Bonus Episode 36 - The Year in ABA (2024) w/ Matt Cicoria

Summary

ABA Inside Track: Bonus Episode 36 – The Year in ABA (2024) w/ Matt Cicoria

Podcast: ABA Inside Track
Episode: Bonus 36 – The Year in ABA (2024)
Guests: Matt Cicoria (Behavioral Observations), ABA Inside Track Team (Rob, Diana, Jackie)
Date: December 25, 2024
Episode Purpose:
A collaborative, end-of-year episode by two of the most prominent ABA podcasts, reviewing 2024’s biggest trends, most downloaded episodes, and topics that resonated most with listeners in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). The episode is a lighthearted (and sometimes humorous) reflection on the field’s evolving interests, including notable changes, challenges, and memorable content from the podcasts over the year.

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Main Theme & Structure

The hosts from ABA Inside Track and Matt Cicoria from Behavioral Observations team up to count down and discuss their respective podcasts’ top ten episodes of 2024. They share personal insights, memorable moments, and notable trends in ABA practice and research reflected in their podcast episodes. The focus is on what practitioners find most useful, rather than simply content with academic gravitas, revealing evolving themes in the ABA community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Methodology for Episode Ranking (02:12–03:18)

• Matt’s approach: Ranked episodes by downloads in the first 30 days post-release, ensuring newer episodes weren’t disadvantaged and “apples to apples” comparisons.
• Both podcasts excluded very recent releases that haven't had time to accrue downloads.

2. Counting Down the Top 10 – Behavioral Observations & ABA Inside Track

Each podcast alternates sharing their top ten episodes with discussion and jokes interspersed:

#10

• Behavioral Observations:
  Lessons from Implementing Practical Functional Assessment and Skills Based Treatment (with Dr. Tony Camilleri)
  Why it resonated: Recap of PFA/SBT evolution and practical recs. Tony is praised for his clear and gentle delivery. (03:31)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “Tony...he does have a really succinct and very gentle way of sharing some of the themes that come up in SBT.” – Rob (04:31)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Setting Up Supervision Systems at Work (with Kim Held)
  Why it resonated: Discussion of systems (incl. work-personality tests) for effective supervision. (05:17)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “It was terrifying in its ability to predict this is who you are at work.” – Rob (06:23)

#9

• Behavioral Observations:
  How to Assess Early Echoic Skills (with Dr. Barbara Esch)
  Why it resonated: Surprising popularity for a granular, technical topic; it shows a demand for practical skill-building. (06:50–08:31)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Schedule Thinning and FCT
  Why it resonated: Practical content on FCT that’s vital for exam prep and day-to-day practice, even if not originally expected to be a hit. (08:53–10:09)

#8

• Behavioral Observations:
  Restraint and Seclusion in Public Schools (with Dr. Matt Brodhead)
  Why it resonated: Enduring relevance, nuanced discussion highlighting regulatory confusion and the need for expertise informing policy. (11:51–14:50)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “It seems like the people who write those regulations haven’t been in the position to support individuals who are having severe problem behavior.” – Matt (14:22)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Neurodiversity Panel
  Why it resonated: Timely, important series with professionals identifying as neurodivergent; reflects a growing conversation framing ABA with neurodiversity in mind. (15:11–16:25)

#7

• Behavioral Observations:
  Mentoring Students, ABA’s Future, Problems with Ignoring (with Dr. Tim Vollmer)
  Why it resonated: Wide-ranging insights from a field leader, storytelling, and practical mentoring tips. (17:21–18:48)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Preventing Burnout (listener choice topic)
  Why it resonated: Major theme in 2024 as practitioners face mounting challenges. The team jokes about not being able to “recover” burnout, only “prevent” it. (18:53–19:19)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “We called it Preventing Burnout, which may have been a little presumptuous.” – Diana (19:18)

#6

• Behavioral Observations:
  Inside Java 18: Disseminating ABA to Law Enforcement & Medical Communities (with Dr. Dorothea Lerman)
  Why it resonated: Focus on outreach to law enforcement/healthcare, training, and innovative dissemination. (21:11–22:59)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Improving Parent Training Practices
  Why it resonated: Perennial demand for practical parent training tools and updates. (24:01–24:44)

#5

• Behavioral Observations:
  Practical Strategies for Passing the Exam (with Dana Miller & Dr. Steve Eversole)
  Why it resonated: Valuable advice from leading exam-prep experts, includes myth-busting around study strategies like mock exams (26:26).
• ABA Inside Track:
  Planning and Running Awesome Meetings
  Why it resonated: Everyday utility; hosts credit implementing changes to their own work after this episode (27:12–28:35)

#4

• Behavioral Observations:
  What Is Profound Autism and Why Is It Important? (with Dr. Alicia Halladay)
  Why it resonated: Timely discussion about recognizing diverse presentations and support needs in autism; tied to the Profound Autism Summit. (29:57–31:06)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Error Correction
  Why it resonated: Deep dive into a surprisingly under-researched, often-misapplied area of ABA practice. (31:42–33:26)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “I always love any chance to come back to error correction and sort of see what’s going on... I want someone to just write that ‘nope, this is the one way to do it and everyone loves it.” – Rob (32:15)

#3

• Behavioral Observations:
  AAC Use with Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (with Andy Bondy)
  Why it resonated: Highly practical, myth-busting, always popular guest. (35:06–36:44)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “Andy Bondy doesn’t hold back... he lets it fly.” – Matt (35:25)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Toilet Training Revisited (with Dr. Maeve Donnelly)
  Why it resonated: Universally challenging and persistently relevant; thorough, practical guidance from an expert. (37:08–38:46)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “I have a meeting about toilet training this Friday, and so... I might just email Maeve and be like, do you want to Skype into our meeting real fast?” – Rob (38:00)

#2

• Behavioral Observations:
  Panel from the Verbal Behavior Conference (VBC)
  Why it resonated: Listeners love hearing a spectrum of expert opinions and live event flavor—panels cover hot topics like AAC, clinical judgment. (40:48)
• ABA Inside Track:
  Strategies for Addressing Escape Maintained Behavior
  Why it resonated: Deep practical relevance, especially in schools; hosts praise the flowchart from Geiger et al. (2010) as a key resource. (41:36–42:49)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “Flowchart is sort of the anti-folklore. It’s like, no, we did it, we have all the work, it’s in this flowchart, just follow it and you and your client will be just so happy.” – Rob (41:50)

#1

• Behavioral Observations:
  Behavior Analytic Approaches to Counseling and Therapy (with Dr. Pat Friman)
  Why it resonated: Pat Friman’s episodes are always fan favorites—he’s an endlessly compelling speaker making behavior therapy accessible and relevant to issues like mental health. (43:13–45:43)
  • Memorable Quote:
    “Interviewing Pat is like the easiest thing in the world: you just give the… and he just takes it and goes.” – Matt (43:40)
• ABA Inside Track:
  The Ethics of Fad Treatments
  Why it resonated: Pressing, practical, and complex challenge for practitioners—how to respond ethically and tactfully to “fad” therapies in clinical practice. (45:46–48:01)

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3. Trends & Notable Themes in 2024

• Practical Utility: Highly download episodes deliver day-to-day, immediately useful content (parent training, meetings, supervision, FCT, escape behavior, error correction, toilet training).
• Burnout and Mental Health: Both burnout prevention and behavioral mental health work are in high demand—topics reflecting both practitioner strain and field adaptation.
• Ethics & Clinical Decision-Making: Increasing complexity in ethical challenges—from procedural fidelity to confronting unproven treatments and embracing neurodiversity.
• Panel & Guest Driven Content: Live panels and prominent guests (esp. Friman, Bondy, Brodhead) remain big draws, but Inside Track’s “no guest” episodes performed surprisingly well.
• Pop Culture & Storytelling: Hosts emphasize the enduring value of good storytelling, even in dense technical subjects.
• Changing Field Dynamics: More focus on supervision systems, preventing burnout, and outreach/dissemination reflect OPERATIONAL and societal shifts in ABA.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It seems like the people who write those regulations haven’t been in the position to support individuals who are having severe problem behavior.” (Matt, 14:22)
• “We called it Preventing Burnout, which may have been a little presumptuous.” (Diana, 19:18)
• “Flowchart is sort of the anti-folklore.” (Rob, 41:50)
• “Interviewing Pat [Friman] is like the easiest thing in the world... he just takes it and goes.” (Matt, 43:40)
• “It’s easy and fun to kind of dunk on these [fad] things... but ultimately, we’re in the business of persuasion.” (Matt, 48:01)

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Honorable Mentions & “Near Misses” (49:08–54:00)

Behavioral Observations:

• BOP en Español series—expanding ABA resources for Spanish speakers.
• Review of Autism Diagnostic Practices (Whitney Ence, Elizabeth Sheridan).
• How to Understand Sleep Problems (Emily Varin).
• The Ethics of Procedural Fidelity (Dr. Claire St. Peter): importance for both researchers and practitioners.

