Analyzing The Behavior of Everything with Dr. Scott O'Donnell (Part I)

ABA on Tap is proud to present Dr. Scott O'Donnell (Part 1 of 3):

Dr. Scott O’Donnell, PhD, BCBA-D, LBA, is a dedicated behavior analyst, educator, and therapist recognized for his advocacy in expanding the reach of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) beyond traditional settings. He is the founder of SAOBA, LLC, and currently serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Temple University.

Dr. O’Donnell’s career spans over a decade, with a focus on diverse populations including inner-city youth, athletes, and individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), and Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD).

• PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis: Earned from The Chicago School in 2022, focusing on the application of ABA in non-traditional areas like sports and Organizational Behavior Management (OBM).
• MS in Psychology and ABA: Completed at Purdue Global in 2018 under the mentorship of Dr. Antonio Harrison.
• BA in Psychology: Earned from Temple University, with a minor in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Dr. O’Donnell is a strong proponent of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Relational Frame Theory (RFT). He frequently utilizes behavior analytic techniques to address mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety and emphasizes the importance of data-driven, compassionate practice. His published research includes work on:

• Sports performance and concussion management.
• Integrating consumer behavior analytic models into corporate settings (e.g., Disney).

A lifelong resident of Philadelphia, Dr. O’Donnell is an active volunteer, currently serving as Vice President of the Fox Chase Civic Association. He is also involved in shaping the future of the field through SEBA (Scientific Evaluation of Behavior Analysis), advocating for diverse representation within the behavior science community.

Dr. Scott returns to ABA on Tap, and discusses everything from prior guests on the Tap, to the idea of freedom and human agency. This brew is flavorful and promises a delightful intellectual buzz. Pour heavy, pour more and ALWAYS ANALYZE RESPONSIBLY. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:13

Micro video with the biggest thing. So without further ado, sit back relaxed and all this analyzed responsibility. All right, all right. Welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. I am your ever grateful co-host, Mike Rubio. Along with Mr. Dan Lowry. Mr. Dan, happy Saturday to you.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Happy Saturday.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Making some football adjustments, but football adjustments, tried and true. We got to be honest about it. Today's going to be fun and easy, man. This is the second time around for this guest. We had to have him back on just because the first time he was on, it was incredibly fun. I'm not going to waste any more of our time. We've got Dr. Scott O'Donnell. All right. Dr. Scott, good to see you, sir.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Making my way over to the couch right now. Yep. Hey, good to meet you guys. Let me give you your coffee mug.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, your coffee mug.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, I got my coffee mugs.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

You probably have some bourbon in there. Yeah.

unknown 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

I thought bourbon was all strong, but I was looking at alcohol content. I didn't know, I don't really know much about bourbon, but I know you like bourbon. I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Almost too much, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I thought like I thought it was high alcohol content, but it's not. It's like more like closure to wine or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So let me see. You might it's pretty standard 80 proof, 40%. Oh, is it? I would say now there might be some boutique stuff or or bourbon has gotten pretty popular. It's it's come back. I think it's it went away for a little while. So there are some things that are now bourbon style whiskeys that are finished differently. Maybe liqueurs. So there was like there's bourbon cream liqueurs out there. But yeah, it starts about 80 proof, and then you can get into some pretty high-proof stuff, which is oh wow, usually what I enjoy. So you've got your your fool proof or your your barrel proof, and so you're looking at like 114 and then sometimes as high as like 131. So yeah, good good stuff. Good stuff. I do enjoy it. That's what I we were talking about COVID earlier. I don't know how far we want to get into that, but that was right at the beginning. That was my thing. I was like, I'm just gonna sip some uh high-proof bourbon since we've you know we've got uh things building up right around here, maybe that'll help. I can't say it did, but I enjoyed the bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

So no, yeah, I'm a I'm a fan of this, like this like really sweet uh liquor that's made right in Philadelphia is Blackberry Brandy, and it's just popular around here. And and I had a client who lived right near the factory, and I would park there because I was doing home service, and I would be parking under this vat, right? And I would look up at the vat, and I don't know what's in these vats, but I'm thinking, and there's like four, five, six vats, and I'm thinking one of those vats has got to have some blackberry brandy. And if there was a big industrial accident, like that would probably not be a bad way to go where the thing just bursts on top of you and he's soaked in uh and brandy liqueur.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

I've been getting uh you mentioned blackberry, I've been getting into bourbon infusions, so yeah, they're usually better in my experience with the the clear spirits, but I you know I like bourbon, so but I I've I happened upon over the holidays I did a green apple vanilla bean infusion, and that was pretty fun. Everybody enjoyed it. Tried some orange peel, goes too far orange, and then right now I've got sitting waiting for me, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow during a game. I I did a cherry blackberry vanilla bean, and it just turned like this nice red color almost like wine, and I'm pretty excited about that. Anyway, we're boring, we're boring the hell out of Dan.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

