wine, B. (2026). The use of brief training and targeted feedback to decrease clicking on simulated phishing links. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2026.2665120
Brief training and feedback eliminated clicking on phishing links

Behavioral Interventions *
4/25 Mohamed, Raeesa, Jennifer L.Cook, Margaret A.Boggs, and John T.Rapp. 2026. “Analysis of Two Metrics for Keynote and Invited Speaker Expertise: A Replication and Extension in Canada,” Behavioral Interventions: e70104. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70104
(Open access) 63 presentations at 17 conferences in Canada from 2021-2023 were analyzed; findings include that over 50% of speakers had no topic-specific peer-reviewed publications, and over 50% of that group had no publications at all

Schreck, Kimberly A., AlishaPaxon, CortneyHelsel, and EricOrange. 2026. “Instructing and Prolonging Communication for a Young Girl With MPS IIIA Using Applied Behavior Analysis,” Behavioral Interventions: e70103. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70103
(Open access) In a single-case of a young girl with an unusual disability, AAC training increased her mands, even after a regression

Perspectives on Behavior Science
4/21 King, H.C., Nall, R.W. & Falligant, J.M. Extending a Matching-Law Based Account of Extinction Bursts to Humans. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00499-z
Using data from 6 individuals with disabilities, the authors examine whether a version of the matching law proposed by Shahan accounts for extinction bursts, with mixed findings

Behavior and Social Issues
4/24 Slanzi, C., Schulz, J., Chumbler, N. et al. Behavior Science Meets Public Health. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00247-7
Can behavior science change public health?

Behavior Modification *
4/21 Kirby, G., Morawska, A., Mitchell, A. E., McGill, J., Coman, D., & Inwood, A. (2026). Changes in Child Behaviour Following a Brief Parenting Intervention (Triple P) for Families of Children with Phenylketonuria (PKU): A Case Series. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261421147
(Open access) Parents developed up to 2 goals, then attended 2 2-hour group sessions. 20/23 goals were reported met at 4-month follow-up; 9 were specific to PKU but 14 were general (e.g., behavior management)

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
4/22 Higgins, S. T., Madden, G. J., Johnson, M., Koffarnus, M. N., Stein, J. S., Gatchalian, K. M., & Friedlander, M. (2026). In Memoriam: Our Time with Warren K. Bickel. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70102. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70102
He worked in delay discounting and addiction research, and what appears to be his most-cited article is Heroin Addicts Have Higher Discount Rates for Delayed Rewards Than Non-Drug-Using Controls

Peng, D., & Zentall, T. R. (2026). The freedom to choose may be an artifact of a preference for spatial location. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70098. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70098
Organisms prefer choice -- or do they? The authors speculate that this could actually be “a preference for a terminal-link spatial location.” In their translational experiment with pigeons, they had mixed results; some pigeons preferred the initial choice condition, some were indifferent, and 1 pigeon preferred no choice

4/23 Musquez, M., & Rasmussen, E. B. (2026). Cookie-cue effects on delay discounting in binge-prone rats exposed to a restricted high-sugar diet. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(3), e70103. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70103
In a translational study, rats prone to binge eating or control rats were given two different diets: rat food only, or rat food mixed with Oreos, wherein 22.5% of their diet was sugar. After restricting sugar, the rats were tested for delay discounting of a sucrose solution; some rats were given rat food, with some rats given a very small piece of Oreo. The rats given a small piece of Oreo before the task increased their delay discounting -- but rats prone to binge eating with rat food only also increased discounting, leading the authors to conclude that exposure to small amounts of sugar could potentially prevent binge eating

Education and Treatment of Children Volume 49, Issue 1 (6 articles, 0 open access)
Most intriguing: On Banning Seclusion versus Establishing Enforceable Standards for Managing Dangerous Behavior in Schools: A Response to Krezmien and Mulcahy (2024)
Is seclusion a net negative? Yes. But, also, look at the news: teachers are clamoring for a punishment they can use

The Psychological Record
4/21 Andrews, M., Umphrey, B. A Critical Review of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Behavior Analysts. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00678-z
“The book aims to settle whether ACT qualifies as behavior analytic” -- well we can’t imagine anything controversial about that

4/24 Okouchi, H. Responses under a Progressive-Ratio Schedule of Collective Reinforcement. Psychol Rec (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-026-00680-5
Pairs of undergrads pressed keys in 1 of 2 conditions: wherein individual presses or total group presses were exchangeable for money. In 6/10 groups, the individual scores were higher than the group scores, which seems to provide weak evidence that individual reinforcement is more effective than group reinforcement

Journal of Behavioral Education
4/21 Tarifa-Rodriguez, A., Virues-Ortega, J. & Calero-Elvira, A. Enhancing Academic Performance in Tertiary Education Through Social Media: A Multi-arm Randomized Controlled Trial of the BE-Social Program. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09629-8
(Open access) In what sounds like an online ABA program, low-performing students were randomly assigned to a control or intervention group; the intervention groups included: “self-management; cooperative learning; self-management and cooperative learning; and self-management, cooperative learning, and semi-immediate instructor feedback” delivered via Facebook groups. The complete intervention package was most effective, with effects from every other intervention group except self-management only

Diffley, S., Kubina , R., Noone, C. et al. The Social Validity of Teacher Implemented Precision Teaching: Students’ Perspectives. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09632-z
(Open access) In a qualitative study on precision teaching, 81 students in Ireland were interviewed about their experiences. For the most part, they enjoyed the experience

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Assent and PECS

Behavioral Observation
Supporting Health and Wellness in Developmental Disabilities: Session 330: Brandon May, Maggie Pavone, and Kate Heersink

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

Steve Hayes
Moral Education of AI: The Tangled Web We Weave: What if making AI moral requires the same work as raising moral humans?
Hayes argues that developing “morality” in humans is more than just a set of rules -- for example, you can’t simply tell young adults “this is right and this is wrong.” He compares this to AI, but then he accepts what an AI company is claiming about how its AI model “behaves,” which is like taking Ben’s word for it that Jerry makes the healthy type of ice cream

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
ASAN Statement on Padilla Bill Introduction
in favor of voting by mail

IACC must do better for autistic people

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

HHS agency launches $139.4M behavioral health research initiative
Wow, cool! Let’s see what they’re researching:

