FI (1 year)

The Fixed Interval has now been regularly publishing for more than 2 years. After our first complete calendar year (Jan-Dec 2024), we put together a summary of our data. For our second complete year, we’re…doing it again.



Most-clicked links

Last year, the top 3 links were all JABA articles, which were far and away clicked the most often.

This year was a weird one: a 4-way tie, and only one was from JABA.

ChatGPT versus clinician responses to questions in ABA: Preference, identification, and level of agreement, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (Aug. 29)

Applied Behavior Analysis in the Crosshairs: Neurodiversity, the Intact Mind, and Autism Politics, Perspectives on Behavior Science (Mar. 3)

I am a Behavior Analyst and an Advocate for ABA: Are you?, Perspectives on Behavior Science (Aug. 15)

The Forces that Shape Human Behavior: Combining the Behavior Analysis Approach with Social Science Knowledge for a More Exhaustive Framework to Analyze and Change Human Behavior, The Psychological Record (Jul. 29)


The discussion sparked by the AI article is unsurprising – AI is being shoved everywhere. The other 3 are “big idea” discussion articles; last year, this type of article was also popular. 


Most-viewed post


Last year, an “ABA this week” post in October inexplicably had the most views. This year, ABA this week for Oct 19th has more views than any other post in 2025.

The opinion post with the most views was our most controversial, That time a racist tried to win Vietnam with pigeons.

The most likes of the year went to The curious case of activity anorexia.

The all-time most-viewed post remains our piece on the genesis of the ethics code, Sunland Miami.


h-5 most-cited


Taking inspiration from Tom Critchfield’s valuable surveys of the literature, we are using data reported by Google Scholar called the h-5 index – a measure of the most-cited articles per journal over the last 5 years. There is a bias towards older articles, as they have more time to be cited by other authors. (Search for a journal yourself on this page by clicking the magnifying glass on the top right)


Toward trauma‐informed applications of behavior analysis

A Rajaraman, JL Austin, HC Gover, AP Cammilleri, DR Donnelly, ...

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 55 (1), 40-61

Citations: 187

2022


First Things First: Parent Psychological Flexibility and Self-Compassion During COVID-19.

LW Coyne, ER Gould, M Grimaldi, KG Wilson, G Baffuto, A Biglan

Behavior Analysis in Practice 14 (4), 1092-1098

Citations: 449 (This article was also #1 last year)

2020


The empirical status of acceptance and commitment therapy: A review of meta-analyses

AT Gloster, N Walder, ME Levin, MP Twohig, M Karekla

Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science 18, 181-192

Citations: 778 (#1 last year)

2020


A Quantitative Review of Performance Feedback in Organizational Settings (1998-2018)

AA Sleiman, S Sigurjonsdottir, A Elnes, NA Gage, NE Gravina

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 40 (3-4), 303-332

Citations: 173 (#1 last year)

2020


Delay discounting of different outcomes: Review and theory

AL Odum, RJ Becker, JM Haynes, A Galizio, CCJ Frye, H Downey, ...

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 113 (3), 657-679

Citations: 221 (#1 last year)

2020


Updating RFT (More Field than Frame) and its Implications for Process-based Therapy

D Barnes-Holmes, Y Barnes-Holmes, C McEnteggart

The Psychological Record 70 (4), 605-624

Citations: 131 (#1 last year)

2020


Threats to Internal Validity in Multiple-Baseline Design Variations

TA Slocum, SE Pinkelman, PR Joslyn, B Nichols

Perspectives on Behavior Science 45 (3), 619-638

Citations: 197

2022


Since the h5 metric looks at the last 5 years, some of these articles are still the most cited for the second consecutive year, and some are still related to covid. Covid articles should begin to disappear from the h5 starting next year. 


For comparison, the #1 article (about protein structure) in the #1 journal (Nature) was cited nearly 40,000 times. No behavior-analytic journal is in the top 100 most-cited journals.


