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Abstract The principles of social justice, equity, diversity, inclusion (JEDI) have received increasing attention in behavior analysis circles, but the conversation has largely centered on implications for applied behavior analysis practice and research. It may be less clear to researchers who conduct basic and translational research how JEDI principles can inform and inspire their work. This article synthesizes publications from behavior analysis and other scientific fields about tactics of JEDI‐informed research. We organized this scholarship across five stages of research from developing the research question to sharing findings and curated sources for an audience of behavioral science researchers. We discuss reflexive practice, representation, belongingness, participatory research, quantitative critical theory, and open science, among other topics. Some researchers may have already adopted some of the practices outlined, some may begin new practices, and some may choose to conduct experimental analyses of JEDI problems. Our hope is that those actions will be reinforced by the behavior analysis scientific community. We conclude by encouraging the leadership of this journal to continue to work toward the structural changes necessary to make the experimental analysis of behavior just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive.

Abstract We evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training on improving participant implementation of functional communication training with multiple schedules when working with a confederate. Behavioral skills training produced mastery‐level responding for all six participants who required training, providing the first empirically supported training for this functional communication training approach. Next, we assessed durability during training challenges with (a) procedural changes to the original protocol, (b) a novel confederate with different discriminative stimuli and reinforcers, and (c) relapsed confederate destructive behavior. Training effects degraded at least once for all participants and in 62% of training challenges, although continuing to expose the participant to the challenging situations or providing postsession booster training resolved the degradation in most cases. We discuss these findings in relation to their clinical implications and directions for future research.

Abstract Parent‐mediated interventions for infants and young children with an increased likelihood of autism may help ameliorate developmental concerns; however, generalization of parents' teaching strategies to novel child target skills has not been consistently demonstrated. This study expanded our parent training program, Parent Intervention for Children at‐Risk for Autism (PICARA), by incorporating telehealth general case training (PICARA‐TGCT) to promote generalization of teaching skills. Five parent–child dyads participated. Child target skills were chosen from the categories of imitation, receptive language, and expressive language. A concurrent multiple‐baseline‐across‐participants design was used to evaluate the effect of training across two cohorts of parent–child dyads. Dependent variables included the percentage of correct parent teaching skills and the percentage of child correct responses. Parent teaching skills increased across all participants for both trained and untrained child target skills, as did child skills. This study provides support for PICARA‐TGCT as an efficacious and efficient early intervention model.

Abstract An examination of innate behavior and its possible origins suggests parallels with the formation of habitual behavior. Inflexible but adaptive responses—innate reflexive behavior, Pavlovian conditioned responses, and operant habits—may have evolved from variable behavior in phylogeny and ontogeny. This form of “plasticity‐first” scientific narrative was unpopular post‐Darwin but has recently gained credibility in evolutionary biology. The present article seeks to identify originating events and contingencies contributing to such inflexible but adaptive behavior at both phylogenic and ontogenic levels of selection. In ontogeny, the development of inflexible performance (i.e., habit) from variable operant behavior is reminiscent of the genetic accommodation of initially variable phylogenic traits. The effects characteristic of habit (e.g., unresponsiveness to reinforcer devaluation) are explicable as the result of a conflict between behaviors at distinct levels of selection. The present interpretation validates the practice of seeking hard analogies between evolutionary biology and operant behavior. Finding such parallels implies the validity of a claim that organismal behavior, both innate and learned, is a product of selection by consequences. A complete and coherent account of organismal behavior may ultimately focus on functional selective histories in much the same way evolutionary biology does with its subject matter.

Abstract Effective note taking may enhance learning outcomes for students and serve as a directly observable form of mediation within a test context. Frampton et al. (2023) used stimulus fading to teach note taking in the form of a graphic organizer (GO) during matching‐to‐sample baseline relations training (MTS‐BRT). Moderately high yields were observed with young adults despite the use of linear series training, abstract stimuli, and five‐member classes. The present study taught the same note taking strategy using an intervention package including video illustration, voice‐over instructions, and feedback to eight college students. Participants were taught to construct the GO during MTS‐BRT with three three‐member classes of familiar stimuli. Then the effects of MTS‐BRT alone with three five‐member classes of abstract stimuli was evaluated. Participants efficiently completed training with familiar stimuli and passed the posttest on the first attempt. With the abstract stimuli, participants engaged in GO construction during MTS‐BRT and the six participants that demonstrated high levels of fidelity to the trained note taking strategy passed the posttest on the first attempt. These results replicate findings from Frampton et al. while using a more efficient intervention package. Benefits of teaching overt mediation responses are discussed as well as future directions for translation to applied contexts.