No, no, it's all good. I think that's a great you know, you come home spelling like a lot of brandy or a lot of alcohol. I sorry, honey, I just had an industrial accident.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Industrial accident in the client's house.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I swear I was working and not going to the bar. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Well, I would I gotta thank you guys because you know, my ride has gotten a little bit longer to work, and it's just it's great having you in the car, you know, and something to listen to. And and like, yeah, I I do like to listen to sports talk, but you know, I you know, I'm just I'm a behavior analyst, so I really like listening to you guys too. And you had some really terrific guests on. You had Nicole Parks, who's a friend of mine, and she's an OBM or she's really into forensic ABA and stuff like that, and and has some group, and and she's part of SIBA. So last time we talked, the the group didn't have a name. It was it's now it's the Society for the Expansion of Behavior Analysis, and things things have certainly progressed. Um like spent hours and hours the other night working through the IRS paperwork and stuff like that, you know, preparing things, you know. So I'm at that part of it, but this is this is something I've done before. It's just a matter of like you go back and forth a few times, you know, and then and then like they they give you the the thumbs up.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So we're gonna be able to CPA, my buddy, really good CPA. If you need anything, let me know.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Oh, cool, good to know. Good to know. I appreciate that. Yeah, right now our bank account is zero because we just started it the last week. But like things are coming together and we're like making this into real nonprofit. It's gonna be 501c6, which is a business league. Kind of like the NFL is is uh 501c6 also, but you know, so we're specifically for our expanding that business outside of behavior analysis, that's you know, which is pretty cool. And all right, and you had Rachel Benson on, which I thought was really interesting when she's talking about teaching teenagers how to masturbate, right? That was like super interesting. What an episode. We have to have a and then I was I was thinking this morning, and I was like, you know, you really could use behavior analysis there, and you can measure duration, you can measure intensity, you can measure, I mean, you can measure all kinds of things. I don't think this is the kind where you want an observer, like this is probably like we we have them measure, you know, but but but I was thinking how interesting of an application that was. And I've been I've been having some crazy applications too. I have had a client recently, and she is training to be a circus performer, and I'm doing the we created this intervention and this activity schedule. She's going by and it's working really well, and we're making we had to make an adjustment to one of the programs, sword swallowing, right? And we're looking at the different things that she does in in in preparing for the circus, and we're looking at mastery versus fluency techniques for these and how to best do them. But sword swallowing isn't something that you want to do to a fluency approach. You're not trying to do it as many times as you can per minute. It is something that like you can only do, you could do it several times a day, right? But you have to do it at certain times. You can't uh I I'm learning all this. I'm not a sword swallower, obviously. I'm a behavior analyst, but like I'm helping her the way I know. But she's telling me, like, oh yeah, I gotta do it a couple hours after I eat, otherwise, it'll be like food on the sword design. I'm like putting it down in a song. And we made an adjustment to her program because she we felt like the mastery approach in the morning where she was going to do it three times in a row in the morning. We felt that wasn't enough and keeping her skills up. So we went to twice a day and five times in the morning, five times uh at night. So it takes her about the uh for the three times, it takes her about 13 minutes to swallow the sword three times. So she it'll probably take her a little bit longer. But this is something she's really into. She's got she was so excited to have like this way to organize it and way to track her progress where she could see like if she's getting better and getting worse, right? But I don't know anyone else who's applied behavior analysis to sword swallowing. And if you guys do, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Um but that is uh an eclectic, interesting example. I love it. I love hearing the examples outside of you know the traditional. And I imagine you know, circus performers tend to not run oftentimes in the same circles as ABA, so it's cool and they can collaborate and find uses.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So how did she she found you, I assume?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

No, this is this was a clinical client, and um and and um, you know, someone who has ADHD and and um and and that's why I'm able to help them. And and then, you know, when you hear something like this and you're like, wow, that sounds really cool, and like, you know, she's dead serious about it and is going to a school for it and everything, and and it like super aligns with her values, right? So this is like something as soon as she started talking about like all the reasons, you know, that she likes it. I'm like, all right, this is this is a no-brainer. But the funny thing is, you know, there's probably people who are telling her, you know, what do you want to do that for? You know, you know, kind of talking her out of it. And you know, here I am, like, oh, I'm your new therapist. Oh, you want to be a circus performer? Let's do it. You know, like you know, just pushing her straight into it. Like, no, you're no, you're not just gonna be any circus performer, you're gonna be the best, you're gonna be the best circus performer.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