ABA Inside Track:

• Ethics Book Club episode (LeBlanc & Karsten’s “Ethics”)
• Practical Functional Assessment & Skills-Based Treatment with Corey Whelan (who brought cookies and a thank you note!)
• Promoting Client Rights (Aaron Leaf)
• Advice for New Behavior Analysts (with How to ABA)
• Behavioral Artistry: Capturing ephemeral skills/rapport (Amy Bock’s work)

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Reflections on Podcasting (56:06–59:45)

• Hosts celebrate upcoming 300th episode and 10-year milestones.
• Observations on the persistence required:
  “It quickly goes from hobby to job.” (Matt, 58:30)
• Acknowledgment of loyal audience community:
  “If it wasn’t for our audience, we would not get any reinforcement for all that effort…” (Matt, 59:51)

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Conclusion (59:58–End)

• Joint happy new year wishes and encouragement for listeners to dig into the back catalog (625 episodes combined!).
• Recognition that trends in episode popularity provide valuable feedback on what matters most to behavior analysts in the field.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Podcast Introductions & Format: 00:13–03:30
• Methodology for Episode Ranking: 02:12–03:18
• Countdown Top 10 Episodes: 03:30–48:55
• Trends & Reflections: 48:55–52:27
• Honorable Mentions: 52:27–54:49
• Podcasting Reflections & Upcoming Milestones: 56:06–59:58
• Closing & New Year Wishes: 59:58–end

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Summary

This episode is an energetic, insightful, and often lighthearted celebration of ABA’s year-in-review through the eyes of its leading podcasters. It reveals a field increasingly focused on practical solutions for daily challenges, mental health and burnout, nuanced ethical practice, and connecting with a broader, more diverse community of practitioners. The personal reflections, recurring jokes, and memorable quotes also showcase the warmth and camaraderie among ABA’s thought leaders. Whether you’re a new BCBA, a seasoned practitioner, or just ABA-curious, this episode offers a curated window into what’s shaping the field in 2024—and what listeners really care about.

Transcript

[Diana]

Foreign.

[Rob]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the year in ABA 2024, starring your podcast friends. Who do we have here? Podcast friends. Let's introduce ourselves. And as we end this magnanimous year of aba, it's me, Jackie.

[Jackie]

Last time I'm going to get to go second until 2026.

[Diana]

And it's me, Diana.

[Matt]

Hey, guys, it's Matt here from Behavioral Observations. And yeah, it's about time to do. It's that time of year where we do that collab of looking at the year in review. And we have some different plans this year. Right. Then the usual fairs, right, guys?

[Rob]

That's right. We're trying something.

[Matt]

And. And I'm.

[Rob]

And I'm Rob.

[Diana]

Yeah, you didn't say.

[Rob]

I didn't say. No, I was trying something. I was trying something different because it's like a special end of year, you know.

[Matt]

Yeah, I didn't.

[Rob]

You, the listeners, could not see the.

[Matt]

Flashing lights on your intro. Yeah, no, no, it was perfect.

[Rob]

We saw. We had kick dancers, we had a lot of lights. We had explosions. You couldn't see or hear them because our mics are just too good for getting up close to us, our voices. It was amazing if. If you were here, but only we were here.

[Matt]

So.

[Rob]

Yes. So we'll be doing a review kind of of the year. And like Matt was saying, we're going to do something a little bit different this year. I think sometimes when we go over broad topics, there's, you know, a lot of things that are. Are kind of sometimes fun to talk about. We thought, let's look at some trends that we're seeing in some of the episodes that were resonating with listeners this year and maybe why that would be. Is this a. Is this a giant trend in episode content or a fluke? Who knows? But we've got about 20 different episode types of topics that we'll be discussing to review the year, and then we'll kind of wrap up and then we'll snuggle away and hibernate until next episodes come out to wrap up the year.

[Matt]

So with that sounds like an excellent plan to me.

[Rob]

Let's begin. Matt, do you want to. Do you want to start? Because this was your. This was your cool idea. So sort of. You want to describe generally how we're crunching some numbers here?

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I thought was fun to do it would be to look at the episodes that were most popular with listeners in the year 2024 in terms of number of downloads. And we just kind of picked like, you know, downloads within the first month of being published. And unfortunately that's going to disadvantage some of our more recent episodes that haven't been around in 2024 or have just been recently published. And so I did try to look back into like late 2023 as well personally. But basically what we're trying to do here is to run through our top 10 most downloaded episodes using that standard that I just described, most downloaded within the first 30 days. Because you can imagine that like session one has been downloaded a gazillion times because it's had almost a decade to, you know, to, to be downloaded. So we had to create, you know, as, as behavior analysts we have to make sure the data are, are, you know, you know, we got to compare apples to apples here. So yeah, so we're going to alternate our top 10 episodes, go back and forth starting with 10 and going down to one if we have time. There's some honorable mentions I think that I'd like to shout out as well. And yeah, so let's get started. So do you guys want me to take the first one?

[Rob]

Yeah, start us off, Matt.

[Matt]

All right. All right, so number 10 is lessons from Implementing Practical Functional Assessment and Skills Based treatment at session 276 not that far ago with Dr. Tony Camilleri. So this was a fun one. Tony is kind of, I, I, I call him Greg Hanley's consigliere. I, I can say that as a fellow Italian American, you know, so Tony, if you haven't met him, you should. He's a sweetheart of a guy, very giving of his time and fun fact. He actually helped me with some of my website stuff because they were running similar, what do you call them, Learning management systems. They use the same learning management system platform that I do on behavioral observations. And so I, I've certainly, I've met Tony a handful of times and he's been very generous with his time on some, you know, some technical stuff in the background. But that, that episode was very popular because he kind of recapped a lot of the work that you know, the, the FTF group has been doing over, over the last 10 years and how the skills based treatment process has evolved over time. So it's session 276.

[Rob]

Yeah, I've seen Tony talk. He was at Stone Soup this year, the virtual conference. I saw him talk there. I know I'd done a grant in our, in our school district to do some kind of FDF webinars and so got to see a lot of Tony talking about PFA and sbt. And he does. Like you're saying Matt, he does have a really. It's a succinct and very gentle way of sort of just sharing some of the themes that come up in sbt, you know, with the shorties. And it just. It sounds very kind coming from Tony. I don't think I've actually met him in person to tell him that, but, you know, there. That's. That's always the impression I get when I've seen him speak on the subject. So very exciting. Not surprising, I think, that the people would be into that episode.

[Matt]

All right, cool. Let's hear number 10 from you guys.

[Rob]

All right, D, you were our number cruncher, so why don't you take the lead on that?

[Diana]

Oh, sure. So our number 10. And. And I will say that we had the same situation. Right. So I. There are some episodes that came out really recently that I would, you know, not. It wouldn't be surprising to me if they ended up within this range, but they just emerged, so we can't consider those necessarily. But for the rest of the year, number 10 on our list was setting up supervision systems at work. And that was with Kim Held as the guest. It was number 253 for anybody who wants to go back and look at it. And that was the one, you folks remember, where she told us about the kind of. It's almost like a personality test kind of cool system that they use at their workplace, identifies sort of your work personality and the ways in which you may interact with others, may have challenges interacting with others. And she used it as a guideline for how to kind of set up best practice systems, and. Which was really cool. And we all got a kick out of getting to practice with that. So I think a lot of people enjoy listening to that episode.

