ACT in Behavior Analysis: 9-week Consultation Course (March 2021)
Hands-On Guidance in Developing Your ACT Skills
About This Course
You’re a BCBA and you’re interested in adding acceptance and commitment training (ACT) to your repertoire. However, you’re seeking someone with experience to demonstrate and mentor you on how ACT can be effectively integrated with the clients, situations, and environments you work in. This consultation course addresses how to do just that: introduce ACT into your practice effectively and appropriately within your scope of practice, and adapting ACT practices to fit your work.
Tom Szabo is a BCBA on the cutting edge of ACT who is renowned for his engaging presentation style and innovations in behavior analysis. In this consultation series, you will:
- Engage in fluency drills to hone your skills at identifying the six core ACT repertoire deficits from small bits of dialogue.
- Identify competing contingencies of reinforcement, verbal delay discounting, verbally mediated under and over-matching, behavioral inertia, and other means by which client verbal behavior derails your efforts to bring behavior under relevant stimulus control.
- Craft intervention targets to bring client behavior under the control of appropriate contingencies of reinforcement.
- Practice in-the-moment creation of unique, client-specific exercises.
- Harness the metaphors your clients use to expand flexible relational networks and undermine thorny verbal rules.
During ACT in Behavior Analysis 9-Week Online Consultation, Tom guides you in the development of your own ACT exercises and metaphors. The aim is that upon completion, you will not need to rely upon books, tapes, or other supplemental prompts to find ACT interventions. You will learn to create your own function-based behavior analytic strategies to meet the needs of individuals with whom you work and to do so on the fly, in the moment.
Schedule
Session 1: March 26, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Introductions and Intro to ACT terms
Session 2: April 2, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Scope of Practice and the ACT Functional Assessment
Session 3: April 9, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
ACT Functional Assessment Continued
Session 4: April 16, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
The ACT Matrix
Session 5: April 23, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
The ACT Matrix Continued
Session 6: April 30, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Catching Metaphors in Flight
Session 7: May 7, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Physicalizing Metaphors
Session 8: May 14, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Putting It All Together
Session 9: May 21, 2021, 1 PM—3 PM EDT
Putting It All Together Continued
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
- Set goals, identify barriers, review expectations, establish measurement and consultation program-evaluation strategy.
- Identify the six repertoires involved in behavioral flexibility and inflexibility.
- Evaluate speech for competing contingencies, delay discounting, inertia, matching, and defective stimulus control.
- Analyze the same speech for experiential avoidance, fusion, over-focus on past or future events, rigid perspective-taking, unclear priorities, and behavioral alignment with values.
- Describe recent applied literature on establishing a variety of relational frames.
- Apply interventions to behavior with different functions.
- Discuss how to help clients set goals, identify potential barriers and interventions, and monitor progress.
- Identify and analyze metaphors in client speech and use them to transform stimulus functions.
- Use physical movement to address deficits and excesses in core ACT repertoires.
- Use physical movement plus items found in your clinic- or home-based service environments to address deficits and excesses in core ACT repertoires.
- Develop games, initiatives, and writing and reading activities to promote ACT repertoires.
- Set personal goals for using ACT training in your practice and identify ways of implementation.
- Identify barriers and interventions, design measurement and intervention evaluation strategy with clients.
Continuing Education
Please review complete CE and conflict-of-interest disclosure information prior to registering. This course is jointly sponsored by Praxis CET and Institute for Better Health (IBH) and is approved for 18 CE Hours by the following:
- BACB – Behavior Analysts
- NBCC – National Counselors
- APA - Psychologist: Institute for Better Health, Inc is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to offer continuing education for psychologists. Institute for Better Health, Inc maintains responsibility for the program and its content.
- NY State: Social Worker, Counselor, & Psychologists
Prerequisites
Audience
Recommended Reading
References
Brazeau, K., Rehfeldt, R. A., Mazo, A., Smalley, S., Krus, S., & Henson, L. (2017). On the efficacy of mindfulness, defusion, and behavioral skills training on job interviewing skills in dually-diagnosed adults with developmental disorders. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 6(2), 145-151. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.04.002
Castro, M., Rehfeldt, R. A., & Root, W. B. (2016). On the role of values clarification and committed actions in enhancing the engagement of direct care workers with clients with severe developmental disorders. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 5(4), 201-207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2016.09.003
Chancey, C., Weihl, C., Root, W. B., Rehfeldt, R. A., McCauley, D., Takeguchi, K., & Pritchard, J. (2019). The impact of mindfulness skills on interactions between direct care staff and adults with developmental disabilities. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 12,160-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2018.07.004
Gould, E. R., Tarbox, J., & Coyne, L. (2018). Evaluating the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Training on the overt behavior of parents of children with autism. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 7, 81-88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.06.003
Pingo, J. C., Dixon, M. R., & Paliliunas, D. (2019). Intervention enhancing effects of acceptance and commitment training on performance feedback for direct support professional work performance, and job satisfaction. Behavior Analysis in Practice. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-019-00333-w
Szabo, T. G. (2019). Acceptance and Commitment Training for reducing inflexible behaviors in children with autism. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 12, 178-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2019.03.001
Szabo, T. G., Willis, P. G., & Palinski, C. J. (2019). Watch me try: Improving athletic performance of young adults with ASD. Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 129 (in press). https://doi.org/10.1007/s1252-019-00129-7
Refund and Cancellation Policy
We understand, sometimes things come up!
Praxis will offer a full refund to registrants of both live and live-online trainings who cancel their registration up to 14 days before the course or workshop start date, minus an administrative processing fee of $30 for a 2-day workshop or online course, and a $50 fee for a 4-day workshop. If cancelled within 14 days, no refund will be issued, however, a credit for the same amount will be applied toward another learning product, which expires within 1 year. Please email us at events@praxiscet.com to cancel a registration.