“endpoints to validate the effectiveness of rapid-acting therapies such as digital interventions, neuromodulation, and neuroplastogens, including the safe use of psychedelics,”

Oh.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

SF schools’ reading reform is failing. An expert tells us why — and how to fix it, The San Francisco Standard

The reason why: up to 1/3 of teachers aren’t actually using the new curriculum. But the more relevant problem with that figure is that there is not necessarily a consequence – the teachers are expected to use the new curriculum, but nothing happens if they don’t. In Mississippi, accountability looked (in part) like this:

We started rating every school and district with an A through F letter grade — very publicly — based on proficiency and growth in reading and math. If your school was in the lowest 25%, you could become a literacy support school, and then the state would dictate your curriculum and how that process looked. You had to go to training, coaching, all of it. And if you were an F for two consecutive years, or a D for four, the state could take over your district — remove the school board, remove the superintendent, and run it directly.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 4/23 (ETH), 4/28, 4/30 (ETH)

Flashback

Pre-Iwata

In 1977, Ed Carr developed a hypothesis about how to test for maintaining variables:

5 years later, Iwata et al. referenced Carr in the seminal article that introduced the FA.

A bank of cages is filled with kittens. A man peers into a cage. The kitten inside paws the door. The man spoons cooked soybeans into a slot, where they drop under the kitten’s nose.

In the same cage, a small gray rat huddles in the far corner.

The kitten approaches the rat. The rat hardly moves.

The kitten opens its mouth slightly. She licks the rat.

This is grooming behavior. The kitten and the rat have been raised together since birth. The kitten, up to this point, has never observed another cat attacking a rat. And this kitten will never attack this rat, or any similar rat. This kitten has been made into a rat-lover.

Zing-Yang Kuo maintains that this is his strongest argument yet for the complete abolition of the concept of “instinct.” By this point, he’s been making that case for nearly a decade.

Zing-Yang Kuo was born in 1898 into a China we would scarcely recognize. Having recently been defeated in war by Japan, there was an attempted reform aimed at modernizing politics and culture, followed by a coup d’etat. Modernization was a goal because China was largely impoverished and rural. Political unrest would roil mainland China for decades.

Kuo (whose name is perhaps more accurately transliterated as Guo Renyuan) was born into wealth. While his published writing doesn’t expound on his childhood, some anecdotes characterize him as intelligent, rebellious, and privileged. He briefly attended college in China, then travelled to the United States to study at Berkeley. In the 1920s, this would have been prohibitively expensive for most Chinese citizens. Emily Baum claims that Kuo’s unpublished autobiography states that his father was in the opium trade, but this is unconfirmed.

By 1921, Kuo published a paper near the end of his undergrad studies. Entitled Giving Up Instincts in Psychology, it sparked at least 7 responses over the following 12 months. It’s easy to see why: Kuo takes the stance that the concept of instinct should be abandoned entirely. (He also sparked an academic debate in China, but these articles were not generally accessible to Americans at the time)

Kuo’s eventual perspective, refined over 40 years but remarkably similar to this first paper, is that organisms of one type have the same general physical properties, but are influenced by their environment, both physical and social. So while genetic potential is similar, all behaviors are shaped by the environment.

An illustrative example: birds fly. Is this instinctual? Douglas Spalding in 1875 kept birds in cages wherein they could not spread their wings, and never observed other birds in flight. Still, when released at the age of which birds typically fly, these birds also flew. Spalding thus concluded that this was instinctual.

Decades later, Kuo ran a similar experiment. Birds raised in a similar fashion did not always fly when released into a large enclosure. In fact, many of the birds simply hopped along on the ground. But when threatened – when a dog entered the enclosure – most birds did fly. Kuo maintained that most birds can fly, but tend to do so only with environmental pressure.

And even still, as Dennis points out in a 1940 replication of Spalding’s experiment, birds restrained from flying do not have typical flight on their first attempt. Indeed their flight is rudimentary and only improves with practice.

Flight is a complex coordination of musculoskeletal movement – what we might call operant. What about something simple, such as pecking?

Kuo posited that pecking movements developed over time. They just started developing before we could see it: inside the egg.

After perhaps hundreds of experiments, he discovered a reliable system. He cut a portion of the top layer of shell off of an egg, keeping the membrane intact. He covered the exposed membrane with petroleum jelly, using a calligraphy brush. This allowed the embryo to develop essentially as normal, with a “window” into the egg. At this point in history, there had been no reliable way to observe the complete development of a bird embryo.

Pecking did not arrive, fully-formed, as a reflex or instinct. It developed slowly, within the egg. Indeed, Kuo regarded hatching merely as a change in the environment.

What, exactly, is the problem with instinct?

As Kuo saw it, the main problem is that calling any behavior an instinct precludes further scientific investigation, and pretends to be explanatory.

How does the behavior develop? It’s an instinct. This is, even today, accepted as a complete explanation.

Further, it presupposes that an instinct cannot be influenced by biological or social pressure. But as Kuo points out, cats can hunt or love rats – which is instinct? Perhaps the biological potential of organisms, while similar at the population level, is much more extensive than previously considered.

Kuo might have regarded the events of his life as distinctly unironic: after all, the physical and social environment shaped him. At several points in his writing, he cites “the political situation” in China as reason for his failure to complete research – eliding the fact that, in his lifetime, this included the Boxer Rebellion, invasion by Japan, the Sino-Japanese war, the Russo-Japanese war (which, despite being a war between Russia and Japan, took place in China), communist revolution (which did not technically end for years after it “ended”), living in what was officially a British colony, and shortly before his death, the cultural revolution. This was the set dressing.

He was undoubtedly hard-working and brilliant, but as quoted in Blowers, Carmichael noted that his English was not good enough to be considered for a teaching position in America. Another anecdote regarding his 1967 book, The Dynamics of Behavior Development: an Epigenetic View, is that his American editor significantly revised the language. To our knowledge, there is no extant audio or video of Kuo; was this concern about his English ability justified, or bigoted? In any case, he returned to China after studying at Berkeley. He had completed a PhD thesis, but refused to incorporate any committee feedback, and was not granted a doctorate degree.

In mainland China, Kuo began a teaching position in a university, at a time when there was no psychology department. Kuo’s wealthy familial connections led him to be a serious fundraiser, so much so that he was responsible for the construction of a large Western-style building, housing the brand new psychology department.