[Rob]

That was terrifying in its ability to sort of predict this is who you are at work. It's like, oh, my God, you've seen through everything I've done to get to the real me.

[Matt]

That's awesome. Kim and the rest of the crew at their company, they're longtime New Hampshire behavior analysts as well, very influential in the state. And. And. And. And again, very, very nice folks as well.

[Diana]

Yeah, she's a cool lady.

[Matt]

Yep. Yep.

[Diana]

Okay.

[Matt]

All right, I guess it's back to me. Okay, here we go. Number nine, how to assess early echoic skills with Dr. Barbara Esch. So this is one of the ones. You know, it's. It's funny because I don't. Do you know, what you consider, you know, autism intervention Per se. And so I find these more granular verbal behavior episodes intellectually interesting, but I don't get to put these things into practice. And so a lot of times when I have these types of interviews, I'm like, okay, that's really cool. And again, it didn't register to me how much shows like this would actually resonate with the folks who actually do do this work and find the stuff directly applicable to what they do. So this would be a good example of, of that. I've got, I think, a couple more in that category as well that we can talk about shortly.

[Rob]

I mean, were you shocked specifically ecoic? Was there anything you thought it was aoic or just been a little while since you'd had one that had that granular component? Because eoics feel like the operant that it's like, yeah, yeah, coex, whatever, mans. That's where it's at. Tacting.

[Matt]

That's what we need. Yeah, I, I, you know, again, this is my perspective from not living in that world every day and, and, and puzzling it, you know, a, an individual to progress on, you know, on one of these, one of these, you know, operants. So, you know, I thought it was very, very interesting and maybe, but a little in the weeds, apparently not. So that's, that's cool. That's wicked cool. As we'd say here in New England that the listeners, you know, really want to dig into this stuff in a, in a meaningful way. So I was, I was very, very pleasantly surprised to see that one clock at, in at number nine.

[Rob]

Very cool. You know what? Co they're getting their due. They deserve, they deserve some extra time.

[Matt]

They deserve time.

[Diana]

Just kidding. Oh, yeah.

[Jackie]

Good one, Diana.

[Rob]

It's more like an introverbal right there, Diana.

[Diana]

Say what? All right.

[Rob]

Demand, I guess. Demand. J, you want to hit number nine?

[Jackie]

Oh, yeah. So number nine for us was episode 273, schedule.

[Matt]

Thank you.

[Jackie]

Thinning and FCT this one. I am shocked, I mean, shocked by.

[Diana]

A lot of our list.

[Jackie]

Yeah, me too. Like this one. I, I, I mean, I thought it was a fine one. It was fine. But I am, I, it's, you know, it wasn't like one of my, like, one that I would choose as our top 10, but I guess a lot of people are doing functional communication training, and so it's probably applicable. Right. And we also know that FCT is on the BACB task list, so that is also helpful. That might be why people have been listening to it. Right. Because they're brushing up on their skills before they take their exam. But, yeah, this one on my list was not like a. Oh, my gosh. Wow. It's, like, revolutionary. But people loved it. So go them and us.

[Diana]

This episode is definitely like standing on the shoulders of giants kind of episode, because we previously had an episode with Dr. Machida Gamagami, and before that, an episode with Dr. Jeff Tiger where we touched on this exact topic in very similar ways in both of those past episodes. So I think this continues to be a topic that people really want to hear about, probably for the reasons that you're saying, Jackie. It's very practical.

[Matt]

You know, I also wonder, with something like that, is there a component where, you know, I. I know this happens to you guys. It happens to me a lot. You know, you meet people at conferences and things like that, and like, oh, my supervisor or my professor, you know, assign this podcast to listen to. And I'm always. I'm always of two minds about that. On the one hand, I'm very grateful. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. You know, and on the other hand, I'm like, somewhere out there, there's some student saying, damn it, I have to listen to behavioral observations again. Can't stand that Matt Sicori. It takes too long to ask his questions. He's got all sorts of filler words. It's unfocused.

[Rob]

You know what, Matt, in your defense.

[Matt]

About the question, the episodes are too long, you know.

[Rob]

You know, I think that is. I think that is just a part of. You do the show long enough, you kind of. Like, I. I definitely had a crisis of faith where I was like, my questions just never end anymore. Like, I used to ask succinct questions, and I just stopped at some point. Like, I just got tired of asking questions, and it's like, I must do a lecture before I get to the question. And then it's hidden, like it's a game I'm playing with nobody. But. So I. I feel you there. I feel you there.

[Matt]

I think it's time I call it the Long Wind up.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Matt]

So anyway, I know that's probably not the most common response, but it just. You know, there's part of me that just wonders, like, is someone out there? Like, oh, damn, I got to listen to this podcast again.

[Rob]

Yeah, you probably get. I know we. We probably all gotten the sort of like, oh, I was. You know, I always worried, like, oh, no, like, that was your graduate experiences you had to listen to. So sorry.

[Matt]

I wish there was a podcast about Hoenigan Statin when I Was in graduate school. But anyway, that's all right. So I guess it's my turn, right?

[Rob]

Yeah. This looks I. This time I'm glad. This topic was one that, that was resonating with listeners.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah, yeah. This one was a no brainer. Restraint and seclusion in public schools. And that's with our, our mutual friend, Dr. Matt Broadhead.

[Jackie]

Sir Matthew Brodhead.

[Rob]

Sir Matthew.

[Matt]

Yeah, to you guys, maybe. Yes. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. You know what, what can you say about this topic that hasn't been said already? You know, it's, it's something that, that definitely there's. It's one of those things there's never going to be an easy answer to. And one of the things I like about talking with Matt is become a very good friend of mine. And, and we disagree about a ton of things too. Like, and it's fun. It's not like, you know, we don't take it personally. We can have interesting, nuanced, you know, dialogues about these sorts of things. And, and I, I see where he's coming from and I believe vice versa, not to speak for him. And so we did get into a little bit of that in this episode. Nothing, nothing outrageous. And I think the Venn diagram had, you know, considerable overlap in terms of where our interests and values did lie on this matter. That's what. It's always fun to have him on the show regardless, because he's a hoot. And then secondly, that the topic and the nuance associated with that, I think merits that type of rational discussion. So. Or at least I hope it was right, came off as rational. So. Yeah, that was the number eight.

[Rob]

Matt, quickly, has there been a change? Because I know Massachusetts recently changed and is looking very closely at laws around timeout. Has New Hampshire had anything recently kind of, kind of similar or has it sort of been the same as the past couple of years?

[Matt]

You know, of like timeout in school settings?

[Rob]

Yeah, specifically timeout in school settings.

[Matt]

If there is. I'm not familiar with it.

[Rob]

Okay. It's just become like, I think the last year or so there's been a lot of changes in terms of how it's logged and how it's. And one of the things that drives me, I think this has been the year of something that's been grinding my gears is, is a sense of how behavior works. You sort of get the sense that a lot of people don't understand how behavior works in a way that sometimes I just want to let go and say, well, you know, we're all working for the same goal. And sometimes it just gets under my skin of like, no, you're wrong. That's not how it works. That's not how it goes. You're making rules based on fully fallacious assumptions of human behavior. And I don't care for it. So I, I didn't know if there had been some changes because there's. There's a very lot of language around like being calm and calming down and just sort of missing a lot of the. The point of why any sort of timeout? Not so much. I mean, seclusion certainly never, never appropriate, but like they just time out or time away and kind of conflating a lot of terms that have been around for a long time. So I wasn't sure if that any of that had come up in the, in the conversation due to any like, recent changes.

[Matt]

No. And I'll just make one comment at the risk of lengthening this episode longer than need be and then we can move on. But I would just say that it seems like the people who write those regulations haven't been in the position to support individuals who are having severe problem behavior. I'll just leave it at that. Because if they had to, if they had to live by the rules that they're. They're. They're creating, they might have a different perspective.

[Rob]

So I, you ditto.

[Matt]

That's it. There's a lot more say that not going to go there, but we'll save.

[Rob]

It for our own other episode. Follow up episode.

[Diana]

I was just going to say I think that Matt Bradhead is like the beto OOR of behavior analysis.