Abstract This study evaluated the efficacy of (a) remote video‐based behavioral skills training (BST) with added speech outlines on teaching public speaking behaviors and (b) remote video‐based awareness training (AT) on speech‐disfluency rates. A multiple‐baseline design across speech behaviors was used to evaluate the training. Remote video‐based BST and AT were effective at teaching public speaking behaviors and reducing speech disfluencies, respectively, for both participants. In addition, performance generalized to increased audience size. Although expert ratings of perceived public speaking effectiveness improved following BST, the ratings did not improve and some worsened following AT. Both participants reported satisfaction with video‐based BST and AT. One participant reported greater comfort, confidence, overall ability, and less anxiety as a public speaker following BST. Both participants reported greater improvements in those categories following AT. Our results suggest that public speaking behaviors can be taught using remote video‐based BST and speech disfluencies can be reduced using remote video‐based AT.

Abstract Can simple choice conditional‐discrimination choice be accounted for by recent quantitative models of combined stimulus and reinforcer control? In Experiment 1, two sets of five blackout durations, one using shorter intervals and one using longer intervals, conditionally signaled which subsequent choice response might provide food. In seven conditions, the distribution of blackout durations across the sets was varied. An updated version of the generalization‐across‐dimensions model nicely described the way that choice changed across durations. In Experiment 2, just two blackout durations acted as the conditional stimuli and the durations were varied over 10 conditions. The parameters of the model obtained in Experiment 1 failed adequately to predict choice in Experiment 2, but the model again fitted the data nicely. The failure to predict the Experiment 2 data from the Experiment 1 parameters occurred because in Experiment 1 differential control by reinforcer locations progressively decreased with blackout durations, whereas in Experiment 2 this control remained constant. These experiments extend the ability of the model to describe data from procedures based on concurrent schedules in which reinforcer ratios reverse at fixed times to those from conditional‐discrimination procedures. Further research is needed to understand why control by reinforcer location differed between the two experiments.

Abstract This study demonstrates the use of two web‐based programs, one to identify video preferences and the other to assess their reinforcing effects. We used the Multiple‐Stimulus‐Without‐Replacement Preference Assessment Tool (MSWO PAT) to identify the video preference hierarchies of seven participants, ages 4–11 years old. We then used a customized reinforcer assessment program that arranged a concurrent‐chains preparation with programmed conjugate schedules of reinforcement. Button presses emitted by participants modulated the quality (volume and opacity) of selected videos on a moment‐to‐moment basis, allowing us to identify the reinforcing effects of the videos in little time. The results showed that the preference assessment had predictive value for five of seven participants. We discuss the MSWO PAT, parameters that may affect the identification of preferences and the use of conjugate schedules to identify reinforcers.

Abstract The purpose of the current study was to extend the research on the possible role of verbal mediation in the establishment of comparative relations. We conducted four experiments in which 14 participants received conditional discrimination training with nonarbitrary and arbitrary stimuli, followed by derived comparative and transformation of function tests. Participants learned to select the smallest or biggest comparison across multiple exemplars in the presence of abstract samples. Next, participants learned to select arbitrary comparisons in the presence of contextual cues to establish a size ranking among comparisons. To assess verbal mediation during mutual and combinatorial entailment tests, participants were instructed to talk out loud. When they failed to perform correctly during derived relations tests, participants were trained to tact and intraverbally relate stimuli. The results suggest that relational training alone was not sufficient to establish comparative relations and that adult participants engaged in problem solving consistent with intraverbal bidirectional naming during emergent relations tests.

Abstract Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) is a common treatment for automatically reinforced vocal stereotypy; it involves the contingent presentation of task instructions. Tasks that are included in RIRD are typically selected based on caregiver report, which may affect the efficacy of RIRD. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the role of task preference in the efficacy of RIRD for four participants who engaged in vocal stereotypy. We conducted task‐preference assessments and selected tasks of varying preferences to include in RIRD. For three out of four participants, the results showed that RIRD with higher preference tasks was not effective at reducing vocal stereotypy, whereas RIRD with lower preference tasks was effective for all participants.