Speaker 1: You're listening to why we do what we do? Welcome
Speaker 1: to why we do what we do? I am your
Speaker 1: exploring all conditions, Host Abraham.
Speaker 2: And I'm you're isolating those conditions.
Speaker 1: Oh, Shane, we are a psychology podcast. We talk about
Speaker 1: the things that humans and non human animals do. For
Speaker 1: those of you joining us for the very first time,
Speaker 1: then that was probably a weird thing the way that
Speaker 1: we introduced ourselves, but it will make more sense as
Speaker 1: we get into this. We are on the third part
Speaker 1: of a multi part series of episodes discussing something that
Speaker 1: is deep in the weeds of behavior analysis practice and
Speaker 1: literature and sort of understanding called functional analyzes. This is
Speaker 1: the third one, and so if you haven't heard the
Speaker 1: last couple that we have done, then you recommend checking
Speaker 1: those out for some background and conceptual pieces that will
Speaker 1: be necessary. But we'll also do our best to recap
Speaker 1: those going into this. And if you're a returning person
Speaker 1: then welcome back. Then that recap will be because you
Speaker 1: haven't heard those at least a week or a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, and you're getting caught up too, and this
Speaker 1: way you recall what we're doing as we get into it.
Speaker 1: But however you got here, we appreciate it. And if
Speaker 1: you do find that you would like to support us
Speaker 1: after all of this, then you can do that by
Speaker 1: leaving us a rating and a review like subscribe, tell
Speaker 1: a friend, join us on Patreon. I'll talk more about
Speaker 1: those things at the end of this discussion. But it
Speaker 1: is August twelfth, as you may or may not know,
Speaker 1: depending on when you're listening to this, it might not
Speaker 1: be August twelfth anymore. But when that's publishes, it's August twelfth,
Speaker 1: which means, of course, Happy Baseball Fans Day. That's me.
Speaker 1: So they they put oscillating fans in the baseball field
Speaker 1: and they blow away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they have like a good windy day depending
Speaker 2: on where the wind is blowing. That's a baseball field.
Speaker 2: Batters really love the wind blowing out the center field,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pictures not so much. It is ibm PC Day.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of initials.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 1: It is International Youth Day.
Speaker 2: Except when we were younger, we started a band or
Speaker 2: we were gonna we were trying to name our band
Speaker 2: and we were gonna call it youth in Asia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a band.
Speaker 2: That is a band and it was we didn't know that,
Speaker 2: but at the of your like, we're so clever. It's
Speaker 2: a play on words. So here's the International Youth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna call yourselves international youth. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that would have been quite the coincidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean close enough. I guess it's Julian Fry,
Speaker 2: Julienne Fry's Day, whoever that.
Speaker 1: Is, who's frying Julian. It's a middle child day, it is.
Speaker 2: It's also National Sewing Machine.
Speaker 1: Day Handy Devices. It is truck driver Day. Oh, we
Speaker 1: need those people. We do desperately, the bone of the economy.
Speaker 2: Uh huh uh huh. It is Vinyl Record Day.
Speaker 1: A nice, I dig it. It is World Calligraphy Day.
Speaker 1: In case you don't want to read what it is
Speaker 1: you're presented with in text form.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's World Elevant Day. I love
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, selfants are amazing. It is Elvis Week.
Speaker 2: It is. It is also National Bargain Hunting Week.
Speaker 1: Mmmm okay for our thrifty folks out there. It is
Speaker 1: National resurrect Romance Week because before this it was.
Speaker 2: Dead, yes, and now we get zombie romance.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: And it is Save plus sound Week.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see the movie Warm Bodies.
Speaker 2: No, but I heard it was really good. It's Nicholas Holt, right,
Speaker 2: like yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and the whole it is zombie romance, so
Speaker 1: it was fun. I recommend checking it out. Also, just
Speaker 1: know what you're getting into, is you go into a
Speaker 1: movie that is a romance with zombies.
