(PREVIEW) Adventures in Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis Book Club (feat. Dr. Merrill Winston)
ABA Inside TrackShow Notes
Enjoy a short preview of our latest full-length Book Club episode. Want to hear the whole thing and get 2.0 CEs for FREE? Subscribe to our Patreon today at the premium $10+ levels for that plus other bonuses! As more and more behavior analysts spread out from private clinics into the world of public school education, it becomes pretty obvious how little most of us know about the needs and challenges required of working with teachers, students, and administrators. But what if I told you there was a book that could give you a crash course to turn your understanding of behavior analytic principles into applicable plans for meaningful work in schools? Would you be more excited if the author himself told you that? We wrap up the 2025/26 Book Club season with a 10-year-anniversary discussion of Dr. Merrill Winston's "Adventures in Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis." And it's a doozy! We've got over an hour chatting with Dr. Winston himself about the wackiness of schools, whether his book should be required reading for BCBAs entering public school settings, and the the role of AI in the future of this work. Plus the ABA Inside Track Book Club crew gives their personal takes on the book while sharing some of their favorite excerpts. Rob says this episode is a MUST for BCBAs starting out in schools and a great refresher of all the lessons us veterans learned after muddling through our first years. The full episode is available for 2.0 LEARNING CEUs. Patrons at the $10 and up level, as part of your subscription, you'll be able to earn these CEs for no charge! Subscribe to our Patreon today! Content discussed in this episode: Winston, M. (2016). Adventures in special education and applied behavior analysis. Sloan Publishing.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE: To earn CEUs for listening, you MUST sign up and listen to this episode on our website to get credit. To listen for the fun of learning? Just push play! Email us at [email protected] for further assistance. Sure, B.F. Skinner's work is THE keystone for everything we do in behavior analysis. But, that's all just boring "into to ABA" history, right? Well, Dr. Judah Axe, president of the B.F. Skinner Foundation, begs to differ (and we totally agree!). In this episode we discuss two of Dr. Axe's favorite writings by Skinner, from superstition to problem solving, and how so many of his analyses are still relevant to the behavior analysts of today. We know you'll enjoy rekindling your BFF-ship with BF. If you're interested in learning more about B.F. Skinner's legacy and how his impact is still felt in the field, check out the Skinner Sessions courtesty of the B.F. Skinner Foundation. And don't forget to subscribe to Operants, the quarterly newsletter from the Foundation. It's a Rob favorite! Learning Objectives: Participants will describe the advantages of having behavior analysts read classic Skinner articles.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: To earn CEUs for listening, you MUST sign up and listen to this episode on our website to get credit. To listen for the fun of learning? Just push play! Email us at [email protected] for further assistance. In our effort to cover every topic in behavior analysis ever, we're heading back to a basic, but key, topic: shaping. Is this is your 10th review of loading the problem loader? Or have you been too scared to utilize shaping because you've never mastered the art of the approximation? This episode goes from the basic steps in teaching more complex physical behaviors all the way to the nuances of verbal responding. Y'know, just like shaping. Learning Objectives: Participants will describe why shaping was better than reinforcing verbal attempts at gaining terminal outcome in verbal behavior.
The podcast is coming out a few days early just to give you a little more time to get tickets to one (or more) of some of our favorite conference events of the year. Not enough time to book a flight, sadly. But, if you're in the area, we strongly encourage you to check out one of the options we discuss in the episode. The only thing scary about this month is how to find time to attend all of the amazing conferences, talks, and events given by some of the best minds in behavior analysis! But whether you're attending BABAT, the Thompson Center for Autism Conference, the latest Skinner Session, IABS's ABA in Public Schools Conference, or all of the above, you'll have a bunch of new episodes from ABA Inside Track to enjoy during your commutes. First we go back to basics with a sucessively approximate review of shaping procedures. After that, returning guest, Dr. Judah Axe, shares some of his favorite articles by B.F. Skinner and why studying from the field's OG still holds meaning in the modern day. And then we all sit criss-cross applesauce and discuss what makes for a good circle time and what do do when your circle goes pear-shaped. So, get thee to a behavior analytic conference, after downloading our new episodes, of course. And, who knows...you might even see us there in person! Articles for October 2026 Shaping w/ Dr. Jackie MacDonald Ferguson, D.L. & Rosales-Ruiz, J. (2001). Loading the problem loader: The effects of target training and shaping on trailer-loading behavior of horses. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 34, 409-424. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2001.34-409 Newman, B., Reinecke, D., & Ramos, M. (2009). Is a reasonable attempt reasonable? Shaping versus reinforcing verbal attempts of preschoolers with autism. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 25, 67-72. doi: 10.1007/BF03393070 The Legacy of B.F. Skinner w/ Dr. Judah Axe Skinner, B.F. (1984). An operant analysis of problem solving. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 7, 583-613. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X00027412 Skinner, B.F., (1948). Superstition in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 168-172. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.121.3.273 Circle Time w/ Dr. Diana Parry-Cruwys Barton, E.E., Reichow, B., Wolery, M., & Chen, C. (2011). We can all participate! Adapting circle time for children with autism. Young Exceptional Children, 14, 2-21. doi: 10.1177/1096250610393681 Seifert, A.M. & Metz, A.E. (2017). The effects of inflated seating cushions on engagement in preschool circle time. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45, 411-418. doi: 10.1007/s10643-016-0797-7 Crozier, S. & Tincani, M. (2007). Effects of social stories on prosocial behavior of preschool children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1803-1814. doi: 10.1007/s10803-006-0315-7 Vargo, K.K., Heal, N.A., Epperley, K., & Kooistra, E. (2014). The effects of a multiple schedule plus rules on hand raising during circle time in preschool classrooms. Journal of Behavioral Education, 23, 326-343. doi: 10.1007/s10864-014-9199-3
IMPORTANT NOTICE: To earn CEUs for listening, you MUST sign up and listen to this episode on our website to get credit. To listen for the fun of learning? Just push play! Email us at [email protected] for further assistance. To wrap up Supervision September, ABA Inside Track tackles the classic management book "Who Moved My Cheese?" and finds the whole thing less sharp than the millions of people who bought it on Amazon. Nevertheless, your stalwart Book Club crew finds a few ways to take the tiny parable of mice and men and the search for dairy products and create definitions of change behavior in the workplace and related exercises to complete with your trainees. And these ideas might be coming just in time: The boss that gifted this book to you at last year's holiday party really wants to see you using it! Learning Objectives: Participants will describe the premise of who moved my cheese behavior analytically.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: To earn CEUs for listening, you MUST sign up and listen to this episode on our website to get credit. To listen for the fun of learning? Just push play! Email us at [email protected] for further assistance. Can it really be 10 years since Sellers, Valentino, and LeBlanc laid out an amaing and actionable list of supervision activities for behavior analysts to follow? Yup, you're that much older! And while you're undoubtedly better than your younger self, could the field of supervision say the same thing? This week Dr. Amber Valentino joins us to share the growth of supervision research in ABA, the areas and practices where we can still improve, and a new means of objectively evaluating just how well (or...not) your supervision behaviors are going. Learning Objectives: Participants will describe the five target areas described in Sellers et al. (2016).