That's uh super cool in the sense, and and I hope I can explain this right. But the idea here is that this relationship may have started, as you were saying, from a clinical perspective, with you know, certain labels, certain symptoms attached to those labels that traditionally people would have said, that's what you'll be responding to. But what you're doing is you're building up other behaviors that then might replace to use that loosely, might actually then improve overall. So it's not not the purpose she may have come to you initially, but as you understood her values and her strengths, it was like, hey, we can explore this, and this will just kind of improve you overall, and that should help in the general sense as well as clinically.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yeah, well, a lot of times with ADHD, you're dealing with procrastination. I'm not able to start a task, I'm not able to do a task, you know, and stuff like that. And and the funny thing is, like, I mean, what intervention did I use? Activity schedule. How many activity schedules have you guys done? I mean, I'm sure you've done tons and tons of them. Uh, so it's it's not like all that different. It's just, yeah, I'm just using it with someone different, a different person, and I'm not using on them, I'm using it with create it together, you know, and and and that really does help her get into it, you know. Like she she definitely is into it, and she's super excited to be doing the behavior science with it.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Have you been able to learn a little bit about the what what what's involved in sword swallowing in terms of I mean there's gotta be a lot of internal prep. She's she's manipulating, managing a lot of musculature, you know, in a sense. What what have you learned about that? That's I mean, I have no idea what that consists of.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah, this is this is really interesting, and I'm glad we're talking about this because you know, the the BACB is very much about like, oh, before you practice in another area with a different population, with different behaviors, you have to find like, you know, you have to get supervision, you have to get education in that area and stuff like that. And you know, my thing is like, no, I have my methods, and you know, as long as you know, good with my methods, I I can apply total different areas. And and I knew that like I wasn't gonna waste time trying to find a supervisor to teach me how to, you know, or like someone who like but does behavior analysis with the with the circus performers, so I so I just asked her, you know, and like instead of like having to rely on super supervisor or someone to teach me that, I just said, what is involved? With tell me a little bit more about your source file, and you know, so because that's kind of important. Is this something you could do to a fluency? Is it something you have to use a mastery approach to? You know, and like yeah, it's something you really have to use a mastery approach to because you could hurt yourself if you're you know trying to do it really fast, and if you're doing it a lot over, if you're doing it repetitive a lot over and over and over again, then then yeah, you could cause damage. One of the more interesting things is she told me about, and this and this is funny because like you know, I always subscribe to the code. In fact, I teach ethics, you know, uh the ethical code. So but she she was like, Yeah, when I get to the point where I'm pushing the poor sword past my heart, right? I get a little freaked out because I can feel my heart beating on the sword, right? And I'm like, that makes perfect sense because it's like right next to it. And she says, I could go down a little bit further, but like the way I do it, it's not as far down, but it looks really cool. It looks like it's really far down, and I want, you know, some super, you know, some someone who really knew what they were doing to be there with me. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I agree with you. I think that if you do push yourself further, then you want to have someone who's like really experienced in it who you know wants to be there like for you. So so I'm encouraging her to get supervision, you know, education and supervision on it before she you know pushes herself further. But but things are working really well with that client. I'm happy. You had uh I want to go back to a couple other people you had on it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Just real quick, I have a question for you on that. Oh sure. So how do you start? Do you just get gradually bigger and bigger swords? Like, is there a lot of pain in the beginning of like are you oh that's too far left or too far right? Like, how does that how do you shape the skill or how is that skill learned?

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Yeah, it's all technique, I think, and there's certain things I would imagine you go down like a list that's somewhat like a task analysis, you have to do this first, do this second, and then and you are making room. I think a lot of it, like we're probably all really capable of it. We have to learn to get the voice box out of the way and move a couple, you know, make sure that our throat's set up right. But but no one, none of us are gonna try. You know, that's the thing. Like, you know, we're not gonna get close to finding out because file swords, because none of us in our rightful minds are just gonna stick a sword down our throat. But but if someone who's who's like, oh, you could do this, and I'll show you how, and I'm with you, and I'll show you the steps, you know. I'm I'm sure that's how she learned. In fact, that's what she told me. You know, people have shown her how to do it and shown her the technique. So so it's a it's a lot of technique, making sure your your throat is a certain way and moving certain structures around, you know, as I sort of come down and making sure you're not gonna poke a hole in your heart, I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

That's that is that's amazing. A couple things, and then we'll get back to you there. But yeah, the the ethic, the ethics portion you were commenting on. We I recently started working with a child who became blind, and certainly out of you know my content expertise. So anybody out there listening who who might want to offer me a hand, I'm glad to we're glad to entertain it and and get some help. It's going well. I like the way you put it. It's really me going in with, you know, being entrusted by his family to do so, and just kind of looking around the environment and saying, you know, talk to me. So this is a challenge. Okay, let's let's think about this, let's task analyze this, let's see what we're gonna do, what behaviors might make sense, what's within his reach. What it's been an interesting, we we kick around the phrase collaborative treatment all the time. And then there's a situation like this where I went to this kid's IEP and I was like, I'm listening to everybody really closely. I'm taking extensive notes because a lot of what I can help him do is get better at the things that those people who have content expertise need him to do better. So, you know, from there, I I feel like I'm within the guidelines of ethical practice, and then certainly if anybody out there is listening and wants to lend me a hand, let us know. And then I guess selective mutism was the other one that came up recently with one of our staff, one of our part of our team who's who's looking at that and taking on a client. And you know, she was asking about the ethics, and I said, you know, I feel confident that as long as we are you know systematic about our approach, we can do this and and get the feedback from the family and sort of gauge the progress, and then yes, we will continue looking for somebody to give us more guidance who has more experience because I'm sure they're out there. Uh now for your client, I don't know, maybe David Blaine. I don't know if he's board certified, but that might be the guy to be able that guy swallows like light bulbs or something.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

If I do I remember that probably will yeah, he does all kinds of crazy things.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