And here, Kuo’s life took a strange turn. He took a position overseeing an experimental middle school, including the curriculum. But the brilliant, politically savvy scientist quickly became unpopular. He was strict, punitive, and inspired a student rebellion. A student rebellion in a middle school.

Years later, when given the opportunity to become a university president, a remarkably similar situation occurred.

The communist revolution was in its infancy. Kuo was anti-Marxist – as quoted in Baum, because “Marxism is not revolutionary enough.” But communism was popular with students. When students planned to travel to a distant protest, Kuo informed the government. The students were unharmed; they were merely stopped and sent back. Still, it was an immensely unpopular move and after an extensive student manifesto was published in a newspaper, he was asked to step down.

Kuo traveled America for 9 years, visiting various universities to conduct research and to officially lobby for greater cooperation between American and Chinese institutions. Both missions resulted in failure: Kuo was, again, not offered a professorship in America, and his push for cooperation was met with skepticism.

Kuo returned to China, but soon left the mainland, living the majority of the remainder of his life in Hong Kong, and largely outside of academia. (He lived in Kowloon, though unfortunately for us, not Kowloon Walled City). He returned briefly to America at the behest of Gilbert Gottlieb, and in 1963 helped guide some of Gottlieb’s research. (Some of Gottlieb’s brilliant research includes an experiment that showed that prenatal exposure to different calls can cause ducks to prefer chicken clucks over their mother’s quack)

In the final years of his life, he was working on a book about the “national character” of the Chinese people.

Blowers writes provocatively about Kuo’s final, unpublished book. The title says it all: Was ZY Kuo a Radical Behaviorist?

After all, writing an entire book aimed at characterizing the population of China – it seems distinctly mentalistic. Ultimately, Blowers concludes that Kuo was not strictly a radical behaviorist.

Our own perspective is that it seems that Kuo made a distinction between humans and animals. The failure to apply his own basic scientific principles to working with students; the book on “Chinese national character”; a lack of applied research with human subjects; it all points to a common opinion that “humans are different” (and perhaps they are).

Ultimately, “Kuo was not a radical behaviorist” might be true – but it is not exactly a damning criticism.

But what about the suggestion that he – and that behaviorism – is fascist?

Emily Baum wrote a well-sourced, thorough, and occasionally misguided 2015 profile of Kuo.

She misinterprets his work in his 1967 book The Dynamics of Behavior Development, leading to a fatal flaw in her argumentation. Kuo admits that heredity is important in behavior, but he does not “retreat from behaviorism,” as Baum phrases it. As an example, Kuo notes that a horse can neither fly nor talk – the physical reality of an organism constrains its behavioral potential. He does not materially change his argument regarding the influence of the environment on potential.

1967 version, p 199

She claims that “social control” fell out of fashion due to Nazi Germany, with the implication that Nazi eugenicism has some type of overlap with Kuo’s philosophy. The obvious conflict is that Kuo had been the strongest proponent of an anti-instinct movement that is characterized as distinctly anti-hereditary. Kuo denied the very possibility of eugenics. Indeed, from A Psychology Without Heredity:

And importantly, Baum claims that Kuo’s “administrative tactics were reinforced by laboratory experiments.” While behaviorism was in early stages in America, and even more so in China, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the literature. It is our opinion that Kuo, again, abandoned science when working with people. Because if his tactics were, in fact, “reinforced by laboratory experiments,” what were they? Based on chicken embryos?

However, returning to Kuo’s politics. The way he tried to run two different schools – a single strong authority, revolutionary but anti-communist, harsh rules – it certainly appears fascist.

Which leads us to an uncomfortable truth.

Behaviorism, as applied to the betterment of society, has a passing resemblance to fascism.

Kuo, and even Skinner, could appear fascist to certain people.

Firstly, this is – at least in part – because it is difficult to define fascism. But examine some of the definitions in the previous link, and you might notice that the primary similarity among definitions is a strong leader. Critics see a single cultural designer as fascistic.

In a deliberately scientific design of an environment or culture, it is perhaps unavoidable to have a small number of experts at the helm. Skinner himself wrote, in News From Nowhere (in the voice of a character):

A temporary dictatorship! However, it’s clear that Skinner is calling for a form of anarchy. Indeed, when designing his ideal society in Walden Two, he does not call for a dictatorship. Examining definitions of fascism, we see other qualities that are distinctly not behaviorist: centralized capitalism, strong nationalism, rigid social hierarchies, etc.

Kuo did, until his “exile” to Hong Kong, consistently push himself into leadership. He jockeyed for administrative roles in schools, lobbied for political appointments, and worked connections at American universities. Would he have been some kind of “benevolent” technological dictator if he had ever gotten the chance?

It’s not clear, but it seems that he wanted to run schools in that fashion.

And so: perhaps, as Blowers puts it, Kuo was not a radical behaviorist.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
4/15 Malkin, A., Rzeszutek, M. J., Moscovitz, A., Axenova, K., Walker, E., Randhawa, A., & Gunnarsson, K. F. (2026). A functional approach to social media assessment: Initial psychometric evaluation of the Social Media Use Functional Assessment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(2), e70062. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70062
The authors developed a questionnaire for problematic social media use that incorporates maintaining functions

Behavior Analysis in Practice Volume 19, Issue 1 (26 articles, 2 open access)
Most intriguing: Kind Extinction: A Procedural Variation on Traditional Extinction
(Open access) A simple variation on extinction that still works while being more acceptable to clients and stakeholders

4/15 Barrera-Lansford, A., O’Reilly, M. & DeMayo, M. Exploring the Effects of Soft Skill Training among ABA Practitioners: A Systematic Review. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01162-4
(Open access) 11 studies found that BST could improve “soft skills” (e.g., active listening) but that these studies didn’t include cultural responsiveness or input from clients

Edelstein, M.L., Franzmann, T.K. & Mellott, J.A. Assessment and Treatment of Multiply Maintained Complex Motor Stereotypy. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01182-0
The authors used a FA to confirm that stereotypy was multiply controlled, then collaborated with a parent for a 93% reduction in rate

4/16 Boyle, G., Grey, H.C. & Jones, S.H. Tangible Access Supports Cooperation During DTT: A Case Study. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01180-2
Using a latency-based FA, the authors found that allowing access to tangibles -- as opposed to taking them away and returning them after a trial block -- increased cooperation with trials

