Scholarly publications
Includes peer reviewed journals within and adjacent to behavior analysis
(Starred journals available to BCBAs through the BACB portal)
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis * Volume 58, Issue 2 Spring 2025 (14 articles, 5 open access)
Most intriguing: Remediation of the picture-text problem for learners exhibiting reading deficits (Open access) Kids enjoy books with pictures, but pictures can lead to guessing rather than reading (e.g., exert stimulus control). One solution is pictures that do not illustrate exactly what is going on in the story
Behavior Analysis in Practice
4/28 Melanson, I.J., Fahmie, T.A. & Kastner, K.M. The Potential Evocative Effect of Leisure Item Omission in the Attention and Escape Conditions of a Functional Analysis. Behav Analysis Practice (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-025-01060-1
If an attention condition has free access to leisure items, it may suppress responding (e.g., less attention-maintained behavior). In this study, when an EO for attention or escape was not in place, the subjects still emitted requests for leisure items; the authors tried removing leisure items from the analysis and discovered that the absence of leisure items controlled responding. Therefore, for some subjects, "attention-maintained" behavior may be under the control of presence or absence of leisure items
5/1 Vance, H., Serbet, S., Kanaman, K. et al. Evaluating the Effects of Graphic Feedback on Stationary Behavior Exhibited by Teachers in an Inclusive Preschool Classroom. Behav Analysis Practice (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-025-01059-8
Teachers standing/sitting in one place is associated with disruptions in classrooms of preschool teachers. The authors attempted to increase teacher movement by charting it graphically
Perspectives on Behavior Science
5/2 Gildea, M., Santos, C., Bower, C.D. et al. An Exploration of Individual and Collective Reversal Learning in Rats. Perspect Behav Sci (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-025-00450-8
Rats were trained individually or as a group to associate a reinforcer with a stimulus, then that was reversed. Individual and group training were both effective. If a rat was trained individually and then introduced to a group, their performance was suboptimal
Behavior and Social Issues
4/28 Mattaini, M.A., Cihon, T.M., Rehfeldt, R.A. et al. Editorial: The Challenges Now are Far Bigger. Behav. Soc. Iss. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-025-00202-y
An editorial about activism. A link to “bfsr.org” on Springer's website directs to a casino, while the paper itself has the correct address here: https://bfsr.abainternational.org/
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior * Volume 123, Issue 2 March 2025 (17 articles, 4 open access)
Most intriguing: Discrimination of highly similar stimuli as members of different equivalence classes (Open access) To facilitate discrimination between two similar stimuli as separate members of different response classes (e.g., teaching "cat" and "cheetah" as housepet and wild animal, respectively) then they should be presented together versus sequentially
4/29 Davison, M., & Cowie, S. (2025). Generalization across dimensions: A model for three-alternative choice. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70012
(Open access) A very complicated series of experiments that finds that, when reinforcement schedules are varied for close or distant alternatives, responding in extinction increases in close alternatives and decreases with distant alternatives. This lends support to the generalization across dimensions model and helps resolve a basic research issue
5/2 Barnes-Horowitz, N. M., Perez, O. D., Chalkia, A., Craske, M. G., Bois, J., & Zbozinek, T. D. (2025). Low occasion setter salience results in learning conditional stimulus partial reinforcement instead of occasion setting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.70014
A stimulus that sets the occasion for learning could be highly salient or not. An organism might experience this additional stimulus as making a contingency more or less likely, but salience could impact that effect. They find evidence for high salience leading to slower extinction, leading to learned occasion-setting, with low salience leading to "conditioned stimulus partial reinforcement" (e.g., the contingency is less discriminable)
The Psychological Record Volume 75, Issue 1 (15 articles, 6 open access)
Most intriguing: Relational Coherence, Speaker Preference, and Rule-Following: A Replication and Extension of Bianchi et al. (2021) Here at the Fixed Interval, we understand why people might prefer a consistent liar
4/28 Hamasaki, E.I.d.M., Tomanari, G.Y. Tracking Stimulus Control in an Arbitrary Matching-to-Sample Task Followed by Equivalence-Class Formation. Psychol Rec (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-025-00640-5
The authors tested control of stimulus classes by select versus reject choice. Selecting correct members of a stimulus class consistently led to stimulus class formation; while rejecting non-members did not consistently lead to class formation, it did not interfere
Belo da Fonseca, T., Lewon, M. & Laurenti, C. Precurrent Behavior in B. F. Skinner’s Writings: A Contextual Analysis. Psychol Rec (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-025-00641-4
(Paper on ResearchGate) Skinner coined the term "precurrent behavior" to explain complex chains of behavior. The paraphrased meaning is behavior emitted to influence the emission of future behavior (ex: writing a grocery list). The authors find that he used the term most often from 1953-1969, and suggest a definition as well as how to teach about the concept
Journal of Behavioral Education Volume 34, Issue 1 (10 articles, 1 open access)
Most intriguing: Further Application of Delay Discounting on Special Educator Decision-Making Sped teachers discount outcomes as they become more delayed -- unsurprising, but important to understand when discussing interventions
Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science
5/2 Estimating the effect of Basic behavioral processes (access to reinforcers and experiential avoidance) on emotional disorders as transdiagnostic variables: A systematic review.