He does crazy stuff. Anyway, I'm gonna kick it back to you. You've got a lot of good stuff for us. So you you were gonna segue into something else.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah, I was gonna talk about Megan to Leon Miller. You had her one too. You guys were talking about, yeah, you're talking about, and she's been she's been in some SIBA meetings too, you know. So a lot of several of these people that you've had have contributed. And you you guys were talking about instructional control, yeah, and it makes and it makes me think of the EAB research, and it makes me think of like the cyber at press preparation, which is uh cyber at is a program that my EAB students are using. It's like a simulator of rats, so we don't have to get the real rats and and the skinner boxes, we could just do the simulation now. And it's it's it's pretty good, but I was thinking of the first couple first couple sessions, but you do the first couple sessions, right? And I was thinking about like I was thinking about pairing, and uh you guys often talk about how things are lost, you know, when you go from the lab to the living room. And I just want to go over this and see what you guys what you guys think of it, right? So the the first session is apparatus habituation, where you just put the rat in the box and you just watch it. You're not doing anything, you're not giving anything, you're just sitting there watching the animal, and the animal is getting used to the box and getting used to you watching it, you know, in the box. And then the second session is magazine training on a V VT90 schedule of reinforcement. So it's a variable time, it's not a contingent schedule, and it's just variable time delivery of reinforcement, and they'll deliver like 12 to 14 reinforcers without there being any contingent like responses required. And we we find this to be like you know really necessary. This is part of uh of our process in preparing an animal in in the in the laboratory. But I know we talk about like pairing and building rapport and stuff like that with clients initially, but we never really look at it like that. We never really look at it like I'm just gonna come and I'm gonna observe, and I'm gonna sit around here and I'm gonna watch, and you're just gonna get used to me being around you without me asking you to do anything or without me giving you anything or anything like that. And then after you're used to me, I'm just gonna deliver reinforcement, you know, non-contingently. You know, I'm gonna give you these, this, this reward, where these this reinforcing stimulus, and I'm just gonna deliver it to you, you know, multiple times, a dozen times, and not even ask you to do anything. Yeah, right. Just give it to you, and you're gonna get used to me delivering reinforcement. And the funny thing is, this is this is kind of necessary. And I realized when I was working with the client why this is necessary, because the animal sometimes will be like surprised when the magazine pops up and there's food in there and might not eat from it right away, you know, and it's kind of like you can see like the surprise in the animal's face, but it's also like, oh, it's reinforcement, and that's good. And I think about like a few times where I've had clients, young clients, and they might have autism or ODD or something like opposition with defiance disorder, or ADHD, or maybe a combination of the three, and them being in my office and or being in the home, and and just that that first time when when they're gonna like receive contingent reinforcement, and it's almost like it's almost like it surprises them or they get blinded by it, you know, for a second, like almost like it's oh, it's like too much, right? Like, and and they don't like it, but then then they start working for it, you know what I mean? And it's like, and and I think like, well, maybe if I just got the client, just just delivered reinforcers to the client, got him used to it first, you know, we wouldn't have that. And that's really what we do in in like the EB in the lab. So I want to know what your guys' thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

I I I love it. I love it. I love the the the connections you made there, and I think that's so it's trying to capture this nuance and you as you were describing it, I was thinking about it, but I think it it determines that difference between making the organism, if you will, do something and and then truly motivating them to do something. The difference between a a child you know doing for extrinsic reinforcement versus the idea that we have a relationship and and there's all these things that are hard for us to measure, this idea of trust and even rapport is hard to measure. And it's like you've gotten used to me here, you know that I'm harmless, and now in fact, I actually have a great deal of value. And then now that you know that and you're coming close to me, now I can start being more adult directed and and having you do these tasks that are more target specific or you know, whatever it is the treatment plan might talk about. And I think part of it is we just have a lot of young professionals that, and we've talked about this too, that just don't get enough of that side of the training. I think that most of us we want to deploy them out to do the service, so we end up sort of doing this quick version of you know how to build the cheeseburger at McDonald's, and it's you know, you put the bread, you slare this on, and and that's gonna be the same cheeseburger every time, and then they they hit different customers and and that doesn't work, and then it's disheartening, and we end up using a lot more of the extrinsic motivators or you know, whatever those things are in a in a way that maybe starts losing value, isn't as well coordinated or related to the task they're doing. Uh again, those things that we talk about where I I feel a lot of it gets lost. But I I love what you just described, especially so you you said the apparatus habituation and then just the non contingent reinforcement.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Magazine training, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, that that's I mean, that's incredible. That that's exactly right. I I'm here, you're getting You have a reaction to me initially, uh, if we don't we're dealing with it with an actual rat, for example, and then all of a sudden, once you habituate to that, we're good. We're we're you're gonna be in a different uh state of of of arousal, if you will, and maybe more prepared for this learning task. But yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's I'm gonna take that straight to the uh straight to the living room.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Well that that would be a straight to the living room. Like your uh reciprocal and contingent imitation process of what how you wanted rapport to be built with a lot of the clients, right? We're just gonna come in and we're gonna imitate them. We're not gonna ask them to do anything or yeah, I mean that's right up that alley.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, so it's it's I I do this uh we I borrowed from from various other people, but this idea of contingent imitation. We all you know that do the autism treatment, we're very used to the nonverbal imitation traditionally. So this idea is contingent imitation and then linguistic mapping, which I I talk to a lot of SLPs about, and they look at me like they've never heard it. I swear I borrowed it from them. But the it's what you're describing. So I come in as I'm doing an assessment, I'm talking to the parent, and I'll tell the parent, I'm I may not do much with your child today. I just need to sit and I need to talk with you. And my intent is to make you feel very comfortable because if your child's referencing you at all, which I'm sure they are, that's gonna be their first cue that I'm I'm cool, I'm okay. I you know, you're you're getting used to me. And then if at the end, anytime they make any sort of you know, pay attention or they make any sort of overture or they look at something in my bag, sure, I'll engage, to which usually I get a little withdrawal. And then the second appointment is where I come in and it's like, hey, I'm I'm here for I'm here to pay attention to you, which means I might imitate some of the things you're doing and see how you respond to that. Is that going to bother you? In which case you can tell me no and then I can stop, and that's already building a relationship. Maybe I imitate you and then you imitate me, and then I change the action and you imitate something new, and now we're really cooking. And as I'm doing that, I'm kind of talking, trying not to be overly loquacious, but I'm talking about what you're doing, what I'm doing, what's happening in the environment. Oh, is it a trash truck day? Oh, did you hear that? Oh, is there a helicopter overhead? Again, all of these things that just begin to build what I see as that true rapport and that pairing. Uh, you know, we have a lot of terms for it, and I think most of it gets overly boiled down to I just need to say something, and then you do it. And sure, that that's a you know, that's a fine way to describe it. And then I think what you and I are talking about involves so many other operations in terms of motivation and I know again, these things that now we can't measure the comfort, trust, reciprocity, the idea that we have a relationship, and and you're you know that if I'm asking you to do something, uh it's likely gonna give you access to something else. So, you know, it it there's uh there's a lot to be explored there for sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