Behavioral Interventions * Volume 41, Issue 2 (12 articles, 4 open access)
Most intriguing: Contingent Vocal Imitation Increases Vocalizations of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
A best-practice confirmed: imitate the sounds of infants, toddlers, and young children

4/17 Carmo, Tatiany R. do, Álvaro J. M. eSilva, and Romariz da S.Barros. 2026. “Effectiveness of an Interactive Computer Training Tool to Teach Labor Social Skills to Autistic Adults,” Behavioral Interventions: e70102. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70102
(Open access) 4 autistic adults were presented with a situation in a simulated job task in which they should ask for help, and the participants did not complete all necessary steps (e.g., saying “excuse me” before asking). After interactive computer training, 2/4 reached 100% on a follow-up test, while 2/4 reached 100% after 5 minutes of feedback after the training

Behavior and Social Issues
4/15 Calvo, M.E. Venezuela 1972: An Overlooked Moment in Behavior Analysis. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00245-9
Behavior analysis spread around the world in some cases due to dissemination (e.g., Fred Keller visiting Brazil). Skinner visited Venezuela in 1972, and this article presents a history of the visit and its effects

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
4/16 Lawson, A., DeFouw, E. R., LaBrot, Z. C., Mong, M. D., & Olmi, D. J. (2026). Welcome, Learn, Thrive: The Combined Effects of Positive Greetings at the Door and Behavior-Specific Praise on Class-Wide Prosocial Behaviors. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389302
Combining two well-understood evidence-based interventions -- positive greetings as students enter the classroom, and behavior-specific praise -- immediately increased academic engagement and decreased disruptive behavior in 3 classrooms

Godfrey, E., Garbacz, S. A., Cho, J. S., Ash, T. L., McGinley, M., Bednarek, G., Cruz, S., & Gulbrandson, K. (2026). Examining Rural School Staff Perspectives on PBIS Sustainment. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389288
In a qualitative study, 32 interviews were conducted between 9 Midwestern rural schools. The authors detail how they sustain their PBIS systems

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
4/17 Lee, A., Higgins, S., O’Driscoll, D. et al. The Association Between Neonatal Jaundice and Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Findings From the Millennium Cohort Study. J Autism Dev Disord (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-026-07317-0
(Open access) In a large correlational study in the UK, infants hospitalized for treatment of jaundice were more likely to later be diagnosed with ASD or ADHD -- though not to a statistically significant extent

Journal of Behavioral Education
4/15 Ramirez, A.K.M., Brunsting, N., Burns, M.K. et al. Effect of Behavioral Skills Training on Middle School General Educator Implementation of Visual Schedules. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09631-0
BST improved fidelity of implementation of BIPs for 3 teachers during training

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Relapse

All Things Behavior
A Critical Evaluation of Practitioner Training in Applied Behavior Analysis: It is Time for a Change with Justin Leaf

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
What Behavior Analysts Should Take from “The Autism Diagnosis Problem”
A post about the NYT podcast The Daily, a recent episode of which discusses the rising rates of autism diagnoses

Cultural Troubles and Issues
Delineating the difference between personal and systemic

Licensing & professional organizations

BACB
The 2026 Michael Hemingway Behavior Analysis Award
goes to Mike Wasner, the COO of CASP

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Barriers Persist to In-network Behavioral Health Care at the 4 Largest US Health Plans
Mental health parity is such that in at least 43 of 50 states, it can be harder to find mental health treatment than a physician. Corporations would rather not pay for it and are suing, and the federal government is implying that they want to weasel out of enforcement.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

In the brain, objects seen and imagined follow the same neural path, NPR

“This has not been demonstrated before at the neural level,” says Kalanit Grill-Spector, a psychology professor at Stanford University’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, who was not involved in the research.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 4/23 (ETH), 4/28, 4/30 (ETH)

Flashback

A life-changer

In 1969, Kelleher & Morse published a paper describing an experiment wherein squirrel monkeys engaged in lever presses to control electric shocks. And in 2026, Erin Calipari of Vanderbilt says that it changed her life. Monkeys (and other organisms), under some schedules, will shock themselves. But maybe you already knew that.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
4/7 Olgun, D., Deshais, M. A., Kahng, S., & LaRue, R. H. (2026). Reducing social media use via contingency management: A replication and extension. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(2), e70061. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70061
(Open access) In a replication, contingency management reduced engagement with social media, but did not increase engagement in alternative activities

Behavior Analysis in Practice
Norris, H.M., Mitteer, D.R., Hurd, A.M. et al. Correction: Integrating Client and Implementer Preferences During Functional Communication Training with Discriminative Stimuli. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01165-1
(Open access) The correction seems to be entirely related to correcting superscript text (for SD and Sdelta)

Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice
4/5 Austin, J. L. (2026). The importance of saying “yes”: Embracing opportunities to expand the reach of behavior analysis. Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/bar0000329
Jennifer Austin on the power of “yes” in her career

Behavioral Interventions *
4/10 Almarzooqi, Jenan, JosephRicciardi, TriciaChoy, et al. 2026. “The Teacher as Performance Manager of Behavioral Data Collection in the Classroom,” Behavioral Interventions: e70091. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70091
The authors trained special ed teachers to use Performance Management strategies (”prompting, checking, praising, and correcting, in vivo”) to improve data collection in their classrooms

Singer-Dudek, Jessica, HungChang, JenniferLongano, and R. D.Greer. 2026. “The Effects of Peers Versus Adults on Observational Conditioning-By-Denial,” Behavioral Interventions: e70100. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70100
The authors used a peer or adult in an intervention designed to condition a neutral stimulus as a reinforcer. First, present the stimulus to the other person, while continually withholding it from the target individual. In this study, only when given to a peer (and not an adult) did the stimulus become a conditioned reinforcer

Behavior Modification *
4/8 Lewis, T. K., & Cariveau, T. (2026). Preliminary Demonstration of Concurrent-Chains Progressive Ratio Schedules to Measure Magnitude of Relative Preference. Behavior Modification, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01454455261434869
Concurrent chain schedules can test for preference; in this study, one chain schedule had a progressive ratio. 2/4 participants reached a break point in the PR schedule, revealing more information about preferences