Speaker 2: So it's very particular.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, not maybe for all audiences, but I thought
Speaker 1: it was very fun, Like it is a adjacent to
Speaker 1: horror rom com It's somewhere there. Yeah, genre blending and bending,
Speaker 1: that's always fun. Anyway, we're not here to talk about
Speaker 1: zombie movies or even necessarily just the holidays. We're talking
Speaker 1: about functional analyzes, and just to recap what we've discussed
Speaker 1: really quickly so far in case you have never heard
Speaker 1: of these and what we're talking about. This is essentially
Speaker 1: an assessment strategy very commonly employed by behavior analysts in
Speaker 1: which they create some conditions to observe what could be
Speaker 1: challenging behaviors, most often with individuals who have limited communication capacity,
Speaker 1: and when those individuals have some types of behaviors that
Speaker 1: are very challenging that could be harmed to themselves or others.
Speaker 1: Or other like related type things. It's like something is severe,
Speaker 1: let's say, in the way that they're behaving, and we're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why are they doing this thing
Speaker 1: so that we can potentially address how do we get
Speaker 1: their needs met without them having to do these destructive
Speaker 1: sorts of behaviors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we also covered you know, as we kind
Speaker 2: of are talking about this, we talked about the arrangements
Speaker 2: and different variations of these too, because there's lots of
Speaker 2: different ways that we do this. So like we set
Speaker 2: up these condidencies, we set up the way we these
Speaker 2: tests essentially, and then we do them in a lot
Speaker 2: of different ways because we really ultimately want to find
Speaker 2: out this concern is happening, right, this behavior is happening.
Speaker 2: We want to find out a causal relationship, Like that's
Speaker 2: the goal. It's not a correlational thing. And we have
Speaker 2: to do this in different ways because a there's no
Speaker 2: such thing as a one size fits all type of
Speaker 2: assessment and so so I think that's really important to
Speaker 2: note too, is like there's some unique flexibility inside of
Speaker 2: this what could be perceived as a rigorous test type
Speaker 2: of assessment. So there's some really cool stuff in there
Speaker 2: as far as that goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we impact a bit of the history of how
Speaker 1: this developed, starting before it was actually an experimental sort
Speaker 1: of thing, with it being more of a conceptual exercise,
Speaker 1: and they called it a functional analysis, and then in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two the first study where it turned into
Speaker 1: an experimental functional analysis. And essentially the idea here is
Speaker 1: sometimes compared to an allergy test. It's let's test a
Speaker 1: bunch of different situations and see which ones are the
Speaker 1: ones where we see that challenging behavior occur, and then
Speaker 1: that tells us what is provoking it and what is
Speaker 1: maintaining it.
Speaker 2: And this is how we figure out you're allergic to math.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's also funny inside joke because one of
Speaker 1: the original studies had to do with how difficult certain
Speaker 1: academic tasks were. But anyway, the whole point then is
Speaker 1: that once we understand that, we can use that information
Speaker 1: to help guide Okay, this is what this person needs
Speaker 1: in this situation. Now we can teach them to communicate
Speaker 1: what they need rather than do this thing that is
Speaker 1: harmful to themselves or others are both, And then where
Speaker 1: we went from there is essentially various iterations of people
Speaker 1: exploring what works, how do we change this, what can
Speaker 1: we make different about it? That sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it kind of led us up to
Speaker 2: a little bit of where we are at today, which
Speaker 2: is is kind of understanding how the actual assessment works. Right, So,
Speaker 2: like we're looking at like we've established these conditions that
Speaker 2: we test, we've isolated variables, and here we are kind
Speaker 2: of looking at I think that what we've found is
Speaker 2: that the isolation piece is kind of a core feature
Speaker 2: of this. Like I and when I say isolation, I
Speaker 2: mean isolating particular like related variables to whatever the conditions are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to see that across every type of assessment,
Speaker 2: but we're at the stage now where we're kind of
Speaker 2: like maybe even moving away from that a little bit.
Speaker 2: And we'll kind of talk about that today, I think
Speaker 2: when we talk about the synthesized types of tests. But
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really come such a long way, even
Speaker 2: in our years of working in the field, because I
Speaker 2: know that when we first started, some of these variations
Speaker 2: didn't even exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and so we got into essentially describing what
Speaker 1: the conditions are. For the most part, there's a condition
Speaker 1: that tests for positive reinforcement, a condition that tests for
Speaker 1: negative reinforcement, a condition that tests for self stimulatory or
Speaker 1: sensory reinforcement, and then all of that's tested against the
Speaker 1: control condition where it should be no motivation to do
Speaker 1: these behaviors at all. And then there was latency based fays.