I have a question for uh both of you gentlemen, along the lines of what you're talking about. Well, one one thought and one question. My thought is the term non-contingent reinforcement, loved the idea, loved the process, didn't love the term, and just coming back from when I would teach RBTs, the RBT task list, because we would initially go over reinforcement, and the three criterion for reinforcement would be that it would have to be contingent, it would have to be typically a consequence, and then increase behavior. And if those three things are satisfied, then it was reinforcement. And then I was like, well, except this one type of reinforcement that is actually non-contingent, not even necessarily delivered after a behavior, does potentially increase behavior, but it's typically done to satiate behavior. So that term concept, I love it, but maybe we can if we just use a different term, it might make more sense. But that's my thought. My question to you all is so this idea of the variable time reinforcement, obviously being delivered non-contingently, do we is it important on what that reinforcement is? So do we run the risk of being like transactional? I feel like that's something that's happened in you know ABA is that maybe the the RBT or whatever, let's say we give the reinforcement every 20 minutes or whatever, if it's something completely extrinsic, then maybe the client sees the RBT as this person who comes and gives me things, and maybe that's the relationship, you know, utilitarian theory, maybe maybe that fits into that. And the relationship is this person comes and gives me things, which is cool, better than nothing. Or is it does it matter if it's more somehow relational building outside of extrinsic? So maybe somehow because they observe that first session, they observe things that I'm doing, and they're now engaging and interacting in those things versus some sort of extrinsic tangible. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that, gentlemen?

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Just to go first, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah, you want to go first on first.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

You covered you covered a lot of ground there. So let's see, the the non-contingent part, I guess, and then you'll jump in here, Dr. Scott. But that's I mean, I guess when we define that, that is if we're looking thinking about a rat, that is truly non-contingent, right? It could be the rats just standing still and this the delivery of the reinforcement occurs. And then if I'm thinking about it, it it goes more into the realm of differential reinforcement now, based on things that developmentally or socially I might see the child doing that I can try to provide reinforcement for, that again, that I know that are developmentally and socially significant. So I am looking to different differentially reinforce those things that might otherwise go unnoticed because the behaviors of concern are otherwise so overwhelming. So that is, I think that fits your notion of that from that perspective. I don't know if you want to jump in there on that, Dr. Scott.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Well, I do. I but just to tell you, Mike, you mentioned linguistic mapping. I suggest you check out Vincent Carbone. Oh, yes, he's a big verbal behavior guy. And I seen some research they were doing where they were using relational frame theory to do like linguistic mapping. But I it's it sounds fancy, but it's probably really close to what you're doing right now anyway.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

So I love I love a lot of his CMO, CMOR, CMOT stuff. He's done some.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Oh, yeah, we're gonna get we're gonna get into that a little bit today.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Mike wears the tie when he does that, so he's fancy.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Like catch up. Um as as for the NCR stuff, I I tell my students this this story, and I say, like, you're at the ATM, and and you press, you're just there, and you're pressing buttons, and you press seven sevens, right? You press it, hit the seven button, right? And then a hundred hours pops out. And you're like, oh, okay. So then you hit the seven sevens again, and a hundred hours pops out, and you're like, all right, right. So you start hitting sevens, right? And that money starts popping out, right? And then at one at one point you have to stop and you have to start picking up the money off the ground. So you're picking up the money off the ground, and then the hundred hour bill comes out, it keeps on coming out, right? And so money keeps on coming out, you don't have to press that button anymore, but you're not leaving the ATM, you're not going anywhere, you're gonna stand there, you're gonna keep on receiving a hundred hours. You're not you're just not pressing the button anymore, right? And that's the way I see non-conting reinforcement. Like that that's it's important, you're delivering reinforcers in that context, right? And that's that's really important, and that's how we curtail like the the emotions during extinction, you know, that we're still delivering reinforcement in the contest. Sure. But you're not leaving the ATM, you know, you're still there, it's still your favorite. You love that ATM. It's your favorite ATM. In fact, you like it even more now that you don't even have to press the sevens. You could just stand there and get the hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of my my contention is literally just with the term, it's like the term punishment, right? Like we use the term punishment, and when I train it to people, they have an idea of what punishment is something aversive that somebody doesn't like. And then I have to take that idea and say, well, maybe, but in ABA, we define punishment as something provided after a behavior that decreases behavior. If we called punishment pink unicorn, I feel like that would make or something, I don't know. Something that some word that doesn't already have like a pre-conceived notion, then they would get it better. And I that's just how I feel like the concept I think makes total sense. The premise, everything. I just the the terminology I think gets me gets me sometimes. I wish we could just have a different term for it. But anyway, I think the more important thing is the the question of the um the extrinsic versus reinforcement with the variable time schedule in that situation. Do you think that it makes a big difference? Do we run the the risk of being transactional? Or was that kind of what you were using with your ATM analogy, Dr. Scott?

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Yeah, the ATM. I mean, like, yeah, if if you're getting those hundred-dollar bills, you're not leaving. You like that ATM? You know, how do you feel about that ATM now that spinning out $100 bills? I felt I felt good about it before when I had this hit the sevens. Now I feel even better. I don't even have to do anything. I just stay in here and receive it.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

True. Do we run the risk though of an ATM as a completely transactional device? Then is there a different dynamism in a relationship that we are trying to have with a potential client versus a transactional relationship of an ATM?