[Matt]

All right.

[Rob]

Just me, number seven. Diana, what are we.

[Matt]

No, we're.

[Diana]

We're on number eight.

[Rob]

Oh, sorry. We're on number eight. Sorry. I'm looking ahead.

[Diana]

Yeah, well, why don't you do one. You can take a turn.

[Rob]

I'm kind of talking all the time, but okay, I'll take a turn. This was our episode 268, our discussion on neurodiversity. And we did a. We did a series of. Of neurodiversity this year where we sort of had discuss. We talked with. We had a panel episode where we talked with a number of professionals in the field of behavior analysis who identified as neurodivergent. And we did some general episodes. We talked to some other experts. And it was something that. I don't know if we originally planned for it to be kind of a series, but it, it was one of those episodes where it was like, well, we've got A bunch more in the pipeline, like right off the bat. Let's do the next one. Let's do the next one. It was really exciting to talk about. We have one of our book clubs coming up in. I want to say this, I think it's our spring book club is on neurodiversity. It's a book on neurodiversity. So it really sort of been a big theme over the past year and I'm glad that it's been resonating. A lot of people have been hearing themselves or hearing more about individuals that they can be working with or have been working with and just thinking about neurodiversity beyond just, you know, clients, but really about the field as a whole and society as a whole. And it's very exciting and I'd like to think that is again, where do we know for sure? No, but that's where some of the interest in the topics that we did around neurodiversity came from.

[Matt]

Very cool. Yeah, I have an more nicely neurodiversity per se, but an autism related show that we can talk about in a couple of spots. So I don't want to get ahead of myself here. So. Yeah, so yeah, there's definitely a lot of interest in the. That general area. So. So we'll get to that in a couple of. Couple of slots. But right now at number seven is for behavioral observations is session 257, mentoring students, the future of ABA and the problems with ignoring. And that's with Dr. Tim Vollmer. So again, this was a real fun one. Much like Tony Camilleri, you know, Tim is like just one of the nicest folks you're going to meet in aba and another, another guy who's very generous with his time. And so when I appreciated the opportunity to chat with him across a range of topics, which is why the episode title is kind of all over the place.

[Rob]

Yeah, that was one of the ones.

[Matt]

I don't know if you guys run into this when you have a show that like kind of spans a number of different things. It's like, what, what the heck am I going to call this thing?

[Rob]

You know, it's tricky because so many podcasts, I think, I think as podcasts as an art form have sort of evolved. I feel like a lot of the podcasts I listen to that are very popular or they're on like a variety of topics. They sort of just turn away from like, well, the topic is blank. But we're just going to talk about whatever and occasionally keep coming back to the central one, which I know for us, I'm. And I'm sure for you too, man, it's like, we can't go that far off base. Like, we can't be like, so what movies are you watching in the middle of our, you know, episode Extinction? But sometimes, you know, getting the segues or talking about the related fields, I think that is part of the. Part of the medium of podcasts. So, you know, I. I think it's just we. We bake it in now. I think it's totally fine.

[Matt]

Yeah. And I think with Tim being in the field and making all these contributions for decades and decades and decades, he had so many awesome stories. You know, we were talking about, you know, his. You know, we were. I think it was right after the passing of Drs. Iwata and Pennypacker. And so he told some stories about those guys. He told some stories about, you know, his time at Penn State and, you know, college football and college basketball stuff. I mean, just. Just. So I was just sitting back and like, I'm here, you know. Yeah, let's go. You know, so if you. And so, yeah, that was. That was a real fun one.

[Diana]

And he's a good storyteller.

[Matt]

Oh, 100. 100. All right. What do you guys got for seven?

[Diana]

Number seven for us was Preventing Burnout, and this was a listener choice episode, which means that the. Some of the listeners voted on what that topic was. We give them, like, three choices, and they pick what they want to hear that go around, and that's what they chose. Obviously, very important topic, something that's on people's mind a lot. We called it Preventing Burnout, which may have been a little presumptuous.

[Matt]

Ambitious.

[Diana]

Oh, no, no, no, no. It was originally titled Recovering from Burnout, I think, and I was like, I don't feel like we can make that guarantee. So then we. We renamed it Preventing Burnout instead. But that proved to be very popular episode.

[Matt]

Nice.

[Rob]

Yeah. I don't. I don't know how 2024 was for. For everybody. Some of the folks I've talked to, and usually I start the question was, was 2024, like, really bad for anybody else? And then usually they, you know, agree. I don't know most people, when you ask that question, I'm sure they're like, actually, best year of my life. Don't know what you're talking about. So it's a bit of a loaded question, but I think it was a good. Good timing for. For Burnout, as. As so many things just kind of continue going Wrong in a different way than they had been in previous end of year discussions. So always good to come back to Bird out and how we can continue improving as a field in that area.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah. That's a topic I haven't covered yet myself.

[Jackie]

It's because you don't experience it. You're like, I am the king of non bird out. I don't need that. I got myself my own studio.

[Matt]

I'm killing cheesy. It's a. It's a. It's a hypothetical construct.

[Jackie]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Bert, I've heard so much about this.

[Matt]

In textbooks, but people talk about this thing. Tact. I can imagine. Can you imagine, like, David Palmer, like, you know, if you're on a train in Kazakhstan, you attacked it as. No, I'm just kidding. That's not. That's my terrible David Palmer.

[Diana]

I could hear it and it was pretty.

[Rob]

No, definitely.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. Good, good. Okay. I'm glad. I'm not too far.

[Rob]

He's a distinct.

[Matt]

I think David Palmer is awesome, by the way. I kid because I love. So, all right, where are we? Number six. Clocking number six is the 18th installment of the Inside Java series with Dr. Dorothea Lerman.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And of course, co hosted with editor in chief, Dr. D. John Barrero. And in this one. This one, we talked about how to disseminate behavior analytic technologies. And Dr. Lurman basically went over an article that she had published in Java where she had did an informal summary or of some of the outreach work that she has done educating the law enforcement community about working with individuals in autism. And also what was really interesting is her work with helping individuals with autism receive dental services without, you know, getting put under or other sorts of more, you know, kind of intrusive interventions to get people the medical care that they need. So that was, that was a really, really interesting one. And also a student of Brian Iwata, I believe. And she, you know, again, it was right at that time, she, she, she had some nice anecdotes of, of, you know, working with him and, and being at UF during that time.

[Rob]

So that's such a great line of research, especially for its utility to society at large and to groups that need that training. But I think it's a great extension of can we scale some of what we know about training and bst, because that's such a barrier and it feels like it's getting closer and closer to that prime time of. Okay, here we go. That's it. Now we can do this at greater group for greater numbers.

[Diana]

So it's Jackie and I have some students at Regis who are replicating a version of that work with the dental clients and. Pretty cool. We'll let you know on that.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, I, I know. I don't know if you guys know Brandon Franklin. He is. That's his. I think he's doing some doctoral research in this area, but that's also his. His part of what he does. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Indeed. And an all around bon vivant.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And yeah. So he works for a company that provides medical care, dental, other sorts of things for individuals with significant disabilities and he's doing some great work in that area. The article was. Yeah, 100%. I, I remember the, the days back when I used to work for a residential school for kids with severe disabilities. Going to the doctor Boy stories that I won't tell right here. But anyway, her article is putting the power of behavior analysts in the hands of non behavioral professionals toward a blueprint for dissemination. I always think it's a good sign of a paper if it has the word toward in it.

[Diana]

You know, like that.

[Matt]

Like you can really, you know, make it like, you know, it's like this is really important because it's forward looking.

[Diana]

Yes. Yeah. She was kind enough to come on with us as well and talk about it. She's awesome.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

All right.

[Rob]

Okay. Jackie, you want to take our. What's number six? Number six? I'm losing track. Everyone's got their Google Doc. There's so many boxes. I'm losing track.

[Jackie]

Number six was episode 254, improving your parent training practices. I don't remember this one. I'm picking the ones that I actually don't remember this one.

[Diana]

Yeah, we talked about parent training and I remember talking about parent training, but.

[Jackie]

We'Ve done it in a few episodes.

[Rob]

I mean, when you're as good at parent training and parenting as we are, it just, you know, just don't even remember that stuff. It's just so natural.

[Diana]

Well, one of Our free episodes 103 talks some about parent training. But then the other time that we dedicated an episode to this was episode 19.

[Rob]

Wow.

[Diana]

Yeah. And it's like a huge topic. So everyone is thirsty for information on this one. Nice. Cheers.

[Matt]

I'll treat to that. All right. Okay, so this is, this one was a surprise big time. This was session 259 with Dana Miller and Dr. Steve Eversole. Practical strategies for passing the exam. So Steve is the founder of Behavior Development Solutions.

[Diana]

Yep.

[Matt]

And Dana is the founder or co founder of Pass the big ABA Exam. And it Was really interesting story about what they've learned about helping tens of thousands, probably more.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

People. Me pass the exam. Yeah, me too.

[Diana]

BDS modules on cd.

[Rob]

Oh, my. Yes. We lost those in the movie.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah, Yeah, I still have mine. I did mine on CD Rom. Yeah. In 2002.

[Diana]

Nice.

[Jackie]

2005.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Diana]

We weren't far behind you.

[Matt]

Yeah. So, yeah, great idea for an episode. They came to me with it, so I can't claim any editorial, you know, genius over that. And I remember the episode being well received. I. Again, it was a surprise because, you know, you think of most of the people listening to the show are. Are BCBAs, or at least that's my assumption. As you guys know, podcasting is like the wild west in terms of, like, audience analytics. You know, if we were on you, you know, like the. The. The data you get from a YouTube channel are. Are. Are very granular, you know, very, very precise. And podcasting is like, oh, this is the number. Here's your download number. You know, we don't know maybe.

[Rob]

And we redefined how we do it. So I don't know, this could mean this was always wrong or always right. It's very frustrating.

[Matt]

So, yeah, this was pretty cool. And so I was happy to hear that. And also they did some myth busting about what works and what doesn't work. And I think one of the takeaways I remember from the show is like, they were like mock exams. You know, she's like, everyone wants a mock exam. We give people mock exams. Because that's, you know, people expect that with these preparation things. But, you know, it, like taking an exam over and over again does not get you right, you know.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Closer to passing, you know, which I thought was. I thought was an interesting insight. So. Yeah, that was really awesome. Yeah.

[Rob]

Love it. All right, so our number five, Diana's helping by pointing at it on the spreadsheet for me. Thank you so much, Diana, for the visual aid. Is planning and running awesome meetings. And this was. This was part of our.

[Diana]

Yeah, it's a vision series.

[Rob]

Right. For the past year. And I re. I loved this sometimes.

[Matt]

And.

[Rob]

And you know, Matt, you might find this too, when you do an episode, like you're saying, like, echoics, like, it's fascinating. I love hearing about it, love reading about it, but I'm not going to do anything with it, so move on to the next topic. This was one that I think every agenda I have written since we did this episode, I have very clearly written exactly what we're going to talk about how long I expect it to take. I've become very clear on, like, folks, come on, we got to focus on the agenda. I've. I've like, changed how I do meetings with better and worse success depending on the group that I'm with. And it is shocking how many people just go to meetings and they're just like, hanging out and then they wonder why that, wow, these meetings are such a waste of our time. So just a really great, just review of what's out there on how do you hold a meeting that has a goal and therefore you will meet that goal within a timely fashion? And I know this year my, my day job, we're doing a lot of PBIS work. And part of the reason I think people were like, could you do the agendas, Rob? Is because I was the only one who ever came with like, these are the things we have to get done and here are the times. And I'm terrible at timing myself to begin with. If you've, if you've heard any of our podcast episodes that are supposed to be 50 minutes, which are never 50 minutes, but this, at least in the context of meetings, there's some sort of a meeting stimulus control. I have, I have been able to learn.

[Matt]

So in those early PBIS books, they had sample meeting. I can't recall the exact book. I used to have it. And I. It's one of those books you lend out so much, it stops coming back. Yep. So it's one of those. And they had all these templates in the back, and one of them were meeting templates. And they actually, in the meeting agenda with sample agendas and, and the agendas had times attached to them. We're going to spend 10 minutes talking about, you know, the operational division definition of the behavior. We're going to spend five minutes, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, so, yeah, there's. There's a lot of overlap in the PBIS world on that stuff. So. So I'm glad, I'm glad someone out there is running better meetings.

[Rob]

I mean, out of their better meetings, they certainly have a timetable and goals.

[Matt]

Yes.

[Diana]

That was all anchored by the Nosic and LeBlanc article. They were clearly frustrated that people were not running good meetings. Clearly.

[Matt]

I was going to ask you if that was from that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flo. Flo came on the show a few years ago to talk about that as well, and she definite. Has done some work in that area, too. All right, so where are we? We're at number four, my list. All right. This show is awesome. I love, I love this conversation. What is profound autism and why is it important? With Dr. Alicia Halliday. And this was in the run up to the Profound Autism Summit, which by, by the way, is happening again. I forget the actual dates.

[Jackie]

April.

[Matt]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's in April. And, and they are, you know, it's. It's a much, much bigger conference. It's a multi. It's two days and there's multiple tracks and expanded their capacity because it was like standing room only apparently last year. I didn't get a chance to go to it. But anyway, so I'm glad that this movement is getting traction because I feel it's an important issue. And so I'm glad people are out there trying to, you know, talk about the needs of those individuals who are most, you know, profoundly impacted with. With autism. And so this episode was basically like, what is it. What, you know, what does it mean to be, you know, to, to be classified as having, you know, you know, this level of impairment, you know, and how does that differentiate between other areas of the spectrum and what does it mean in terms of supports and things like that? So I, I think it's an area I definitely want to return to again sometime in 2025.

[Rob]

Very cool.

[Diana]

I have a lot. I have a lot to say, but it's like a whole episode worth of stuff. So.

[Matt]

Yeah, I know it's not a universally held position. I've. I've talked to some other folks or. But anyway. Yeah, that's.

[Diana]

Oh, no, you shouldn't assume that I'm in. Getting ready to disagree with you. I just think it's a topic that needs a lot of discussion.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's what I thought. I didn't, I didn't have any assumptions, but yeah, I. Recognizing that there are diverse perspectives on, On. On the relevance of that, I am very much pro. For, for having that classification for the reasons that I think will be clear if anyone wants to listen to session 258.

[Diana]

Yeah, okay. In our episode, number four. That's the one we're on, number four. This just like you, Jackie. I, When I saw this, I was like, oh, I don't actually remember much about that episode, but it was error correction.

[Jackie]

I remember that one.

[Diana]

We talked about error correction procedures and.

[Jackie]

How they vary and that the results are idiosyncratic based on the learner profile. Right. But we, We. I think we read like six articles for that one. And I remember that Rob had like, much, much more, and we're like Nope, we only can fit it into our 50 minutes, which usually is an hour and 10 minutes. And I actually remember that one. I liked that one. So good for us.

[Diana]

So did a lot of people. I think again, it had a lot of presumably practical, well, error.

[Rob]

I think one of the things that I still remember learning error correction procedures back in the day when I was still, you know, a paraprofessional starting out and assuming that. Well, the fact that this is the error correction procedure for so many discrete trial based programs must mean this is the most researched thing that has ever been researched. And it was a shock. When you look into the research and there's like, you know, three or four articles on the subject, they kind of all, like you said, kind of all idiosyncratic results. And to have so many people just using these various error correction procedures and you sort of wonder how many of you know that this is sort of maybe going to work, maybe not. We don't even have a consistent procedure for assessing whether it's an effective error correction procedure versus something that we consistently do because it's easy to train to the adult staff. So I always love any chance to come back to error correction and sort of see, see what's going on. And it's one of those topics that I always keep hoping someone's going to write the, the ER paper that ties it all together and says this is it, the error correction procedure. But I increasingly don't think, and I'm getting older and older and I don't think that's going to happen with a lot of the topics that I want someone to just write that. Nope, this is the one way to do it and everyone loves it.

[Matt]

If I understand the gist of the year, at least the conclusion of the, of the body of research from what you guys are saying, it reminds me of the same body of work on prompting, you know, I know, I remember the, a bunch of folks at the New England center published a bunch of research on prompting in like the mid to early to mid 2000s.

[Diana]

Yes.

[Matt]

Comparing most to least, least to most, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was like. And they had, they had people like build like arbitrary like Lego shapes and things like that.

[Diana]

Yeah, a lot of that.

[Matt]

And you know, it was like, oh yeah, there was six, six participants in the study and you know, two people did better with this and you know, one person. And it was just basically at the end of the day, you know, this is the applied part of the science where the practitioner has to be attuned to what is what is working for their. For their specific client and not fall to. Fall prey to, you know, a universal behavioral folklore.

[Rob]

Oh, I like that. I wish there were more universal behavior folklore that actually had a basis in concrete reality. Now that you've said it, I like that phrase, though.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Diana]

Although I was there at that time, and it did allow them to kind of say, okay, if you're not sure what's going to work best for your specific client, use this as kind of the default procedure and evaluate how that's effective. As we've demonstrated, you know, by and large, this often is the most efficient and effective method. And then if it's not working for your particular student, you reevaluate.

[Matt]

So thank you.

[Diana]

It's a place to start.

[Matt]

Yeah, definitely. All right, so we are down to number three. We're getting close, folks.

[Rob]

Top three is exciting, exciting stuff.

[Matt]

All right, this is session 254, AAC use with adolescents and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. And this is with Andy Bondi.

[Jackie]

Oh, I listened to that one.

[Matt]

Excellent, excellent.

[Jackie]

It was very practical advice.

[Matt]

Yeah. So after I published that one, a longtime listener of mine messaged me and said, boy, Andy Bondi doesn't hold back. And I don't recall anything super controversial or. Or he said or anything like that, but I think. But I just thought that was a funny observation because, you know, you know, when Andy doesn't care, like.

[Diana]

Right.

[Matt]

He lets it be. Lets it fly. And, you know, he's. He's not. Not nice about it, but, like, he's very, you know, he's very direct about, you know, where he stands on some of these things.

[Diana]

And those guys have so much gravy vibes.

[Matt]

Absolutely.

[Jackie]

I was gonna say the same thing.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Diana]

Super important topic.

[Rob]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Matt]

Again, it's one of those things, like, I don't work with learners with AAC devices and, you know, and again, I thought it was interesting. It's always fun talking to Andy's. I think it was like, his third or fourth time on the podcast, and it's always a popular show, and I was very much surprised to see that clock in at number three.

[Diana]

I'm not. I think that it's. It's something that a lot of people want and need to know about to best support their clients. And just because you get older doesn't mean that you don't still have AAC needs. So I love that it was, like, geared toward that.

[Matt]

Yeah. And he's really good. He does a lot like myth busting and folklore busting as well, especially in the article. So if you go to the show notes for that episode, there's an article that we used as a kind of springboard. Springboard for that conversation. That is. It's a good read. So.

[Rob]

All right, now we're in our top three, but I forget.

[Diana]

I think it's Jackie's turn.

[Rob]

Jackie's turn.

[Jackie]

Yeah, it is my turn. And I'd like to say that our top three, rounding it out, number three is. I always wanted to be a top 40 producer like Casey Kasem. Yeah, Casey Kasem.

[Matt]

Diana, you know we're gonna have to put a Wikipedia link in there, right?

[Diana]

I know. People are. Casey k. So Rick D's in the weekly top 40.

[Rob]

Nobody knows who Rick D's is.

[Jackie]

I do.

[Rob]

I know Stacy Case was the voice of Shaggy too. I mean.

[Jackie]

But our top three is Toilet Training Revisited. And this with. Was with guest Dr. Maeve Donnelly. And that is always. Everyone always wants to hear about toilet training again. Very practical, right? It's a hard thing. And she accumulated all of the research that we would ever need to know about toilet training and gave us all the information in really succinct ways.

[Rob]

Oh, I. I have a meeting about toilet training this Friday, and so I. I have it on my agenda. I either need to re. Listen to that, or possibly more likely, I might just email Maeve and be like, do you want to. You want to. Do you want to Skype into our meeting real fast? Zoom into our meeting real quick just in case you think of anything that we're.

[Diana]

She might not want to do that.

[Rob]

She probably doesn't want to do that. I. I'll.

[Matt]

I'll.

[Rob]

I' re listening. And then maybe I'll.

[Diana]

I'll just, like, shoot her an email, play the podcast. Like, be like, oh, I have her on the phone and just play.

[Rob]

It's like, fast forward.

[Matt]

Hold on.

[Rob]

I'm gonna fast forward this phone call just to the parts where she's talking to someone. Just.

[Matt]

Just play the podcast and walk out of the room, hit play, and then, you know, go, go, you know, watch some YouTube and come back in an hour.

[Rob]

That's it. That'll get through the meeting.

[Diana]

She's so know on this topic.

[Matt]

I'm gonna have to check. I missed that one. I'm gonna have to check that one out.

[Diana]

Yeah, yeah, you should check it out.

[Matt]

When people. Yeah, when people have. We're struggling with learners with toileting issues, man, it's just such a barrier, Such a huge barrier to all sorts of things. So any light that we can continue to shed on that as a field is, is, is definitely going to be helpful. So. All right. So. All right. Coming at number two is the, the panel from the Verbal Behavior Conference. Again, this is another, like, surprise that I was, I was like, wow, this is, yeah, this is really more popular than I thought. And again, I'm not dissing on the panel. I, I mean, I love going to the Verbal Behavior Conference. It's, it's super fun. It's happening again in 2025, folks. And so you have the opportunity to, to join me and the crew in Austin, Texas, or virtually through the magic of Behavior Live. But, and we always do a panel and I have the best job in the world. I get to moderate the panel. And it's just, I always, I always close the panel by saying thank you for allowing me to ask your questions to these people. I always also, like, play a game with myself. Like, because you get like six or seven, like super learned people on the stage. I always tried to say, okay, like, how few questions can we get? Because it's a, there's like an, like it's an hour. So it's not like a podcast. Like, we, we theoretically could do this for, you know, you know, as long as our kids are, you know, we can keep going. But like at a conference, you guys know this from doing your, your stuff on the road. You got to hit that mark at the end. You got to, you got to, you got to close or else people are going to get angry and start walking out and whatnot. So I always try to play this game with myself. It's like, you know, like, how. What's the fewest number of questions? You know, because look, you ask a question, everyone's going to want to get in on it, right? You know, and so everyone's going to take and you know, so. But it, it's, it's always a fun time. We hit on a variety of topics. Like again, AAC came up science based treatment, clinical judgment, and lots and lots of things like that. So as a matter of fact, I'm getting ready to publish the VBC panel from the 2024 conference.

[Rob]

Very nice.

[Matt]

The near future. So stay tuned for that.

[Rob]

Oh, boy. Yeah, panels are, they're such a treat when you get to moderate and you're just like, just please, everyone, talk intelligently. Here's some questions.

[Matt]

Go.

[Rob]

Let's see, let's see what we get. It's so much fun. That's awesome that everyone gets to hear them. If they weren't able to Be there at the. At the event. All right. I forget where we are. My turn. Number two strategies for addressing Escape Maintained Behavior, episode 261 for us, which I think featured one of our favorite favorite research figures, which is flowcharts upon flowcharts of what do you do in these situations? I think we. I forget what. I don't know. We were recording something or talking about something the other day and we were referencing one of the flowcharts in this episode because it just was so salient.

[Diana]

It's a great flowchart. It's really one of the top flowcharts. And it's from the Geiger et al. 2010 article. I looked it up to make sure.

[Rob]

Oh, thank you.

[Diana]

We could throw that in there because I knew we were going to talk about the flowchart.

[Rob]

So good. I just.

[Diana]

It is actually a really useful resource.