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
4/5 Dickinson, S., Rosinski, L., Ferron, J. M., & Agazzi, H. (2026). Addressing Early Childhood Disruptive Behavior and Parenting Stress Through Group Behavioral Parent Training: Effects of Socioeconomic Risk and Homework Completion. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0) https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389296
Parent training homework completion negatively correlated with socioeconomic stress (e.g., poor parents don’t do the homework), but strangely it did not seem to correlate with child behavior problems

4/8 Carpenter, M. E., Snodgrass, M. R., Walker, V. L., Pinczynski, M., & Harris, R. (2026). Participation of Students With IDD in Social Validity Assessment of Function-Based Interventions in School Settings: A Prevalence Review. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389667
In 142 studies using a single-case design in schools from 2006-2022, only 11 reported social validity data from the subject

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
4/10 Coleman, A., Fitzwater, B.M., Harden, P.A. et al. Child Autism Spectrum Disorder Following Maternal Abuse and Trauma History. J Autism Dev Disord (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-026-07326-z
In a retrospective review of medical records of two pediatric practices in two different states, women who reported any history of abuse prior to their pregnancy were 2-3 times more likely to have a child diagnosed with ASD

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Golden Grab Bag (Spring Grab Bag 2026)

Behavioral Observations
Train Smarter, Not Harder: Heart Rate Zones, VO2 Max, and Better Fitness: Session 329 with Nick Green

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
Applied Behavioral Musicology: Classic Behavior Analysis Publications, In Song
Tom Critchfield and Derek Reed create ABA songs using AI? It’s certainly something

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
The Truth About Autism

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Federal Audits of Medicaid-Autism Oversight Are a ‘Black Eye,’ Likely to Ignite Profound Change
ABA is expensive. It has drawn increasing scrutiny, particularly in the several states where it has consumed a majority of Medicaid funding (such as Indiana). And in a time where the mere existence of fraud in a large industry seems to spark large-scale (astroturfed) movements to cut funding (see this nonsense). It remains to be seen whether there will be a course-correction (better reporting of outcomes, cost controls) or a complete backlash.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

You aren’t the only one who just sits in the car before or after a long day, AP News
This is not entirely as complicated as the interview subjects make it out to be. In a classic article, the work habits of Congress are described as being analogous to a fixed interval schedule. That is to say: pigeons in a cage pressing a lever for grains of feed is not directly applicable to the average human behavior – yet the pigeon could be an example of a basic process.

This is not a convincing argument to some people (even Jack Michael), but consider that the “processing” metaphor used in this article – and frequently in others – is a computer analogy that has no evident basis.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 4/15, 4/23 (ETH), 4/28, 4/30 (ETH)

Flashback

Brill’s patented psychoanalytic behaviorist cure

The Ninth International Congress of Psychology in 1929 had some early papers from some memorable names: Thorndike, Pavlov, and some psychoanalyst named Brill. He (it just has to be a he) describes a case of a boy who chewed on his clothes – it’s likely you’ve had a similar case yourself. Now, on the one hand, perhaps this boy was cured because psychoanalysis was “stopping the source of the libido increase” (???) or perhaps it was because he was allowed to chew gum. You be the judge.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
3/30 Shaw, S. K. G., Posey, J. L., Zane, T., Putnam, R. F., Shillingsburg, A., & Weiss, M. J. (2026). Comparing interteaching and discussion forums in an asynchronous online classroom: A replication. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(2), e70060. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70060
Interteaching was superior to discussion forums for quiz scores, but not projects. Students preferred interteaching. The supplemental info has a helpful FOI checklist

Behavior Analysis in Practice
3/30 Lloveras, L.A., Vollmer, T.R. Suggestions for Repeated Measurement of Sleep and Behavior for Children with Autism Receiving Behavior Analysis Service. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01176-y
In one interesting finding from this study, comparing parent estimate of child sleep with commercial devices found that parents may overestimate their child’s sleep

McCary, L.M., Hoehne, K.G. A Programmatic Evaluation of Interdisciplinary Collaboration at a Center-Based Organization. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01175-z
(Open access) The authors detail how they constructed a collaborative center

4/1 Fienup, D.M., Blank, E., Jacobson, M. et al. A Systematic Review of and Recommendations for Behavior Analytic Decision-Making Models for Practitioners Working with Children. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01170-4
The authors review 38 decision-making models from the literature

Behavioral Interventions *
3/29 Frazier, Thomas W., Nissa V.Etten, Richard M.Kubina, Jr., AllisonFrazier, MichaelMueller, and MirkoUljarevic. 2026. “Comprehensive Psychometric Evaluation of the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised and the Assessment of Functional Living Skills,” Behavioral Interventions: e70092. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70092
(Open access) The ABLLS-R and AFLS are psychometrically sound -- for example, a sound test will get you similar results if you test the same person on two consecutive days, etc.

Behavior and Social Issues
4/1 Solares, L., Croghan, L.E., Tamrazi, S. et al. Demographic Characteristics of Interventionists: Rarely Reported, Arguably Important. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00246-8
In 661 articles published from 2019-2024 in 3 behavior analytic journals, the categories “age, educational level, gender or sex, language, race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status” of interventionists were reported no more then 25% of the time. But these qualities do matter sometimes

Journal of Behavioral Education
4/2 Lee, S., Lee, Y. Effectiveness of a parent-implemented intervention for improving balance in a child with autism spectrum disorder. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09627-w
The authors trained a parent to implement an intervention aimed at improving motor skills in their child, “including sitting, half-kneeling, standing, and walking” plus ball skills. The parent implemented the intervention effectively

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
3/29 Differential Effects of Perceived Discrimination and Affirmation in LGBQ People: Heterosexism During Childhood and Interoceptive Awareness as Individual Contexts
(In press) (Open access) In a sample of 141 LGBQ people in Hong Kong, early exposure to “heterosexist“ beliefs had deleterious effects on health, and affirmations had small positive effects

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
April Preview 2026

Episodes will include:

• Golden Grab Bag (Spring Grab Bag 2026)

• Relapse

• Assent and PECS w/ Armando Bernal

Behavioral Observations
Conditioning Books as Reinforcers: How to Increase Reading Engagement in Young Children: Inside JABA 26

All Things Behavior
Toward Collapsing the Is-Ought Distinction: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Data-Informed Ethics in Behavior Analysis with David Cox and Matt Brodhead