Speaker 1: There are trial based defays their natural environments or pop
Speaker 1: up or burst contingency fas. An FA, by the way,
Speaker 1: stands for functional analysis, in case I hadn't said that already,
Speaker 1: and so we'll probably call it sometimes a functional analysis
Speaker 1: and sometimes an FA. But that's more or less where
Speaker 1: we left off. And that kind of brings us up
Speaker 1: to the discussion today, where we're going to start by
Speaker 1: getting into another way to sort of arrange these conditions
Speaker 1: to test for possible functions, if you will, Yes.
Speaker 2: And I'm so excited about this because I think that
Speaker 2: they're so I do think this is such a cool
Speaker 2: way to discover relationships about behavior, right, Like it's so interesting,
Speaker 2: and like I would say, as somebody who has done
Speaker 2: several of these, it's so cool to watch. It's cool
Speaker 2: to see like some patterns e merge as you're doing
Speaker 2: these types of assessments.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you really can see when you're observing
Speaker 1: and participating in conducting these you get to see it
Speaker 1: with your own eyes, the sort of differentiation that can
Speaker 1: occur between those conditions where it becomes fairly clear, like, look,
Speaker 1: this is we're seeing something a pattern emerge. I think,
Speaker 1: as you said, a trend. So yeah, all right, perfect,
Speaker 1: I think that gets us caught up to where we're
Speaker 1: at and so getting into this. Then another way that
Speaker 1: they might specifically try and assess and determine what's going
Speaker 1: on for a particular individual is a strategy for presenting
Speaker 1: these fays where what they want to do is directly
Speaker 1: compare just one single condition, one set of variables, or
Speaker 1: like one variable basically and then test against that control condition.
Speaker 1: This is called a pair wise analysis pai R not
Speaker 1: par yeah, pair wise, where you have basically just those
Speaker 1: two things that you're looking looking at. And this is
Speaker 1: most often implemented historically when a functional analysis was not
Speaker 1: yielding very clear outcomes and there was sometimes variability across conditions,
Speaker 1: sometimes there was very little behavior occurring across the conditions,
Speaker 1: and a way to determine if there was a functional
Speaker 1: variable related to the contingency to the outcomes that the
Speaker 1: individuals trying to get to is to expose the individual
Speaker 1: to that condition only just those variables, and then alternate
Speaker 1: that with the control conditions. See like, if in this
Speaker 1: one condition that we're repeatedly going to test, alternated with
Speaker 1: this control condition where there should be no instances of
Speaker 1: this challenging behavior occur, can we there see a differentiation
Speaker 1: happen in the pattern where it's clear that it happens
Speaker 1: over here and it doesn't happen over there.
Speaker 2: Right, And so like this one's really interesting because I
Speaker 2: think historically what we see with the other types of
Speaker 2: arrangements is it'll go, you know, let's number all the
Speaker 2: conditions one, two, three four, right, so it might like
Speaker 2: what we kind of set up the test, it'll go
Speaker 2: one two one, you know, one two three four one
Speaker 2: two three four, and then like we'll kind of alternate
Speaker 2: between those. What's interesting about a pair wise is it
Speaker 2: to go one two, one two one two for a
Speaker 2: few data points, and then we'll test another condition and
Speaker 2: go one three, one three, one three with one being
Speaker 2: the control and just kind of to see if there's
Speaker 2: a trend like isolated instead of having that alternation between
Speaker 2: one and two and three and four and kind of
Speaker 2: doing that over and over and over again. So like
Speaker 2: that's kind of what it might look like in practice.
Speaker 2: I mean, unless unless I'm completely off base there, but
Speaker 2: it's just to kind of like give people exactly what
Speaker 2: I like to me, I think it's important to see
Speaker 2: what that looks like.