Notable news

All of America, all year long, is desperate to shove AI into something

The administration is doing things, all year long

A cool (and cheap) literacy program

CentralReach purchased for $1.65b, goes on AI buying spree, determined to shove it somewhere

Slime has a memory?

Nebraska cut rates; Indiana capped hours; Idaho cut off Medicaid funding; Texas may be presenting challenges in payments


Editor’s choice


Most intriguing article: 

Toegel, C., Toegel, F., & Silverman, K. (2025). Patterns of HIV viral suppression in a clinical trial evaluating a contingency management intervention. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 58(4), 701–716. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70030

Evidence that CM increases medication compliance, which in turn reduces viral load of HIV. Something like this should have reach beyond behavior analysis.


Bruce, K., Collins, R., Reese, C. et al. Is Tickling a Reinforcer for Adult Rats?. Psychol Rec 75, 291–306 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-025-00633-4
 This article might have an interesting application to people. Adult rats avoid tickles. But if tickling serves as a reinforcer or a punisher, the rats make identical sounds. 


Best Flashback: 

Pavlov’s monkey: “idealess”? (and in a follow-up: there was footage!)


Outlook 2025: how’d we do?


In 2024, we predicted a few events for 2025. How’d we do?


Ethics debates over AI: Half right.

We thought that AI would be shoved into everything, and that people would begin to debate the ethical treatment of chatbots. Instead, AI is shoved into everything, and what people are actually debating is: whether AI sucks. Meanwhile people don’t seem to care about the ethics of sexually harassing Siri. Or do they?


Private equity slowly withdraws from ABA: Half right.

We thought that private equity, at some point unable to wring out another cent of profit, would stop investing. Investment appears to have slowed, but with an increase in investment in…AI.


Behavior analysis tackles literacy: Wrong.

We thought that behavior analysts would publish something big in regards to literacy, despite being late to the current “science of reading” party. Instead, science of reading remained largely driven by popularity (though fortunately informed by science). Maybe behavior analysts are waiting for this topic to be unpopular before they publish more on it.


A behavior-analytic article breaks through: Wrong.

We thought that a big article would use a RCT and make a splash in the mainstream. Uh, no.


A behavioral health company dives into contingency management: Wrong.

As far as we know, no stories this year about a company going all-in on CM.


An increase in “big picture” political prescriptions: Correct.

Behavior and Social Issues published a special issue on Behavioral Activism & Advocacy.


Outlook 2026

We went about 2/6 on our predictions last year. Therefore you’ll surely want to pay close attention to our next predictions:


More payer barriers, and a court challenge: As we’ve seen this year, payers are putting up barriers to services. This will continue, because you can’t make money by just giving it to people for a service rendered. Someone, like the suspiciously-named ABA Centers of America, will challenge a payer in court under MHP. In a surprise move, HHS will file an amicus brief stating that providing care for human beings causes autism.


Ascientific services make a push: Given that ABA is a costly service and is supported by insurance law in all 50 states, other services surely want similar support. And given the current administration…it’s a favorable time to try. Does RFK try to personally approve unlimited hippotherapy, only to be foiled when his legislation is submitted directly to lawmakers instead of through the official channel on TruthSocial?


Behaviorists embrace model legislation: Some behaviorists have tried to get states to adopt licensing. Let’s look at the people who successfully pass legislation, like the nasty freaks at the Heritage Foundation. They write all the legislation in-house, then hand it to a friendly-yet-lazy legislator, who just passes it along as-is. So: if you want it done, write the bill. (APBA has one)


A unique animal study: There’s been some discussion of rats as unrepresentative subjects, paralleling the well-known WEIRD phenomenon of using college students as human subjects. There are also scholarly papers on differences between strains of rat. Nevertheless, we have historically seen behavioral experiments with honeybees, planaria, crows, and reptiles. Is this the year of the dung beetle?


Upcoming

Possible changes and projects here at the Fixed Interval: