Claudia Drossel

Anxiety is one of the most prevalent psychological conditions in the pediatric population, and its associated impairments often persist into adulthood. Pediatricians are in a unique position to screen, briefly intervene, and facilitate treatment to prevent long-term impacts. However, they often do not have adequate training to do so. The current study addressed this gap by providing a brief online educational workshop aimed to promote: (1) screening for anxiety and (2) follow-up with appropriate evidence-based interventions. Fifty-three providers participated, and 38 completed surveys pre- and post-training. Findings indicate acceptability of the training to providers, improved knowledge related to anxiety, and increased readiness to manage anxiety during a medical visit. This study supports the utility of a brief, online training on screening and provision of evidence-based treatment for anxiety in pediatric primary care.

Behavioral principles guided the initial development of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and serve as the foundation for its flexible implementation. This article provides a broad introduction to the contextual approach to operant behavior, including behavioral principles, behavioral economics, and rule-governed behavior. Key applications of these relations include taking a constructional approach to building meaningful patterns of behavior that are supported by naturalistic contingencies outside of the therapeutic relationship, evaluating function-based hypotheses by monitoring response to treatment and other key variables, and occasionally systematically evaluating treatment outcomes using single-subject research designs. Examples used throughout the article help connect these foundational concepts to ACT practice. Behavioral principles support clinicians in taking a scientist-practitioner approach to ACT implementation and can support competent innovation while maintaining fidelity to the underlying functional contextual model.

Most people with major neurocognitive disorders (NCDs, formerly “dementias”; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) live at home and receive assistance from family members. Impaired thinking, reasoning, remembering, or problem-solving requires skillful scaffolding by caregivers to optimize engagement in everyday activities and prevent premature decline. For this reason, the quality of life of persons with NCD and their families hinges on caregiver skills. These skills are affected by caregiver psychological and physical health status, as well as access to supportive resources including healthcare providers with knowledge and competence in assessing and managing NCDs. As caregivers are invisible within the US healthcare system, they receive little preparation to understand the heterogeneity of cognitive impairment and therefore take the steps necessary to enhance their own quality of life and that of the person they assist.A decline in cognition can involve loss in one or across multiple repertoires that allow us to maneuver complex social and physical environments. Thus, perhaps the biggest myth related to dementia is that decline is equivalent to memory loss. Reffected by the diagnostic criteria for major NCD (DSM-5-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2022), the term “cognitive decline” can characterize specific losses in motor speed or coordination, attention and perception, learning and memory, initiation of action, sequencing multistep tasks, problem-solving, strategizing, reasoning, and navigating social situations. When such decline occurs in adulthood, is chronic, and sufficiently severe to disrupt at minimum instrumental activities …

Nonmedical prescription stimulant use (NMPSU) is a rising trend among college-age adults (18–25 years old). Survey research has identified several reasons for use, including enhancing cognitive, athletic, and social performance. Less is known about how relative reinforcing value differs based on the self-reported reasons for use. The commodity purchase task (CPT) is used to assess demand for substances such as alcohol and cigarettes and has been extended for NMPSU among college student users. However, this work has not been replicated for NMPSU or expanded to determine how reason for use affects drug demand. The aim of this study was to develop a novel functional purchase task (FPT) to measure demand for preferred stimulant-like drug effects (eg, focus, academic achievement, energy). Undergraduate students (n= 116) recruited from two universities who endorsed lifetime NMPSU completed …

Purpose/Objective Adverse outcomes after traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) are not ubiquitous; that is, it is possible to thrive in the years after injury. Accordingly, we examined both the association between various factors and psychological flourishing, or ideal mental health, after TSCI, as well as the characteristics of adults with average or higher levels of psychological flourishing in terms of personality, social support, and executive functioning. Research Design This study included two phases. In Phase 1, we collected information on demographic, health, and psychosocial variables from 449 adults with chronic TSCI using a mail survey. In Phase 2, we completed individual in-person assessments with a subset of 58 individuals from Phase 1 who had endorsed at least average levels of psychological flourishing and collected data using standardized measures of personality, social support, and executive …

Clinical behavior analysis (CBA) is the term used to refer to applications of behavior analysis to behavioral health presentations, such as anxiety, depression, or other disorders that interfere with quality of life. Assessment and intervention typically address lifestyle changes (e.g., management of sleep, diabetes, or hypertension) and build novel repertoires (e.g., in the case of mood disorders or serious mental illness). Therapists who consider themselves clinical behavior analysts translate the philosophy and science of behavior into action, implementing strategies consistent with a radical behavioral epistemology and based on behavioral principles emerging from the experimental analysis of behavior. The range of settings in which clinical behavior analysts work is expanding as the relationship between behavior and overall health is increasingly recognized. An overview of behavior analytically informed …

Our goal is to highlight the applicability, the implementation, and the utility of behavior analysis across a wide range of socially meaningful domains. While a relatively narrow specialization in neurodevelopmental disorders has become the norm, historically behavior analysts trained broadly and took experimental methods from the lab to health service settings and beyond. The following introduction pays homage to these beginnings and calls attention to the behavior analysts who held concurrent leadership positions within behavior analysis and psychological organizations from 1966 to 1975. Since then, the impact of behavior analysis has grown steadily. This book showcases behavior analytic work with many populations across a wide variety of settings. Contributors are experts in their fields. They describe their work in relation to the relevant licensing frameworks for their scope of practice and in …

Age-related prejudice or discrimination represents a complex interaction of rule-governed behavior (myths and distortions influencing individuals’ attitudes and beliefs) with other forms of stimulus control (e.g., negative visual media images) that then lead to systemic and institutionalized contingencies segregating older adults. The following chapter introduces “old age” as a social construct and invites self-reflection and advocacy for adults in late life across personal and public spheres. Recommendations and resources for laypeople and providers are suggested.

Applications of behavior analysis in healthcare and beyond Alexandros Maragakis Claudia Drossel Thomas J. Waltz Editors Applications of Behavior Analysis in Healthcare and Beyond Page 2 Applications of Behavior Analysis in Healthcare and Beyond Page 3 Alexandros Maragakis Claudia Drossel• Thomas J. Waltz Editors Applications of Behavior Analysis in Healthcare and Beyond Page 4 Editors Alexandros Maragakis Department of Psychology Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI, USA Thomas J. Waltz Department of Psychology Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI, USA Claudia Drossel Department of Psychology Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI, USA ISBN 978-3-030-57968-5 ISBN 978-3-030-57969-2 (eBook) https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-57969-2 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or …

The field of behavioral gerontology is well-established and has produced a body of research and clinical literature. The following chapter introduces behavioral gerontology by outlining its history within behavioral analysis. It then describes the field’s current status within behavior analysis and points to training benchmarks that were developed specifically for behavioral health assessments and interventions with adults 65 years and older. Considering training benchmarks and best practices, the goal of this chapter is to align the renewed interest in behavioral gerontology with developments that span well over half a century and to provide a roadmap to entering a mature field.

Neurocognitive disorders, commonly known as dementias, are characterized by cognitive decline due to a range of underlying conditions, such as Alzheimer's, Lewy body, or vascular disease, or frontotemporal lobar degeneration. As assistance with everyday tasks becomes necessary, modifiable psychosocial and medical factors intersect with neurodegenerative processes to create preventable or manageable challenges that are unique to the individual with the disorder and his or her family. Health psychology plays an important role in identifying and overcoming these challenges, thereby preventing excess disability, increasing quality of life, and promoting health for patients and care partners.