[Rob]

You know, we're talking about, talking about folklore, but I feel like flowchart is sort of the anti folklore. It's like, no, we did it. We have all the work. It's in this flowchart. Just follow it and you and your client will be just so happy that you. That you did. I. And certainly with escape Maintained Behavior, which I feel like, especially being in schools, a lot of folks understand behavior in ways they probably didn't, you know, like when we were in school as, as students. But a lot of it boils down to I don't want them to escape. I know they're escaping and I don't want them to escape without a thought as to what are they escaping from. How might you make it so that they don't want to escape rather than just using force of will to try to keep escape maintained behaviors from occurring. And that's beyond even the situations where, you know, you know, students or clients are escaping from tasks that they, you know, cannot engage in appropriately. They haven't been taught the skill. So just having that ready to go, that, that flowchart and that discussion was just really great review of so many just key, you know, important challenges that individuals face.

[Diana]

And we wanted to highlight in that episode as well that extinction is not always the answer and not where you need to go first. Right. So I think that that got through and I do think that that is something a lot of folks are interested in thinking about that topic and least restrictive practices. So glad to see that it made the list. All right, moment of truth. Ready?

[Matt]

Number one, coming in. Coming in at number one. Session 262. No surprise here. Dr. Pat Freiman, behavior Analytic approaches to counseling and therapy. What is there to say that hasn't already been said? You know, interviewing Pat is like the easiest thing in the world. Like you could just, you know, give the, the, you know, I don't know, like he just takes it and goes.

[Rob]

And you asked one question and that's an episode.

[Matt]

Yeah. And that's just. Yeah, you can sit back and, and, and be part of the audience. And that's, that's the. You know, sometimes when I, when I do chat with them, I, it's like I, I have to kind of slap myself a little bit because it's like, okay, you're not an audience member, Matt. You need to think about what he's saying and think of a good follow up question. And so that, that happens from time to time with guests that were, that are that compelling. You know, I had a thought that occurred to me. I was listening to. You guys know Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs?

[Rob]

Yes. I mean, I know that. I know the show. I've seen like the previews inside.

[Matt]

Yeah. So he has a podcast and he's also done a lot of, like, he's our. Not just he does the Dirty Jobs, but he's also narrated a bunch of shows on like discovery and other sorts of things. And I was listening to him on the, on, on another podcast the other day, and he has a very similar vocal quality to Pat. It was really interesting and it has a similar storytelling style as well. And it just, I was like, oh man, I was, I was trying to like reverse engineer. Like why, like these two people are, are so compelling to listen to and just, you know, and I, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, so, yeah, this was a fun episode, as always with Pat, where he came on and talked about, you know, some of his work as a clinical psychologist. Basically doing behavior therapy. Yeah, yeah, we always think of it maybe cognitive behavior therapy, but he's, you know, we'd say, no, I'm doing behavior therapy. And you know, talking about how he looks at things like anxiety and depression and, and you know, just give some practical advice for people who are, you know, struggling with, you know, some of these mental health challenges that are, you know, very, very commonly experienced. And he goes through some of the stats on that as well. So there's more people out there contending with these challenges than, than you'd think. And again, a lot of, A lot of practical information about these things and of course couched in, in, in a, and, and framed in a behavior analytic manner. So, yeah, no surprise there. He's a Fan favorite. And so he came in at number one for. For 2024. Wow.

[Rob]

All right. And. Okay, our number one.

[Diana]

Our number one was episode 263F, the ethics of fad Treatments. And I'm not surprised that this one was popular, because I think that this is a topic that gets a lot of needed attention. Right. And the article that we focused on the most in this was the Schreck and Miller, how to behave ethically in a World of fads, if anyone is familiar with that. And I think people out there who are working clinically struggle with a lot of this because they, you know, hear about things or parents bring things up, and they want to figure out how to best approach it in a way that's scientifically based, tactful, and with the best interest of the client in mind. And it was an ethics episode, too, so both of those factors probably laid into it. Exactly. Yeah. But that was our number one.

[Rob]

I think that.

[Matt]

That.

[Rob]

And that was an episode I feel like we had been batting around for a number of years of how do we do this? Like, I think at one point I put together a folder and I wanted to write an episode. I think it was. And this was not meant. It was. It was in reference to Roger Ebert's book of. Of movie criticism. Your. Your movie sucks. I wanted to call it, your treatment sucks. And that got vetoed pretty fast. So we sort of sat on it and sort of how, you know, how. How do we want to present this? And then I think this year just kind of came together. We had enough articles that covered, you know, the topics in a way that really could focus on the ethical situation rather than just being like, look at these treatments. That's crazy. Don't do that. You're a bad person if you do. Because that's not, again, is fun, maybe to record, but not necessarily to listen to, nor is it necessarily helpful, because you can't just go around telling everybody that's a bad treatment or that's not a real treatment. You're not an ethical provider of services because your science is. Because that's not going to win you any friends, you know, so. No, no. So we didn't do that. So if you have not listened to it, it doesn't sound like that at all. You can have your. I mean, you can have your own echo chamber where you do that probably with, like, a colleague. And that's fun, you know, over drinks or dinner. You know, you can, but you're not gonna be able to practically use that information unless you're really thinking about the ethics code and it was, it was good, it was a good exercise in talking about a tough situation in a more comp. In a complicated context that you're gonna have to be having those kinds of conversations.

[Matt]

Yeah, I would say that it's, it's easy and fun to kind of dunk on these things, you know, it's so fun, so fun. It's not going to, you know, ultimately, at the end of the day, we're in the business of persuasion and we have to persuade people to do things that we feel would be beneficial to the, to the client and the other stake stakeholders. And if we can't be effective persuaders, then unless we want to be doing the therapy one to one all day long, which is impractical for various reasons, we're going to have to get better at persuasion. And yeah, so I could see taking that perspective is, is, you know, can probably is, you know, especially when you see it happening, it's probably difficult to like, you know, but I, I think that's a, it's a better course of action. Younger me would have been like, ah, dust, duh, you know.

[Diana]

Right.

[Rob]

So those are our 10. But I know Matt, you had a couple honorable mentions and I know, you know, from us a couple episodes that maybe didn't, you know, either get the most downloads that we want to share, but really, really quickly. What were some of yours?

[Matt]

Well, I, I want to make an observation first. I, I think it's super cool that, that most of the most downloaded episodes that you guys had were, were without guests. So credit to you guys. You know, well done. That's, that's pretty cool. And you know, you know, how many. Do you have any solo shows? I've done.

[Rob]

I, I think you've done at least I remember you did at least one many, many years ago.

[Matt]

I did one. I did one. I had Pat McGreevey scheduled and he called me and to profusely apologize that he couldn't make it for, for one reason or another. And, and I was like, I have to get an episode out and the.

[Diana]

Show must go on.

[Rob]

Yeah, that's such a tough feeling.

[Matt]

And I was like, oh, I don't, I don't. This is not my thing. This is not my format, you know. And so anyway, so I. All the more reason for that. I'm, I'm, I'm very impressed that you guys did. Had your most popular episodes are San's guest so.

[Diana]

Well, yes, I was super surprised by that. But we have awesome guests as well, so I don't I don't want anyone to feel bad.

[Matt]

Yeah. So a couple hon mentions for various reasons. One is that, you know, we continue to do the Bop and Espanol series with my friend Miguel.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And you know, I, I'm really, really happy that he's been down for this. He's been very enthusiastic about doing it. And I, I, I know it's, you know, making, making the rounds in the Spanish speaking behavior analytic community. That's a huge, huge resource. I think, I say, I think cause I'm not fluent in Spanish so, you know, they could be making fun of me the whole time. I, I wouldn't know. But all kidding aside, I'm, I'm really happy that, that we're continuing to do that and that there's some benefit that you know, that we, we think is happening with, with that. So a couple other really quick honorable mentions continuing with the autism theme that we've talked about a couple of times here in this show. A review of autism diagnostic practices that just bit session 248 with doctors Whitney Ence and Elizabeth Sheridan. You know, so basically going through best practices about how individuals receive the diagnosis of autism. We talked about self diagnosis, we talked about other sorts of things that are, you know, that are I guess, contemporary topics in the world of autism and things like that and how they approach it from their, you know, kind of university clinic settings. And that was almost, you know, that, that was neck and neck with some of these other ones for coming into the top 10. Same thing with Emily Varin, how to understand sleep problems. Super important episode. And again, almost, you know, neck and neck with some of the others at the, the, you know, area of the top 10. And then just because I feel like this is a, this was like a mind blowing episode for me was the Ethics of procedural fidelity with Dr. Claire St. Peter. I mean, you know, Claire's great and she does so many different things, but I think the work in procedural fidelity that she is, she's pioneered in some of the, some of the lessons learned from her work in that area and the huge amount of work still needed to do and how treatment fidelity can, is not just something that occupies the, the ivory tower, but should occupy the, the thoughts of, you know, those of us out there in the trenches, if you will, and why it's important. So those are, Those are some 20, 24 honorable mentions from behavioral observations.