Speaker 1: No, you're exactly right. That was actually a really that
Speaker 1: was I think a really nice simplified way to describe
Speaker 1: exactly what the pair wise analysis is between like actual
Speaker 1: content and ads. We're back. Yeah, So just as you
Speaker 1: just said, very well, very well put that, it's basically like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's j just do yeah one maybe being control conditions
Speaker 1: and two being the variable and then one two, one,
Speaker 1: two and going back and forth between those, and then like,
Speaker 1: depending on how that goes, you might then test another one.
Speaker 1: And this will be important later when we get to
Speaker 1: some further innovations in functional analysis implementation strategy, because that
Speaker 1: idea of like let's just test a thing against a
Speaker 1: control will come back again later. But yeah, in general,
Speaker 1: these were applied after a standard functional analysis had been implemented,
Speaker 1: Like they'd tried to just go through the normal procedures,
Speaker 1: but it failed to produce any clear outcomes. Like we
Speaker 1: were running these conditions, but we don't see a pattern
Speaker 1: emerging now.
Speaker 2: And if we.
Speaker 1: Described in a previous discussion that this could mean this
Speaker 1: quote unquote automatic function, and we described that in the
Speaker 1: very first episode in the series so far, and not
Speaker 1: to dwell on the philosophical issues that might be raised
Speaker 1: by calling it quote unquote automatic, but for those of
Speaker 1: you who know, you understand, and if not, we did
Speaker 1: discuss it a little bit back then. But anyway, it
Speaker 1: could also mean that the reason that we don't see
Speaker 1: any clear patterns emerge in the functional analysis is because
Speaker 1: there was insufficient discriminability, meaning it was just not clear
Speaker 1: to the individual in question what the difference was between
Speaker 1: the conditions they were supposed to be experiencing. And so
Speaker 1: if we simplify the arrangement to just one potentially evocative
Speaker 1: condition against that sort of control or neutral condition, that
Speaker 1: might help illustrate the possible reinforce or the possible provocative
Speaker 1: situation and corresponding outcome that the individual's trying to get.
Speaker 1: And it's like for them, it was just like, for
Speaker 1: some reason they do this here, and then some reason
Speaker 1: they do this here, and they don't really understand what's happening,
Speaker 1: because most of the time these are individuals very low
Speaker 1: developmentto their language, and so we can't just ask them
Speaker 1: or explain to them what's going on. And so it's
Speaker 1: simplifying it to just this is one thing, and this
Speaker 1: is the sort of neutral nothing should happen thing, and
Speaker 1: just make that distinction really clear could help provide the
Speaker 1: circumstances under which it does become more clear to the
Speaker 1: individual and to the than the clinicians what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, So for example, let's say there's a functional
Speaker 2: analysis that had variable patterns, and what we mean by
Speaker 2: that is like just spiky all over the place, kind
Speaker 2: of looking like what a Rechdor scale might look like,
Speaker 2: just like bounce it all up some high, some low.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's wild. So that's variable patterns with
Speaker 2: no discernible trends across those conditions. So like you can't
Speaker 2: figure out what's happening. It looks like every all the
Speaker 2: behaviors is kind of all over the place. The clinician
Speaker 2: might try presenting only the very specific attention condition identified
Speaker 2: in the interview and alternate that condition with the control
Speaker 2: play or neutral condition like we mentioned. So that's the
Speaker 2: one two, one two, one two versus one two, one three,
Speaker 2: one four, and so on and so forth. And if
Speaker 2: there is a clear separation in the data, it might
Speaker 2: suggest that the form of attention, or at least one
Speaker 2: of the forms of attention that are occurring, or some
Speaker 2: variable there is maybe one of the maintaining variables, if
Speaker 2: not the maintaining variable. That separation really makes the difference there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just being able to see like, Okay, when we
Speaker 1: have just this one, it's clear that we see that
Speaker 1: those challenging behaviors existing, but in this other one we don't.
Speaker 1: So that helps us then differentiate. Okay, now we see
Speaker 1: some kind of pattern we can then use. If the
Speaker 1: data do not show clear separation, the clinician might try
Speaker 1: a different pair wise condition against that neutral control condition,
Speaker 1: just as you were saying before the whole example of like,
Speaker 1: let's try this specific form of attention and do that
Speaker 1: against alternating with that neutral condition, back and forth, back
Speaker 1: and forth, back and forth. Still don't see anything, all right,
Speaker 1: Let's try a different type of attention condition and alternate
Speaker 1: that back and forth. Or let's try a different type
Speaker 1: of escape condition and alternate that back and forth. And
Speaker 1: there have been many studies summarizing data from functional analyzes
Speaker 1: from dozens of experiments, and that's honestly underselling it. Probably
Speaker 1: hundreds of experiments at this point showing that the pair
Speaker 1: wise arrangement can be really helpful and identifying a function
Speaker 1: in which the function of the behavior, like the outcome
Speaker 1: that individuals seeking, was not readily detectable in that standard arrangement.
Speaker 1: And so essentially you look at the published literature. There
Speaker 1: have been many, many, many studies at this point where
Speaker 1: they summarize dozens of cases at a time and sometimes
Speaker 1: over one hundred, and then looked at like, how often
Speaker 1: what was the pattern we saw, how often did it
Speaker 1: emerge that we saw this, How often did it emerge
Speaker 1: that we saw this? How often was it the case
Speaker 1: that we didn't see anything clear.
Speaker 2: In the data?
Speaker 1: And then how often in those circumstances was it the
Speaker 1: case that a pairwise assessment did yield some clear trends
Speaker 1: or patterns of the data. And there's quite a few
Speaker 1: that show that they did.
Speaker 2: Absolutely Now and many of you who have ever worked
Speaker 2: in a clinical direct service delivery capacity, you know you're
Speaker 2: working directly with clients, you're working family homes, you're working
Speaker 2: at schools, whatever might be. You might have had the
Speaker 2: thought while we're talking through FAS that while this assessment
Speaker 2: seems ideal and it seems like a great way to
Speaker 2: develop relevant interventions, it might be difficult or nearly impossible
Speaker 2: to implement in day to day operations in many places.
Speaker 2: And I've also heard that funding sources will not pay
Speaker 2: for additional time to do functional analysies unless it's a
Speaker 2: private pay space. But that's also a barrier that comes
Speaker 2: up too, is like not only is there like maybe
Speaker 2: does it seem difficult to do, but you might not
Speaker 2: be able to build an insurance company for it.
Speaker 1: That's a great point too. Yeah, there are variety of
Speaker 1: reasons people have cited as to why they cannot feasibly
Speaker 1: implement a functional analysis, and in response to that, first,
Speaker 1: some scholars have taken umbrage with that argument, and we'll
Speaker 1: outline one of the most seminal of those in just
Speaker 1: a moment. But second, there was another innovation was that
Speaker 1: perhaps the behavior function could be assessed simply by observing
Speaker 1: a natural environment in which the behavior could occur, rather
Speaker 1: than creating that evocative situation in sort of an experimental
Speaker 1: artificial environment. They're like, well, maybe what we could do
Speaker 1: is we could just watch this person and their sort
Speaker 1: of normal day to day and see if we can
Speaker 1: determine just observing them that way why those behaviors occur.
Speaker 1: Or maybe something that's even easier than that that could
Speaker 1: be sufficient enough to determine what the function of that
Speaker 1: challenge and behavior might be, is to just use a
Speaker 1: sort of standardized questionnaire with the relevant stakeholders in that
Speaker 1: person's world who might have enough experience and insight into
Speaker 1: those behaviors that we could glean the function of their
Speaker 1: behavior without direct observation and without that experimentation. So essentially
Speaker 1: the direction we're going right now is that people sort
Speaker 1: of argue, Okay, well a functional analysis seems great, but
Speaker 1: we just can't do it. So what can we do instead?
Speaker 1: And the two options are maybe we directly observe this
Speaker 1: behavior in its natural environment. Maybe we just ask the
Speaker 1: people who are around what is going on the way
Speaker 1: that they understand it.