Functional Relations
#41 - Student Episode: 7 Dimensions of ABA

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
Dismantling Ableism in Applied Behavior Analysis: A Call for Reflective Practice
A guest post referencing two recent articles by the same author

Climate Change Books include Behavior Change – A (Somewhat) Hopeful and Inspiring Sampler
Susan Schneider highlights books on climate action

When the Archives Sang: A Startling Discovery in the Harvard Audio Collections
Unfortunately we were beaten to the scoop that Skinner recorded a folk duet with Chomsky

Community Engaged Scholarship in Verbal Behavior: Lessons Learned from Bridging Research, Practice, and Community Impact
A guest post from Texas Tech faculty and students about “community engaged scholarship” and goddamn they are playing with fire, apparently. We recommend finding a university that deserves you

OAR
Why Those with Autism Make Great Poets
A poor idea
Completely impoverished
RFK withdraw

Licensing & professional organizations

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Federal agencies to revise mental health parity rule
As with everything in the current administration, this is either 1) a scary, looming mess of a change, or 2) something that won’t end up happening, mostly due to incompetence. Therefore, it’s hard to assess whether this is a seriously underreported story – if this happens, it could have enormous effects on any industry that relies on MHP. Then again, the state of Georgia has fined providers $25 million under MHP but collected $0.

And an update on the Indiana provider with the highest Medicaid reimbursement: they’re going under after being banned from billing the state.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Did New York blow $10 million on reading instruction that doesn’t work?, The Hechinger Report
Teachers were exposed to mistakes in a $10 million training that mostly consisted of some dudes reading from slides, including:

One [slide] notes that high-frequency words “can easily be decoded,” a statement that isn’t true, he said: Many of the highest-frequency words derive from the Anglo-Saxon spelling tradition and are irregular. “I think that would be a slide I’d say, ‘Get rid of that or rewrite it dramatically,’ ” [Tim Shanahan] said.

We want to propose something right now to Her Honor, Governor Kathy Hochul: we will personally concoct a slide deck on phonics instruction for half price with half the errors. We can have this done by Tuesday, Kathy!

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 4/8, 4/10, 4/15, 4/23 (ETH), 4/28, 4/30 (ETH)

Flashback

Ski-ner

***

In the October 1972 issue of Ski magazine – October surely being a prime month for Ski magazine – they have a brief uncredited passage suggesting that ski coaches take an operant conditioning approach. It’s clearly half-serious, but the principles of behaviorism have been used in coaching. Garry Martin made a career out of it.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis *
3/23 Hedroj, Z., Rey, C. N., Passage, M., & O’Neill, P. (2026). Teaching children with autism to challenge lies while playing board games. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 59(2), e70059. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70059
3 autistic boys were taught to challenge 5 different lies while playing a board game, using naturalistic teaching procedures, and then tested on 5 probe lies. All subjects acquired and maintained the skill

Behavior Analysis in Practice
3/24 Howard, J.S., Morrison, K., Sundberg, D. et al. The Women in Behavior Analysis Hall of Fame: 2022 Inductees. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01174-0
6 women are inducted into the 2022 Behavior Analysis Hall of Fame: “Ellen Reese, Barbara Etzel, Beth Sulzer-Azaroff, Frances Horowitz, Julie Vargas, and Gwendolyn Cartledge”

Behavioral Interventions *
Gray, Kate N., Raymond G.Miltenberger, and Emma J.Walker. 2026. “Evaluating a Web-Based Training to Teach Behavior Analysis Students to Implement Behavioral Skills Training,” Behavioral Interventions: e70089. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70089
Web-based technology was used to teach BST to students, so that the students could use BST to teach kids medication safety. It was effective for 1/3 participants, while 2/3 participants required additional feedback

3/25 Noell, George H., Kristin A.Gansle, Hannah M.Sliman, and Danielle M. D.Lucia. 2026. “Establishing Hierarchical Classification Responding: Directly Trained and Emergent Responses,” Behavioral Interventions: e70090. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70090
(Open access) The authors trained kids to categorize multiple exemplars of stimuli (e.g., several pictures of Jurassic dinosaurs) and tested for transfer of stimulus function and for categorizing new exemplars. It emerged without direct instruction for some kids, and the remaining kids learned with direct instruction

3/27 Luiselli, James K., FrankBird, Jill M.Harper, Mary J.Weiss, AmandaDuffy, and MattDye. 2026. “Quality of Life in Adults With Intellectual Disability: Observation-Measurement Findings and Social Validity Among Direct Service Providers,” Behavioral Interventions: e70084. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70084
The Melmark folks designed a 12-item survey for direct staff to fill out about clients in order to measure their quality of life. The tool had good IOA and social validity

Perspectives on Behavior Science Volume 49, Issue 1 (10 articles, 3 open access)
Most intriguing: Context, Consequence, Coincidence, and Cumulative Cultural Evolution: Linking Creativity and Culturo-Behavioral Phenomena Together Using Systems Principles and Processes of Selection by Consequences
(Open access) A summary of two presentations, each with incredible ideas on evolution, behavior, and design

3/25 Romani, P.W., D’Mello, S.K., Moulder, R.M. et al. Using Wearable Technology to Predict the Occurrence of Severe Behavior Problems among Neurodiverse Individuals: A Systematic Review. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00497-1
(Open access) 13 studies have examined whether you can predict severe problem behavior, but results are inconclusive. We’ve reported on these in the past few years, including a failure of heart rate and a failure of accelerometer data to accurately and consistently predict behavior

Baum, W.M. Behavior, Process, and Evolution in the Multiscale Molar Paradigm. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00501-8
(Open access) William Baum’s theory of everything?

