I am pleased to announce that Susan Wilczynski, PhD, BCBA will be presenting at VTRAP on June 28, 2006. Dr. Wilczynski is presently an Associate Professor in Pediatrics at the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation in the Department of Psychology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Wilczynski is a licensed psychologist and a BCBA who has specialized in school and developmental psychology. The title of Dr. Wilczynski’s presentation is “Evidence-based practice guidelines: What does this mean for parents, educators and health professionals”. Dr. Wilczynski chose this title because she plans to include a great deal of information which will be of specific interest to parents, teachers and health care providers. When I asked her, tongue in cheeek, if she would have enough information to fill six hours, she told me that she usually takes three days to cover the topic. So be prepared to learn alot!!
Dr. Wilczynski has written many interesting research articles. The titles of her most recent published articles certainly describes her wide range of research interests. Her most recent articles published in peer reviewed journals focused upon increasing on task behavior of an adolescent with autism (Psychology in the Schools, 42 189-196), measurement properties of indirect methods of functional behavioral assessment (School Psychology Review, 34, 15-30), Project BEST-CASE, a model for developing an intensive early childhood program for children with autism (Proven Practice, 5, 23-36), The role of behavior analysis in school psychology (The Behavior Analyst Today, 3, 198-203) and decreasing disruptive behaviors of children with autism using social stories (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 32, 535-543). One of her recently accepted articles is of special interst to me. It is presently in press for the journal “Behavior Modification” and is entitled “The good behavior game: 1969-200″. This is especially interesting to me because I like to use the ‘good behavior game” and I think I am one of the few people who actually remember when the original article was published. The rumor then was that the original data were collected in Vermont, but I can’t prove this.
It is our good luck that Dr. Wilczynski has just agreed to become the Director of the National Autism Center (NAC) in Massachusetts. The NAC, which is affiliated with the May Institute, has been managing the National Standards Project. The National Standards Project is a major effort to produce a set of standards for evidence-based practices and behavioral intervention for children with autism. The NAC has convened a panel of nationally recognized experts who have been systematically reviewing the research on a variety of methods and practices in an effort to determine evidence-based practice guidlines. We are quite fortunate as a plenary session of the National Standards Project will be held this spring. As a result we will be to hear the latest results of this very important project–”hot off the presses”, so to speak.
We are also fortunate that Dr. Wilczynski has also agreed to speak at VABA’s annual membership meeting after her VTRAP talk. We have not decided what Dr. Wilczynski will address, although more in depth information of evidence-based practices will probably be welcome. Please think about any topics you would like Dr. Wilczynski to address and post them in this Forum. Feel free to use this Forum for an open discussion of this and any other topics. At some point we will have to tell her what we want her to talk about, so this is your chance to provide input.
That’s it for now. Please continue to check out this site for more information. lively discussion and answers to your questions.
See you at VTRAP and our annual conference.
Ed Sbardellati