Speaker 2: But there is an excellent article, and I love that
Speaker 2: it comes from this person because of their current work. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this was actually like a big schism in our field
Speaker 2: when this person went off to do their other things
Speaker 2: and actually from what I understand, cause some headbutting between
Speaker 2: I want to in this person. Yeah, even though this
Speaker 2: person was a student of iuaas so Greg Hanley and
Speaker 2: twenty twelve in the Journal of Behare Analysis in Practice
Speaker 2: passionately pointed out some of the arguments against fays and
Speaker 2: provided solutions to those arguments. So, like, this is one
Speaker 2: of those articles. It's just kind of like, oh, here
Speaker 2: are nine myths that people. It's a really good, like
Speaker 2: listical type of article. It's amazing. I mean, it's genuinely
Speaker 2: done so well because it's like, here's an argument, here
Speaker 2: are some examples in our literature. Here's an argument. Here
Speaker 2: are some examples of our literature that debunk that. So
Speaker 2: it's basically like a myth busting article, which is so cool.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the first argument is that people will say, oh,
Speaker 2: functional analyzes take too long, and he offered five minute
Speaker 2: sessions or trial based sessions or latency based fays which
Speaker 2: are much quicker. So like, there is a solution to
Speaker 2: that it takes too long argument, because there are variations
Speaker 2: that do reduce the amount of time it takes to
Speaker 2: assess the behavior.
Speaker 1: And actually for all of these like we're only going
Speaker 1: to list a few that he gave. There are quite
Speaker 1: a bit more that we're not going to get into,
Speaker 1: but I do. I did put the article in our
Speaker 1: links and references for people who want to go check
Speaker 1: it out because it is really really well written and
Speaker 1: has some really useful content. So he does provide like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if this is your problem, here's a potential solution. He
Speaker 1: also provides like, here's why this is also not really
Speaker 1: a problem, right, But anyway, we'll get into that. So
Speaker 1: the next one, that argument is that it's too complex,
Speaker 1: it's too hard to train staff, it's too hard to
Speaker 1: implement with integrity, et cetera. And so he suggests that
Speaker 1: one way to address that is using those pairwise assessments
Speaker 1: using one of the most relevant condition identified during the
Speaker 1: open ended interview portion of it. That way, you're only
Speaker 1: then doing more streamlined implementation strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the arguments that comes up often is
Speaker 2: that the functional analyses are too dangerous, it's too dangerous
Speaker 2: to evoke behaviors, and like, there is some truth to that.
Speaker 2: But what he did was he offered these solutions around
Speaker 2: conducting assessments in safe places, clear condition signaling, brief sessions,
Speaker 2: and reinforcing pre behaviors only if you can find a
Speaker 2: reliable precursor. I think he also in that argument he
Speaker 2: talked about even identifying an arbitrary behavior that is completely
Speaker 2: unrelated to the problem behavior and doing an FA on
Speaker 2: like some like an arbitrary unrelated behavior, and you could
Speaker 2: still derive a function from that, which I thought was
Speaker 2: kind of interesting. And he uses I think that argument
Speaker 2: later to get into some of the stuff that he's
Speaker 2: doing today which has demonstrated effect. But as somebody who
Speaker 2: has done fas for dangerous behaviors, I can attest that
Speaker 2: like if you do precursor fays, or if you do
Speaker 2: latency based that phays like ones where you do not
Speaker 2: allow the behavior to occur, you could still get the
Speaker 2: function out of it. I had to do an FA
Speaker 2: on a skin picking behavior that was causing wounds in
Speaker 2: the person. I had to do an FA on a
Speaker 2: rectal digging behavior that resulted it would go from rectal
Speaker 2: digging to physical aggression pretty quickly. And then we had
Speaker 2: to do one on a self injurious behavior where a
Speaker 2: learner had something like nine thousand, roughly nine thousand incidents
Speaker 2: of SIB per month. Wow, And we were able to
Speaker 2: do fas with all three of those and get good
Speaker 2: effect sizes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't recall now if in previous discussions
Speaker 1: we mentioned the precursor behaviors. But essentially the idea here
Speaker 1: is that in the class of behaviors that are all
Speaker 1: around sort of in the same vein or the same
Speaker 1: topography class, if you will, of the challenging behavior of question,
Speaker 1: a lot of times they sort of ramp up to
Speaker 1: the high magnitude challenging behavior. And so those behaviors that
Speaker 1: sort of signal to you like, oh, they're getting worked
Speaker 1: up now, you can actually reinforce those rather than letting
Speaker 1: them get all the way to full escalation. Right, And
Speaker 1: that because they're all sort of part of the same momentum,
Speaker 1: if you will, you can sort of stop it early,
Speaker 1: still reinforce that and probably detect a meaningful function of
Speaker 1: the behavior. And these are actually super handy. I've done
Speaker 1: a few of these as well, and the research is
Speaker 1: really clear, Like that's pretty actually as usually that's often
Speaker 1: very effective for identifying what the reinforcer is that is
Speaker 1: relevant in this particular situation without allowing it to escalate
Speaker 1: too far. Yeah, that's definitely one to consider as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think precursor behaviors are pretty accurate predictors too.