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
3/22 Abuin, S., Catalano, M.Jr., & Jones, S. H. (2026). A comparative analysis of experimental designs for procedural fidelity investigations. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(2), e70097. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70097
In a translational study, students were subject to fidelity errors of 50% in either a multi-element or reversal design, and conditions were signaled or unsignaled. More target responding occurred in the 50% fidelity condition, regardless of signaling. When 100% and 50% fidelity were alternated without signals, less responding occurred in the 50% fidelity condition

Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions *
3/22 Gahtan, J., Moeyaert, M., Asaro-Saddler, K., Yu, E. C., & Orlowski, E. (2026). Self-Management Strategies and Academic Engagement for Autistic Students: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis of Single-Case Experimental Designs. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0) https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389292
In a literature review, 14 studies were identified that used self-management for autistic students in the school setting. Self-management was found to increase academic engagement by about 49%, but with variability between studies

Dufour, M.-M., Martin, V., Préfontaine, I., Hogan, M., & Argumedes, M. (2026). Co-construction of a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Model in a Residential Care Setting for Autistic Adults: Exploring Implementation Barriers and Facilitators. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0) https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389270
(Open access) The authors adapted the PBIS model for a residential facility for adults in Canada. The authors found that it was challenging and time-consuming to implement, and that staff did not have motivation to engage with the system

3/27 Truman, K. J., Van Norman, E. R., & Kilgus, S. P. (2026). An Estimation of Trend Variability and Change Sensitivity of Direct Behavior Rating–Single Item Scales. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0) https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251386077
The authors used various behavior rating scales for kids, both academic and behavioral, over the course of a few weeks, and found that there were changes in many of the ratings

Layden, S. J., Lorio-Barsten, D. K., Holthaus, L., Hollins, N. A., Rhodes, L., Austin, K., & Berlin, K. L. (2026). School-Based Behavior Analysts: A Grounded Theory Study on How They See Their Roles. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 0(0) https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007251389273
A qualitative study examines the perspectives of 15 BCBAs in schools in America

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior
3/23 Rodriguez, B., Cividini-Motta, C. & Martinez, A. Using Instructive Feedback to Expand Second Language of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Analysis Verbal Behav (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-026-00227-3
There is a common misconception that teaching a second language will negatively impact a student’s primary language, especially for children with special needs. In this study, the authors taught words in Spanish with instructional feedback in English (e.g., “Gato” “Si, gato! Cat!”). All subjects met criteria for Spanish-language tacts and also acquired English conditional discriminations

Journal of Behavioral Education
3/24 Özdemir, R., Sönmez, N. & Koldas, M. Assessing Pre-service Special Education Teachers’ Skills in Defining and Recording Target Behaviors. J Behav Educ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-026-09626-x
In Turkey, a video-based survey was sent to 106 pre-service special ed teachers. They were asked to write operational definitions and to select the appropriate data recording technique; the authors found “limited accuracy,” implying that instruction alone was not enough to acquire these skills

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition: Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Public Posting

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

ABAI
ABA Isn’t Just for the Kids: How Behavior Analysts Use Self-Management to Survive (and Thrive in) Doctoral Training
A guest post about self-management techniques

A Boojum Worth Taming: Theory, Behavior Systems, and “Constraints on Learning”
A guest post on understanding behavior as a result of the interplay of various systems with the environment. We’ll have a related post soon

Steve Hayes
Don’t Chase Mood. Build a Life. Why ACT can help depression even when depression is not the direct target.
ACT reduced depression even when depression was not an explicit target, and this was true in several countries. This could be true because “reducing depression” is not something ACT would target; rather, “increasing enjoyment” might have this effect

Licensing & professional organizations

ASAN
ASAN Urges Department of Justice to Continue Investigating Restraint and Seclusion in Schools

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Indiana bars autism therapy provider from Medicaid billing: Wall Street Journal
Indiana was the first state in the nation to pass an insurance law mandating ABA coverage for children with autism, initiating coverage in 2001. 25 years later, they are capping treatment at 3 years in a lifetime, with 30-38 hours weekly. Providers like the one highlighted in the above article are (perhaps) one reason why:

Piece by Piece received the highest per-patient Medicaid payments in the U.S. in 2023 — about $340,000 on average — according to the report. The company set list prices that allowed it to collect up to $640 an hour for some services in 2024. From 2019 to 2023, Indiana paid the provider $58 million for autism therapy.

The company treated 84 children with autism in 2023, according to the latest year of available data.

A provider that appears to treat less than 100 children per year makes almost $15 million per year, which could amount to more than $150,000 per child per year. The provider 1) followed the law, and 2) may be doing incredible and valuable work. But “the highest per-patient Medicaid payments in the U.S.” is going to raise red flags.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

Abnormal behaviors in lab monkeys may reflect a lifetime of stressful experiences, Science
In observing 240 monkeys at research facilities in Oregon and California, 60% were found to engage in abnormal repetitive behaviors (ARB) such as rocking or hair pulling. The authors defined 12 aversive experiences, such as being placed in crowded cages or being separated from their mother. They found that the more aversive experiences that the monkeys had, the more ARBs they engaged in, and that each experience raised the chances of engaging in an ARB by about 50%.

There has been a recent movement in science to work with animals that are not single-genetic strain and raised in cages. While this complicates a study – the developmental history of a wild animal may be unknown – it may improve generality.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 3/31 (SUP), 4/1, 4/8, 4/10, 4/15, 4/23 (ETH), 4/28, 4/30 (ETH)

Flashback

Behavior of…dinosaurs?

In Vol 1 issue 4 of The Behavior Analyst Today (mercifully archived by the Wayback Machine), Derek Bousé, with a doctorate in communications, writes about a BBC program on dinosaurs.

How he found his way to this particular publication is anyone’s guess, but after some introductory remarks, he makes an important observation about a television program that is designed to look like a documentary:

It’s interesting that we truly don’t know how dinosaurs would have behaved.

Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)

Behavior Analysis in Practice
3/16 Wilson, J.B., Karsina, A. Integrating Large Language Model Applications in Graduate Applied Behavior Analysis Education. Behav Analysis Practice (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-026-01159-z
Some ideas on using LLMs that would be good if there wasn’t a very obvious and prevalent problem of LLMs “hallucinating“ information. In the appendices is an exercise where ChatGPT plays the role of a parent engaging with ascientific interventions, and when presented with science it just changes its mind and thanks the scientist, which makes us wonder if the authors have ever spoken to a human

Behavioral Interventions *
3/19 Wells, Cassidy, and Stephanie L.Mattson. 2026. “Using a Simple Reinforcement-Based Intervention to Improve Performance on Reading Comprehension Assessments,” Behavioral Interventions: e70087. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.70087
A 2nd grader who performed poorly on reading comprehension assessments was provided a reinforcer of his choice (such as coloring time or praise from the principal) by the resource room teacher following a verbal rule (”you have to score xx% today”), and the child’s performance improved