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Well, I would I would say I would say, well, what happens when it stops spitting out a hundred-dollar bills?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, you're gonna press the sevens again.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

That's kind of what we're probably gonna press the sevens again.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

That's kind of what we want, right? With that, with that relationship, I guess, in that sense.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

So and then, you know, I think if that didn't work, I might press nine nines or something like that. In fact, in fact, all that money that is spit out, all the money that is spit out, I might press all the buttons because it was spinning out a lot of money. I want to do that, I want that again. You know, I wanted to be spending out money again. I in fact, I might get a chair, I might set up camp right next to this ATM, you know, just in case.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yeah, and then we talk about building rapport, I guess, like, yeah, the ATM build up, we build up a really good rapport.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, now that you want to be right next to that ATM, you want to be right next to it. That's exactly the way right next to it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly the way I feel about those first three, four sessions. Is like if I'm if I'm paying attention to this child, you know, for example, and and I'm there there's there's a constant flow of reinforcement, not just in what I'm offering, but maybe in my reactions, maybe in my responses to them, then by that fourth or fifth session, they're they're I I'm gonna show up and they're gonna wanna be close. And then now, okay, we've got these things that you know, this thing called a treatment plan that I think would be helpful to you and your parents agree. And now I'm gonna direct some of those tasks a little bit, you know, more poignantly and and and more accurately. But yeah, I think that if you skip those steps, it's it's it's an uphill climb the rest of the time, especially if you're you know it is, yeah. Yeah, and if you think it's something that's challenging for the the client already, and and something that they don't want to engage in because it's challenging, something that doesn't bring a whole lot of reinforcement or doesn't build a sense of efficacy, without those, you know, four or five sessions with that rapport building or that pairing or any number of terms that we use which are mean something similar, yeah, you you're you know, you're gonna have a tougher time uh for sure. And I I love that you started with the uh with the lab example. That I love that that translates so well.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

And to to go back to Dan's example, it does matter who that person is. And like I guess that that is one big takeaway when when I was listening to uh Megan talk on your your podcast, I was thinking about instructional control, and I was thinking about the study by Elysio. You know, some of the studies I'm gonna mention are they're old ones, but they're really good ones. Um and he and he did one of the best, one of the best examples of instructional control. He he did a experiment with humans, right? And then he was he was having them turn a lever to avoid losing a nickel. This is back in 1979, so you know it's a nickel was I guess that that mattered. We wouldn't care about the news. And and then he gave them he gave them instructions, and sometimes the instructions were right, sometimes it was they were wrong. And uh it was really interesting after they were wrong, then people just didn't pay attention to instructions anymore. But then which which I thought I thought that was significant for practice because I'm like, here's evidence that like once you're wrong and it results in that that client you know contacting an aversive or losing a reinforcer, then they might stop listening to you after that. Right. And I'm and I was thinking how how important it is. And you we've talked, I've heard you guys talk about instructional control, but to see it and like whether someone's gonna trust it. And then the other thing they showed in this study is would instructional control come under discriminative control? Could it be like all right, the the uh instructions on the purple paper versus the instruction on the yellow paper? And I imagine this would be like an analog to like receiving instructions from this teacher versus that teacher, right? And it does, it comes on so it really depends on who's giving you the instruction. And this kind of makes a lot of sense when you think about it, because attention, reinforcement in the form of attention is like that too. I want to be a good behavior scientist, and if I write a paper and my mom reads it and says, Oh, that's you did such a great job, I wouldn't be feel as fulfilled as if like the community of behavior scientists read my paper and we're like, Yeah, like you know, we want you to do a talk and do stuff like that, great paper, you know. Like you might um, you know, there's a lot of people who don't like the person in office right now. You know, it might sound really cool to get like a medal from the president, but you know, if you don't like that guy, getting the medal from this president might not be, you know, rewarding to you. So it really does depend on it really can depend on the source. And I guess that's why, that's why building that report and really even the preparation EIB, that's why we really should be taking that to the living room. We should be translating that as best as possible.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah, I mean it's it's it's where it all stems from, for sure. Like it's it's how we actively translate those those particular experiments there to then toward a new application, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I think discriminative control is an interesting societal experiment right now because you know there's there's always kind of been this idea of you listen to what law enforcement tells you to do, but now you have different law enforcement agencies actively combating, you know, here in California, it's like you know, Newsom said the net he was going to use the National Guard kind of against ICE and vice versa. So you might, and without you know, getting political, just saying what's happening, like you might have two different law enforcement agencies or multiple tell you something, and you know, traditionally it was I was under the instructional control of any law enforcement agency. Now I'm getting two different things. Now I use the now I have to do that discriminative piece that Scott talks about. I don't know how well trained we are to know how to discriminate.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

That goes to all sorts of layers. I don't know how far we want to get into this, but it is a really interesting topic, uh given what we're discussing. But anything from being presented a warrant or being told a reason why, or there's a lot of things that to your point, Dan, are not active right now. And I have to say this before I forget, but as far as the current person in office, I think if you give him a medal, I believe, is is the more reinforcing uh behavior, right? So anyway. Uh dumb test there for myself. Thank you, gentlemen.