Speaker 2: Like there's some Tim Volmer does some really cool research
Speaker 2: on precursor behaviors and like some specific formulations that will
Speaker 2: predict them, and like you and I have kind talked
Speaker 2: about this before where we have talked about precursor behaviors
Speaker 2: where like sometimes you'll start hearing my voice pitch up
Speaker 2: a little bit, like I'm almost like preparing to deliver
Speaker 2: some news that somebody doesn't want to hear, and you
Speaker 2: can kind of like figure out that it's a little
Speaker 2: bit of a different cadence than my normal podcasting voice,
Speaker 2: and that usually means that an AD's coming.
Speaker 1: So we've been discussing some of the arguments that occurred
Speaker 1: inside this article that was essentially trying to point out,
Speaker 1: like these arguments against functional analyzes are there are ways
Speaker 1: to address the concerns and arguments that people have here.
Speaker 1: There's like it takes too long, it's too complex, it's
Speaker 1: too dangerous. He also argued that while functional analyzes do
Speaker 1: take time, is better time spent than to spend time
Speaker 1: having not done an FA to then create an intervention
Speaker 1: that is less likely to succeed and will ultimately contain
Speaker 1: fewer reinforces for the individual than they would have been
Speaker 1: able to identify if they had correctly found what the
Speaker 1: behavior function was by having done the functional assessment itself.
Speaker 1: And so he's sort of pointing out that like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it does take time, but that's efficient because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: going to waste a bunch of time doing stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't work very well, and that the individual in question
Speaker 1: here is now also not having as enriched of an
Speaker 1: experience as they could have otherwise had.
Speaker 2: Right. I've actually heard some will call and make that
Speaker 2: same argument, which is like and it's it's ultimately an
Speaker 2: ethics argument, right, like, yeah, is it more ethical to
Speaker 2: avoid doing an FA because you're worried about problem behavior
Speaker 2: but to waste time on interventions that are not effective?
Speaker 2: Or is it more is it more ethical to like
Speaker 2: do the assessment to identify the function and design more
Speaker 2: effective intervention earlier and like that that's ultimately the ethics
Speaker 2: question I think I land on, Like when we have
Speaker 2: these conversations, it's like, yeah, yeah, let's not waste time.
Speaker 2: Time is a commodity that we don't get back, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: So in an article, he provides an analogy to being
Speaker 2: intubated in a hospital bed and extremely thirsty but unable
Speaker 2: to communicate. All kinds of people are attempting to help
Speaker 2: you and make you feel better, getting you a new pillow,
Speaker 2: changing the TV, bringing you things that you like, but
Speaker 2: because they don't assess what is you need, they just
Speaker 2: provide things that are nice but don't actually solve your problem.
Speaker 2: They're wasting time while you're still thirsty.
