Course Description: This course is a thorough treatment of the technology of constructing a comprehensive behavior change program. There are three stages to managing a behavior change project: functional assessment; behavior change programming; and post-intervention maintenance. This course will explore the last two stages. It starts with strategies for going systematically from your contingency statement of the problem and working with clients to set quantitative behavior objectives and choose the appropriate behavior change procedures. The most powerful behavior change procedures will be discussed in detail, including differential reinforcement and systematic desensitization. It proceeds to implementation of the program and monitoring the behavior to ensure the objectives are being met. It ends with devising a maintenance program for after the intervention procedures are completed. This course includes a workshop in differential reinforcement: In this practical, mechanical skills development workshop students will apply the principles of behavior, and the techniques of animal training learned in previous courses to address a complex training task involving differential reinforcement. The training task will involve training an animal to target with a nose or paw touch a specific object on cue in the presence of two objects and then extinguish the targeting, while differentially reinforcing targeting of the other object, transferring stimulus control to a verbal cue, followed by generalizing the performance to different settings (including away from home) to meet specific response criteria. Differential reinforcement is often used to resolve problem behavior situations. In this course we train our own innocuous "problem behavior" (targeting the one object) so that we may practice this training strategy in a safe and ethical manner. The assignment will involve reporting on the training process to demonstrate insights and proper application of principles and techniques. The assignment is not graded based on whether you meet the specific training goal but rather the demonstration of learning new training behaviors in yourself from the experience and on understanding of concepts and terminology in learning and training. You may find a product called the Touch It, available through http://www.nosetouch.com valuable in this and other targeting training tasks. Behavioral Objectives: The objective of this program of study is to measurably expand the student's repertoire of behaviors in relevant areas of focus for the program of study. To complete this course of study, the student will: Identify the stages in a behavior change project Identify the components of the intervention stage of a behavior change project Contrast and compare the constructional approach to the eliminative approach to changing behavior Determine quantifiable behavior objectives for the behavior of concern and track them quantitatively Choose appropriate behavior change procedures for the problem contingencies in question including both antecedent control procedures and/or postcedent behavior change procedures Describe systematic desensitization and respondent extinction and explain what behaviors they are appropriate for Describe differential reinforcement and its variants, including shaping and for what situations these are most appropriate Describe more aversive approaches to changing behavior including extinction, negative punishment, graded negative reinforcement and positive punishment and explain why these are best avoided in favor of less aversive approaches Identify exactly what information should be included in a complete written behavior change program and the structure of such a document Describe how to effectively coach clients on the procedures they will need to carry out Describe how to implement the behavior change program and adjust as appropriate to achieve objectives Describe how to shift from intervention stage to the maintenance stage Apply principles of learning and training techniques to actual training projects Develop and implement a formal training plan Describe what behaviors and training objectives differential reinforcement is most appropriate for Transfer stimulus control to a verbal cue Generalize performance to new environments Effectively deliver reinforcers Deliver reinforcers with effective timing Establish and maintain a conditioned reinforcer Improve flexibility in training Communicate about training tasks

Sponsor:Companion Animal Sciences Institute
Speaker(s):**James O'Heare, DLBC

Contact: James O'Heare
 Email: jamesoheare@gmail.com
 Web: http://www.CASInstitute.com/