Saturday Mornings with Dr. Bailey

It’s time for another school year to begin. This is the time of year when we bring in a new group of Master’s students. Our very first activity is ABA Orientation, and I absolutely love this. We are fortunate to have with  Dr. Al Murphy who has been with our program for more than a decade.

Dr. Al Murphy, FSU PC Faculty

We also welcome our newest faculty member, Amy Polick, who will soon receive her doctorate from Auburn. Dr. Ellen Berler joined us via ITV from Tallahassee, she provides substantial support to our program as the Associate Chair in the Department of Psychology.

Orientation is our chance to meet our new grad students and make a good impression. We outline our blueprint for the next two years. This year, we had nearly 70 applicants and from those, we have chosen 15 students who made it through our rigorous selection process to join us. This year’s first year students are a very diverse group. They came to us from all over the country from states including New York, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada and California.

Many found out about our program from former students. This is truly a compliment to our model of training and the quality of our faculty and our practicum supervisors. One said,

“I chose to attend Florida State because of the focus on implementing Applied Behavior Analysis in the real world and the extensive ABA community found in Florida.”

I think she pegged us exactly right. Between Tallahassee and Panama City alone we have a number of employment and practicum sites to match everyone’s interests in behavior analysis.

ABA Reception

This year’s class is well rounded too; we have basketball and football fans, scrapbookers, tennis players, surfers, several dancers and a few dog owners. One student can juggle, another is a fencer, and we have two sketch artists as well. With this great mix of talented and highly motivated students, we expect to have a very exciting year.

We were fortunate to have Dr. Ken Shaw, FSU PC Dean join us for a Welcome reception following Orientation. He and his staff have provided us exceptional support for the past 11 years.

A mom who is home-schooling her young child with autism recently posted a poignant commentary on professionals who know just enough about behavior analysis to make them dangerous. This person was a speech-therapist who sees the child regularly, or did, and the mom reported that when she asked for help with a recent pattern of repetitive speech.

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

Mom asked what she should do when David starts one of these repetitive episodes. She said she knew it meant something but could not figure it out. “Just ignore it.” was the quick response. No functional analysis. No attempt to help the mom figure this out and her reaction was, ” I HATE IT when therapists decide to ignore a certain behavior, so they talk louder in their no nonsense voice and strong arm the child into doing (insert activity here).”

I hope that we train our therapists a little better than this and help parents try to understand behavior rather than just giving pat answers. This speech-therapist assumed that the mom was reinforcing the behavior without any evidence. But, the therapist didn’t recommend a DRA: “Just ignore it.”  Mom’s real frustration at this insensitive treatment came a little later, “Maybe my approach is just different and I have to admit to being frustrated and not understanding what David needed that day, but I think it’s inhumane to discount his (repeated) attempts of expression.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”‘

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about giraffes.”

“Giraffes live on the grassy Savannah”, he blurts and then continues…

“I feel happiest talking about the giraffes.”

“I feel happiest talking about the giraffes.”

Mom decided to seek out a different therapist, someone who would give her some help in understanding her child’s behavior. I wish she had reached out to a behavior analyst, a very well trained behavior analyst, but she hasn’t yet.

As a postscript: She mentioned the episode to her husband a few days later, “David was obsessed with the giraffes at the outdoor store* I took him to last week. He couldn’t stop talking about it, I had to practically drag him out of the store.”

* The outdoor store is where Dad goes to buy his fishing gear. It is a mega-sportsmens store, with a large section of equipment  for hunting. The store has huge displays of real (taxidermied) animals seen on safaris.  One section has elephants, gazelles, and of course, giraffes.

After my “retirement” from FSU in 2007 I immediately began teaching half-time with the FSU Panama City Campus–one graduate course per semester in the ABA Masters Program. I had been teaching in the program since 1999 and after a decade felt that I had learned about teaching at the Masters level but something was missing. With doctoral students our bi-weekly Research Meetings were a chance to cover a wide range of topics not included in any course but there was nothing similar to this in the Masters curriculum. I felt as if I needed more time with the students but not in another formal class. I would occasionally meet with students outside of class at my local Panera Bread coffee house and that was a great way to casually discuss issues they were concerned with. Then it hit me, we could meet there at Panera, the coffee is good, the parking is ample, and there is great food of all kinds. But, when to do this? It had to be a time when the students were available and hopefully had few other commitments, that sounded like a weekend, more specifically a Saturday. And it should probably be in the morning before everyone got caught up in their weekend activities. My idea was taking shape but I knew that it needed a name. “Conversation Hour” sounded too formal but generally described what I hoped this would be. I ran it by my wife and colleague Dr. Mary Burch and said, “I was thinking about calling it ‘Saturday Morning with Dr. Bailey’ what do you think?” She liked and I announced it to the students in the Fall of 2009.