[Rob]

Oh, very nice. We have our, our listener choice poll for the winter is coming out pretty soon. Is it out by the time this comes out? It may already Be out. I can't. I cannot keep track this time of year of when anything is supposed to come out versus when it's been recorded. But procedural. Some of the procedural fidelity articles are on the list, so maybe we won't do that as an episode. We're not sure yet. But I have the articles. I'll just read them if they don't. We'll do it later if need be. Because you're right, Matt. Such a. Such a cool. Such a cool topic that is very important to the practitioner as well as in the Ivory towers. Jackie, Diana, any honorable mentions?

[Diana]

Probably episode 278, which was an ethics book club where we talked about Linda LeBlanc's and Amanda Karsten's book on ethics. That.

[Rob]

What was the name of that book again?

[Diana]

Ethics. Just called Ethics. That one. And then Corey Whelan's episode on PFASBT specifically.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Rob]

A lot of cab chaining.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Talk.

[Diana]

A lot of acronyms, but super good stuff and really great if you're less familiar with some of that terminology. He did such a great job laying it out. He was a super nice guest and he brought us cookies. So, you know, he is super. Ranks you up high.

[Jackie]

And he was like, can I come in person?

[Diana]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jackie]

And he said, it's a thank you note.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Rob]

It was so great.

[Jackie]

It was like the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

[Matt]

Wow. He's got like, legit. Legit manners.

[Diana]

Yes.

[Rob]

Any honorable mentions?

[Matt]

Quaint.

[Rob]

Yeah. Jack, any other honorable mentions?

[Jackie]

I can't think of the episode. But also when Aaron Leaf came and talked about.

[Diana]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob]

Oh, hold on.

[Diana]

I can tell you that that was 289. These are all right. In a row.

[Jackie]

Yeah.

[Diana]

Aaron Leaf talked about promoting client rights.

[Jackie]

I like that.

[Diana]

All the way from Australia. She came also in person.

[Jackie]

Yeah.

[Diana]

And then right after that, we talked with the how to aba, Right, folks.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. About her and Shayna. Yeah.

[Diana]

Yeah. Now, I can't remember the title of that, but it was like advice for New Behavior analysts, kind of. And that's also Ethical Question. Very popular episode, too.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And I. I want to shout out our episode on behavioral artistry, which was another one that it was like, just.

[Diana]

Just came out.

[Rob]

That just came out.

[Diana]

So it didn't get in the metrics.

[Rob]

Yeah, it did. That's why. That's why it didn't make it to the top of the charts. But that was an episode that really, I think, tried to capture the ephemeral in terms of how we do the job of behavior analysis. And working with other people and it sort of touches on therapeutic rapport as well. And I was just, it was one of those like, articles that I found way, way back when and just sort of put in the file drawer of like, we should do an episode on this someday. I wonder if there's more out there. And it's just always really exciting when kind of it all comes together over time of like, oh, it's another publication or I found this old article.

[Matt]

We could put it all together and.

[Rob]

Have a nice discussion.

[Matt]

Milton Burger.

[Rob]

No, we didn't have any Miltenberger.

[Diana]

It's Amy Books Pen.

[Rob]

Yes.

[Matt]

Got it.

[Rob]

Who sent us a nice, who sent us an email to follow up on that as well. So.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Right.

[Rob]

We'll have more to say on behavioral artistry in the new year, I bet.

[Matt]

Well, I, I, my last episode was the, was the one with Greg Hanley back on. And so that's gonna, that's when we do the, the 2025 year in review. That's gonna be like, you know that that will be number one, number two, number three, because it's, it's already going gangbusters as one might imagine. So I decided to leave that one out of the analysis because it, it just went out recently, so.

[Diana]

Right. Yeah.

[Matt]

Hey, and you guys are coming up on. Have you published 300 yet?

[Rob]

Not yet, no.

[Matt]

Okay.

[Rob]

We're very close to recording 299 and then we've got a couple weeks after that and then we'll be doing a shindig for 300.

[Jackie]

An in person fun, fun apocalypse where we are, we are promoting the 300th episode where people can come. I'm just finishing up the event. Bright. I had some technical difficulties where people can sign up and we're gonna give away free CES and we also are gonna give buy some pizza for everyone. And so that should be fun. It's January 9th if you want to come on all the way down Massachusetts. It's a Thursday evening.

[Rob]

Just, just a great time to be.

[Matt]

Driving the dark winter.

[Diana]

Right.

[Matt]

I'm visualizing my calendar in my head to see if I could make this this happen. But, but can I will let you know if you have.

[Rob]

If you have the time that we would love to see.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool.

[Diana]

You got to think about yours because yours must be also coming up.

[Matt]

Yeah, you know, I don't have any, I don't have anything special planned for the 300.

[Rob]

Yeah, we're kind of all hitting the 10 year mark too. So we were sort of like, do we just wait and then be like, it's episode like 368. And that's. I guess, or whatever. It comes out.

[Matt]

You guys are so consistent with. With publishing. Like, you can predict what number episode you'll be, you know, at a certain. Whereas, you know, I am. I'm less so. But both managed to make this work.

[Diana]

You know, we've both been doing this for almost nine years and we've seen a lot of podcasts come and go during that time. Because it is a lot of work.

[Matt]

Yes. It's not digging ditches. I will just, you know, like, you know, this getting back to the Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs, you know, reference. It's, you know, we're not going to be on a Dirty Jobs episode anytime soon. That show was still on, you know, micro. Like, I had to tag around with these podcasters and the barista got their latte. They put the wrong type of milk in their latte and it totally. But they, they rallied and they. Yeah, first, you know, their mic. They. They. They lost the cable to plug their mic in, so they had to use a different mic. It was a disaster. But, you know, anyway, I'm sorry, I'm just getting. Getting on in the evening here.

[Diana]

Stamina required to keep.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah, no, no, you're absolutely right. It's not, you know, quickly goes from hobby to job. Very. Yeah, fast.

[Diana]

Yes, exactly.

[Matt]

I started this on a lark and. And, you know, here we are nine. Nine years later.

[Diana]

Same. Right.

[Rob]

Boy. Yeah, no, I was always new nine years later.

[Diana]

Celebrate 300. I think you celebrate 10 years. Yes, we. It's all worth celebrating.

[Rob]

That sounds good.

[Matt]

All right. Sounds good.

[Diana]

And so is the new year. Happy New Year, man.

[Rob]

Happy New Year, guys.

[Matt]

Yeah. Congrats on another year of podcasting. And happy New Year to everyone in the. The. I guess the joint audience of aba Inside Track and the Behavioral Observations podcast. Yes.

[Rob]

If this is your first episode of either of our podcasts, it's an odd place to start. But guess what? We got a bunch of episodes between the two of us. Keep you busy in 625 backlog episodes for more.

[Jackie]

For more than a full year. You can listen to each one of our episodes for this whole year and still have something to spare, right? We have more than.354. 355.

[Rob]

That's true.

[Jackie]

356.

[Diana]

That's a 65 days in a year. Yeah.

[Rob]

Yeah, we did it. That was our goal. One behavior handling podcast every day. We've done it, folks. That's it. All right.

[Matt]

Thanks, guys. This is a fun format. I'm glad we decided to do it. And it's good to look back on what resonated with.

[Diana]

With.

[Matt]

With our audience, you know, because if it wasn't for our audience, you know, we would not get any reinforcement for all that. All that effort that we were, you know, we're just talking about.

[Rob]

So true.

[Matt]

Thanks, everyone, for tuning in in 2024, and we'll hope to keep pushing out some fun content for you in 2025.

[Rob]

That's right. We'll see everybody in that new year. Goodbye.

[Jackie]

Sa.