unknown 37:17

All right.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

It's really funny. It's speaking about translation, though, you also had Mallory Clint on, which I felt like that was the most those were the most understated episodes you had, right? Because her work was extremely influential. And publishing in Java is really hard, right? It's really hard. You gotta be a really really good technical writer, and that's what she is, right? But she made it seem like she wasn't, right? And I just want to let you know she's full crap, right? Because she is a really good writer. She published on dance in Java in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019. She published four articles. She looked at tag tea, she looked at public posting, she looked at graphic feedback, she looked at video feedback, she looked at modeling for uh for and even token reinforcement for like a really young, you know, dancer, like a six-year-old dancer who wasn't getting it. So she added the token reinforcement. It was just she just like looked at every angle of it and and like it was like uh produced these really great studies, and then we we felt like really comfortable looking at her work because we felt like all right, you know, coming out of Milton Burger's camp and everything. But then when we tried to extend from her work to golf, then we started running into issues, you know. And and you know, some of the things we would do, we went back to our seven dimensions and we're running into issues with the dimension of like effectiveness, what is effective. And ultimately, the issue was the thing that is scored in dance is movement, it is topography. So it makes a lot of sense to look really closely at topography, and this is what she was doing a lot of. And that would be the most important thing to shape, but in golf, the thing that's scored is how many shots it takes you to put the ball in the hall, right? That's what really matters. So you can have like a perfect looking swing, but if the effect on the ball is not reliable and accurate, like what what good is it? And the thing you're shaping is like it needs to be accuracy, it can't just be how you look swinging because that doesn't always translate to accuracy. And and there's the question, like, does a perfect swing result in perfect results? And the answer is no, it doesn't. You could have a perfect looking swing and the ball could go this way or that way or something like that. It really it really does come down to some fine motor movements. And is that going to be something that's captured in tag teach or in a task analysis? And I would say probably probably not. And we had this problem with other research too. It wasn't just hers, Fogle et al. from 2010 and you et al from 2020. I mean, they were like, you know, taking pictures of the swing you at all was like really a lot of biomechanical measures and stuff like that on the golf swing. And neither of them looked at like had a target and looked at accuracy to her target. It was just like, oh, can you hit the ball further? And this is really important, like the target's really important. At least that's what I showed in my in my research. So we we felt that there was like a lack of conceptual consistency, you know, there. And I don't feel like it was any fault of hers, but you know, one of the things we do in uh behavior analysis is we organize behavior by function and not topography. And our science really wasn't brought up that way, that we looked a lot at topography. Skinner never cared, you know, if the rat was using his nose or his paw or his tail to press the lever. It did it was it was just all about uh switch closures. So we realized that, like, yeah, for us to be effective in this intervention for golfers, they have to their accuracy has to get better, you know. Then that's what that's what we wanted to look at. We didn't want to look at the swing. And and just so you know, like the equipment, you know, for for golf simulators that determines the trajectory of where the ball goes, that doesn't look at the swing either, right? So you can't look at the swing and determine where the ball is going. That uses the the the club face angle, the speed of the club face and and like the club face angle and impact. So it doesn't even look at the rest of your swing, you determine where the ball is going when you're on a simulator. So why would we be looking at the swing to determine where the ball is going if we're helping golfers? You know.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

No, but if you put all that together, and I imagine there's a like for a drive, there's a certain amount of weight shifting, which wouldn't be important to a dance step in terms of how it looks, but now important to the golf scene. So do you think if you put that that that that perfect form along now with you know the angle of the face of the club and your weight shift, all those three things together now might result in a longer distance, for example? Somewhere in there, the the the form has to matter, I guess, to some extent. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

I don't yeah, I got you know, if someone's all over the place, but I've seen all kinds of different forms of golf swings. You know, and then if you're gonna say, like, you know, and I'm I'm really more most concerned, and this is one thing, you know, the technology is is different for acquisition than it is for refinement. So I'm most concerned with like you know, competing golfers and how to make people who can golf better at golf, you know, like how to make people who are good better and the best, you know, even better. And and I'm thinking that we should be looking at more than just one swing. They want consistency, and that means over the results over several swings. So why are we going to break it down in one swing? And there's other people that do that. And uh honestly, there's other people that do that better than us. People who do kinematic and biomechanical measures and and measure the swing and everything, and and and those places that do those interventions with golfers have come and gone because you know, ultimately, is that the most useful thing in learning your swing? And sometimes maybe we should just be paying attention to the results and differential reinforcement of those results and and consistency over like several shots and several holes and several rounds and things like that. That's what the golfers are looking for. They're using a lot of measures that we would use anyway. They're looking at their accuracy, they they have all kinds of ways to to measure their distance and their accuracy and all kinds of stuff like that. So we should just be using those metrics. I mean, the golfers aren't really looking at like their swing as much, you know, exact the exact topography of the swing. I think if you're very consistent in your shooting, then does it really matter what your swing looks like? Right, you know, if you're getting consistent results.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Let me let me see if I can understand this. So I kind of think about this in basketball. I know more about basketball than golf. And I think of like, you know, Reggie Miller, one of the greatest three point shooters of all time, had terrible form, but clearly it worked out for him because he made a lot of shots. But trying to relate it back to the golf piece, so initially you have to have some topography if you're gonna teach a skill, right? You can't just throw uh.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Acquisition, yeah. I would say for acquisition, it's it's helpful. You know, and for Valerie Queen, it was helpful. Like she had young dancers who were just learning, you know. But I I guess for the competing golfers, it's like, what are we gonna offer them? Are we gonna bring their swing down again? Because their golf coaster already did that, and their golf coach knows more about the swing than we do. And you know what, but but the golf coach doesn't know more about schedules of reinforcement, differential reinforcement. They don't look at it that way, you know. These are our technologies that we can use for golfers to help golfers get better. And why are we trying to use like the technology from biomechanics? You know, it doesn't really make as much sense.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

So then acquisition topography is important because at least you have to have a basic, like, you know, swinging it and weight transfer of hips and things, and then within there, I'm sure there can be all sorts of different deviations about how far the backswing is, how you transfer weight, whatever. But let's say golfer who is fairly accomplished or whatever comes to you and wants to improve their swing or be more consistent. Are you not gonna then look at the topography of their swing and say to be more consistent, you need to like fix your weight transfer, bring the like how how are you gonna give them tangible because you can't we can't just look at the function and say to be more consistent, like make the ball in the hole more? Don't we have to give them something a little more tangible?