(In press) (Open access) Experiential avoidance can be considered to have a mediating effect on other conditions
5/3 Psychometric investigation of the avoidance and inflexibility scale (AIS) for cocaine use
(In press) The authors found, in a sample of approx 1,000 people in Texas seeking outpatient treatment for cocaine use, that there are certain cutoff scores for avoidance and inflexibility in an assessment, and these scores correlated to other measures such as depression and addiction severity
Single Case in the Social Sciences Vol. 2 No. 2 (2025): Spring 2025 (3 articles, 3 open access)
Most intriguing: Generalization in Single-Case Research: A Review of Inclusion, Prevalence, and Rigor (Open access) Of 1,342 SCD experiments, the authors identified 36 that report generalization data and meet strict WWC guidelines. The 36 studies are supposed to be listed somewhere here, but we were unable to locate a list
Book publications
Textbooks, handbooks, manuals, or mass-market
Upcoming:
A.I.M. Explorers Curriculum Book Volume 2 Mountain Climb, Dixon (Pre-order)
Handbook of Operant Behavioral Economics, Reed, Kaplan & Gilroy (Eds.) (Available Jul. 1, 2025)
New this quarter:
Ethical Decision Making in Applied Behavior Analysis, Schwartz & Kelly
Leadership and Management Practices in Human Services Organizations, Gardner et al.
Principles of Applied Behavior Analysis for Behavior Technicians and Other Practitioners, 4/E, Wallace & Mayer
Behavior Analysis for Lasting Change, 6/E, Mayer, Wallace, & Sulzer-Azaroff
Using Functional Analysis in Psychotherapy, Niklas Törneke
Handbook for Behavioral Skills Training, Edition 1, Sturmey & Maffei-Almodovar
Research Methods in Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd Edition), Bailey & Burch
Multiculturalism and Diversity in Applied Behavior Analysis: Bridging Theory and Application (2nd Edition), Conners & Capell (Eds.)
Talk Behavior to Me: The Routledge Dictionary of the Top 150 Behavior Analytic Terms and Translations, Samuel
The Behavior of Social Justice, Parks et al.
A Practical Guide to Functional Assessment and Treatment for Severe Problem Behavior, Jessel & Sturmey (Eds.)
Handbook of Organizational Performance, Volume II, D. Johnson & C. Johnson (Eds.)
Recent:
Podcasts
ABA Inside Track
Episode 309 - (CULTURAL/ETHICS) Family Supports and Contextualized Treatment Planning
Behavioral Observations
El Estado del Análisis de la Conducta en Puerto Rico con la Dra. Yaniz Padilla Dalmau: BOP en Español 14
Functional Relations
#30- Cultural Selection and Living a Good Life w/ Dr. Dave Palmer
Blogs
Generally these are produced by professionals
ABAI
What does it mean to explain something?
David Palmer explains explaining
Licensing & professional organizations
ASAN
ASAN Condemns Transphobic HHS Report
ABA gets a shoutout with a reference to Lovaas, which is fair enough, but they should reserve their ire for George Rekers
Business world
Autism services, behavioral health, etc.
‘What Are We Getting Out of This?’: Standardizing Care Quality Remains Vital Question for Autism Therapy Industry
To state the obvious: insurance companies don't want to pay for anything, because that's how they profit. Nevertheless, it is difficult to assess outcomes in ABA. The original Lovaas study from where we get the "20-40 hours" recommendations used IQ measures and placement in mainstream classrooms. Kyo and Magellan have (had?) a VBC agreement that they won't talk about in specifics; often they give some kind of handwavey "it's not just Vineland scores" but then kind of imply it's mostly Vineland scores (and probably utilization). But what metrics would make sense?
Accidentally behavior analysis
A mainstream news article that relates to behavior analysis
Trump Allies Say the Case for Head Start Is Weak. Researchers Say They’re Wrong, EdWeek
We wrote about this recently and came to much the same conclusion:
“The answer isn’t take the money away because we know it could be better,” said W. Steven Barnett, senior director and founder of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. “The benefits of doing this right are multiple times the cost. Getting rid of the program will long-term cost you more money than improving it.”
As to the “fading” of Head Start effects?
“It’s not that kids somehow forget everything they learned in Head Start, but that other kids catch up. And that’s not really Head Start’s fault,” von Hippel said.
But the reality is that this administration doesn’t care about efficacy – leaked emails reveal that they want to end studies of how to improve Head Start.
Continuing education
UPCOMING:
BehaviorLive is back to posting free events: 5/9, 5/13, 5/15, 5/28
Flashback
George Rekers: the most harmful person in ABA history?