Perspectives on Behavior Science
3/16 Pilgrim, C., Hackenberg, T.D. Perspectives on Behavioral Complexity: Introduction to the Special Issue. Perspect Behav Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-026-00500-9
(Open access) Simple behavioral processes evolve over time and interact with complex environments

Behavior and Social Issues
3/20 Ratkos, T., Alexander, H. On Community and Revolution: Connections between Walden Two and The Conquest of Bread. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00250-y
(Open access) The authors draw parallels between Skinner and an avowed anarchist; as we’ve noted, Skinner may have considered his utopian vision as something akin to anarchism

3/21 Doeman, S., Van, J., King, A.C. et al. Bringing the Rapid Exam for Early Referral (REFER) to the Forefront: A Behavior Analytic Call to Action for Equitable Screening in Schools. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00249-5
The authors call for a more transparent screening system; they previously published a similar (open access) article about a screening system called the CLS

Martínez-Cano, A., Riveiro-Cogolludo, A., Pardo-Cebrián, R. et al. Authorship Trends in the Journal of Behavior and Social Issues. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-026-00251-x
The authors analyzed 232 articles in BSI from 2014-2024, and found that of 630 authors, women were a slim majority of primary authors, corresponding authors, and total authors, while men were 69% of the sole-authored papers

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior *
3/16 Smith, S. W., Mauzy, C. R.IV, Antúnez, B. E. A., DeBartelo, J., Nguyen, T., Tyler, L. J., Ferris, E. L., Sullivan, W. E., Roane, H. S., & Craig, A. R. (2026). Downshifts in synthesized alternative reinforcement and resurgence. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(2), e70092. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70092
Synthesized reinforcement is when 2 or more sources are combined; when “downshifts” occur (e.g., 1 of 3 reinforcers is unavailable) it is possible that resurgence can occur. The authors used food and sucrose as synthesized reinforcement with rats, comparing that condition to single reinforcers. When both reinforcers were unavailable, the most resurgence occurred, and when 1 of 2 was unavailable, some resurgence occurred

Education and Treatment of Children
3/18 Sullivan, E.K., Landa, R.K. Assessment and Treatment of Challenging Behavior Evoked by the Restriction of Hoarding. Educ. Treat. Child. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43494-026-00176-5
PFA/SBT was used to conduct a functional analysis for two adolescents with challenging behavior and hoarding behavior. In teaching functional skills, challenging and hoarding behaviors were eliminated

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
3/19 Balkanas, M., Durcan, G. & Doğangün, B. Emerging Discussions on Folinic Acid and Acetaminophen in Autism. J Autism Dev Disord (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-026-07307-2
Does it need to be said that Tylenol doesn’t cause autism, and leucovorin doesn’t cure it? This is an easy conversation, if you speak to ChatGPT about it

Book publications

Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market

Upcoming:
Personal Narratives on the Behavior Analysis of Human Language and Cognition:

Stories from Around the World, Harte et al. (Eds.) (Jul 2026)
WAVE Prosocial Assessment and Curriculum, Rehfeldt & Dixon (Pre-order)
Digital Technologies in Behavior Science: Theoretical and Practical Applications, Crone-Todd, Hantula, Layng (Eds.) (Pre-order Feb 25, 2026)
AIM Navigators, Dixon (Pre-order)
Promoting Language for Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Verbal Behavior Guide for Practitioners, Vladescu & Kissamore (Eds.)
Navigating Ethics in Behavior Analysis: Dealing with Gray Areas, Carr

Recent:
2025
2024
2023

Podcasts

ABA Inside Track
Social Preference Assessments w. Dr. Casey Clay

Behavioral Observations
Comportamiento, espacio y algoritmos: Análisis de la conducta recargado, BOP en Español 17 con Alejandro León

All Things Behavior
The Juniper Gardens Children’s Project: A Discussion with Trina Spencer

Blogs

Generally these are produced by professionals

Licensing & professional organizations

Business world

Autism services, behavioral health, etc.

Perplexity launches consumer-focused AI health tool
This is where AI companies want to end up: in possession of your health data, location data, etc. in order to sell you advertisements. ChatGPT buzzes your Apple Watch: Your hand keeps reaching to your mouth, you’re currently inside a Dairy Queen, would you like to order Ozempic? This all started with AI companies claiming they weren’t interested in diagnosis, but you’ll notice that claim is being silently phased out.

Accidentally behavior analysis

A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis

A Maine educator didn’t have a curriculum to teach a foundational reading skill. So she created one, AP
A story that need not exist – effective reading curriculum exists. Here is one that costs $70; here is one that costs hundreds of dollars, but is aimed at selling to school districts.Curriculum design is not something teachers should be doing, generally speaking. Why are they? They are not provided 1) legitimate, evidence-based curriculum, or 2) a method to evaluate curriculum for efficacy.

If you click the link above, be sure to read the next link:

‘Your Frustration Is the Product’, Daring Fireball
This blog post highlights a web designer’s rant about modern website design: the point is to keep you on a site for a long time, because that’s the metric used to sell ads. If you clicked on the AP News link, you got 2 autoplay advertisements, an enormous banner ad, and a popup request to send browser alerts. It’s not designed for effective reading because that is not the goal. Similarly, the goal of reading instruction material is to be purchased by someone in the district who probably does not know how to evaluate a program for efficacy.

Continuing education

UPCOMING:

BehaviorLive has free events: 3/24, 3/25 (ETH/SUP), 3/26

Flashback

A Skinnerian Error?

In The Canonical Papers of BF Skinner, various scientists comment on 6 of Skinner’s papers, and Skinner replies to them. Skinner is harsh on Staddon’s commentary, and twice he doubts the outcomes of Staddon and Simmelhag (1971). As it turns out, the paper discusses adjunct/schedule-induced behavior and allocation (though they do not use the term) as an explanation for behaviors that Skinner often characterized as superstitious or adventitious.

Baum, in his 2012 paper describing allocation, specifically thanks Staddon and cites him several times. Indeed, Staddon and Simmelhag 1971 reads almost like an early draft of Baum 2012.

And while Skinner was frequently correct, it appears that Staddon may have the last laugh on this topic. For some behaviors, superstitious or adventitious responding appears to be an inadequate explanation, particularly when the “superstitious” behavior stops before contacting reinforcement. On the other hand, allocation appears to better describe the phenomenon.