SPEAKER_02 45:24

Well, I would I like differential reinforcement, yeah, especially like when you're talking about like because you're not gonna look at their form and get them, you know, if they're shooting a ball 130 yards and they're like a yard off, get them to shoot it 131 yards by looking at their form. I don't see any way to tag that or anything, any way to make adjustments on your form when you're talking about like you know, very small, you know, changes. But I I really feel like the best way for for us to do that is differential reinforcement. And I think we could do things like use like Galpica's equation to do percentile schedules and reinforce the top 80% of responses and things like that. And I think that would probably be more helpful than than looking at their swing. There's a reason why that has not been successful at helping golfers, like you know, because and and and I don't think we should go there and try to make it successful because honestly, our technology doesn't it's not as good as some of the other technology I've seen. Like, what do we have? A task analysis. I mean, they're using like fit to a bio model. They got like these, like little, like these uh reflective balls all over a person, like you know, all over the person, all over the club, right? And we're using a task analysis. So our technology looks primitive compared to theirs in in measuring like form. And I don't think we should even go there with their technology because we have our own that's going to help golfers, and we should just use our technology to help golfers instead of borrowing from other sciences. But this is not just a problem that was in golf. There is there's other things that that I had seen, like, for example, O'Neill and Miltenberger put something out on in 2020 on behavioral skills training for field hockey, and he used a task analysis, and they were also measuring, and this is this is what I think is interesting when you have the task analysis and you're measuring accuracy at the same time, right? So we saw like these increases in the task analysis, they're getting better on the task analysis. That's great, they're hitting 100%. Are there are they more accurate at shooting? No, they're not. Okay, so that's fine. They look better, but they want to be more accurate at shooting. Are we effective? You know, is that an effective intervention? I would say no. And it wasn't just that, Claudio and Comas did basketball free throws, right? And they did task analysis too, and they were getting people up to 100% on the task analysis, and their free throws range from like three out of 10 to like 10 out of 10. You know, so there's this big range. It wasn't like it wasn't a it wasn't like, oh, we see them get better at the task analysis, and when we see them get equally as better at at the task. It's not like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

So what are we using? What like what are we doing to improve their their percentages of free throws or goal scoring or making the the ball in the hole? Um that's maybe what I'm not understanding.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

What are we doing to do it? Yeah. Well, they have this task analysis, you're doing bare behavioral skills training. So they're like going through each of the steps, working on form, you know, and stuff like that. And I've seen studies that measured measured form and they measured accuracy side by side, like really measured it with like uh biomechanics. And this was this was a study where they were looking at putting for golfers, and and the and the form they were measuring is would the would the player be more pendulum-like when they would with the swing, but they also measured like how accurate they were. And they this was a group study. They had a couple groups, and one group started one way first, the other group started the other way. And and they both had improvements. And and the group that was focusing on their form didn't improve as well at first, than the group that was focusing on like just try to get the ball closer to the hole, right? You know, that's that's what they're trying to do. Forget your form, just try to get the ball closer to the hole. And then they had switched and and the results kind of switched back. So it might even be like, what do you need at that time? And you know, like, yeah, maybe practice and form you know can help some. My thing is like, is that where our science came from? Is that where our science grew out of? Is that where like, you know, can we go back to our to EAB and say we extend it from EAB to get here? And I would say, no, we can't like go back to EAB and say we extend it from EAB to get here. So why don't we just use the stuff we know from like our basic research and extend from that and like help golfers, which I feel like I have. I mean, I'm revising this this article, so but it looks like it's gonna get picked up. So hopefully this is gonna come, the golf stuff is gonna come out soon. But I was preparing this week for you guys, so I want to make sure, like, you know, I I spend spend a good amount of time. All right, but that's that's all I want to, you know. I know I was getting into behavior analysis sports and Mallory Quinn because I really like respect her a lot. It's just really ironic that she was influential in that way, where like I'm thinking that I could just extend right from her research, which I think is great, but it just happened to be that like, yeah, the goals of golf and the goals of dance are are just different, you know, and be and it changes what is effective for the for the players or the dancers, right? And if if their swing looked better, but they weren't more accurate, that's not effective for a golfer, it's just not right. They want to be they want to be more accurate. But you guys had Matt Tappio on too. Yes, we did. And he talked about act. I thought Matt was great, it was really interesting, and he talked a lot about act, but then he talked about anxiety, and then he gave an operant analysis for anxiety. I thought that was really interesting. But I would ask you guys, is anxiety an operant or is it a respondent relation?

SPEAKER_00 50:53

I chuckle and then I have to interject as this concludes part one of our illuminating interview with Dr. Scott O'Donnell. Please do ensure you return for part two and live responsible. ABA on staff is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.