Speaker 1: Right, And so the whole situation there being that like, well,
Speaker 1: if it's not what the individual actually needs, then like
Speaker 1: it's all well and good that we're trying to do
Speaker 1: nice things for them, but like it's not it's not
Speaker 1: solving an issue. And that's that's the similar to the
Speaker 1: ethics piece of like I mean that basically is it's
Speaker 1: just an analogy that he created. But yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: not actually addressing the behavior function, you're trying to essentially
Speaker 1: brute force your way through this by just providing some
Speaker 1: arbitrary something or other for something or other that's not
Speaker 1: actually getting at with this person need in the situation
Speaker 1: and therefore why they're engaging in that behavior in the
Speaker 1: first place. And then, as I mentioned, before. In this article,
Speaker 1: he provided a multi page table outlining some of those
Speaker 1: arguments and concerns with conducting a functional analysis, and then
Speaker 1: some possible solution to those problems. Again, that link will
Speaker 1: be in our references here, but yeah, so that's essentially
Speaker 1: a thing to check out if you're curious and learning
Speaker 1: more about the sort of arguments that are made and
Speaker 1: how he addresses all of those. He further took some
Speaker 1: issue with the idea of these descriptive analyzes and these
Speaker 1: observational assessments and the questionnaires, because we mentioned there's sort
Speaker 1: of the there's the people who are saying like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't do an FA. Handley says, yes, you can,
Speaker 1: and here's how and why. But he also points out
Speaker 1: in this paper and one of the other things that
Speaker 1: people have said is like, well, if I can't do
Speaker 1: an FA, then what I can do is just directly
Speaker 1: observe the behavior in its natural environment and just record it,
Speaker 1: take some data, and do an assessment that way. And
Speaker 1: also maybe what I can do is implement a questionnaire
Speaker 1: like I can just standardize format, interview the people who
Speaker 1: are relevant and around this person who around these behaviors,
Speaker 1: and see if they can provide some insight here. He
Speaker 1: also pointed out that there are some critical flaws with
Speaker 1: this that just do not do a good enough job
Speaker 1: supplementing the functional analysis. But let's get into what those
Speaker 1: consists of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's laborate on the observational analyzes piece. So
Speaker 2: these are commonly what is meant by a functional behavior
Speaker 2: assessment or FBA. That's when we go in and we
Speaker 2: do the observations, we do interviews, we come up with
Speaker 2: a clear objective description of the target behavior of concern,
Speaker 2: whatever that problem behavior is. We call that an operational definition,
Speaker 2: and then we might hypothesize a potential function from this,
Speaker 2: and that might include you know, things like ABC data
Speaker 2: and whatnot that have given us some like patterns that
Speaker 2: we have observed or the people have reported to us.
Speaker 2: But either way, at this point, the clinician observes the
Speaker 2: individual in some environment in which the behavior might occur,
Speaker 2: and so we're observing when these events actually happen and
Speaker 2: kind of letting the play out and capturing some data around,
Speaker 2: like the variables that are contributing to those moments.
Speaker 1: So the person who is trying to do this functional
Speaker 1: behavior assessment or FBA, what this might look like, is
Speaker 1: they're going to try and go into the environment where
Speaker 1: that behavior, the challenging behavior, takes place, and they're going
Speaker 1: to note the full context whenever the behavior should occur.
Speaker 1: What they're trying to identify here is what is the
Speaker 1: circumstance that immediately preceded the target behavior, and they call
Speaker 1: that the antecedent. What is the behavior itself? And then
Speaker 1: what are any outcomes that are achieved by this behavior,
Speaker 1: which is the reinforcer or the consequence? And then, as
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, this is called an ABC analysis. A
Speaker 1: for antecedent, B for behavior, C for consequence, and it
Speaker 1: just flows really nicely. ABC analysis easy to remember. It's
Speaker 1: a simple three term contingency assessment attempting to describe possible
Speaker 1: triggers and reinforcing outcomes that may be facilitating the occurrence
Speaker 1: of those behaviors the sound challenging behaviors or target behaviors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for people who don't understanding behaviorism, they might
Speaker 2: hear that and think that it's a little reductive that
Speaker 2: they're going like, oh, that's all behavior boils down to this.
Speaker 2: There couldn't be more reasons for this, YadA ya YadA.
Speaker 2: And as a behaviorist, I would also say it can
Speaker 2: be reductive because it may not capture all the things
Speaker 2: that it needs to capture. It does its job for
Speaker 2: what it does. It captures information that you can use
Speaker 2: to develop further hypotheses. But I'm going to challenge every
Speaker 2: behavior analyst that listen to this that when you go
Speaker 2: and you are doing a functional behavior assessment and you're
Speaker 2: doing FBA's and all that, and if you rely heavily
Speaker 2: on ABC data as the primary driver for your hypotheses
Speaker 2: and that's like what your go to is, you may
Speaker 2: be missing some information and it's not sufficient. It's just
Speaker 2: not sufficient in like the sometimes it is that simple.
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. Sometimes behavior is that simple. It
Speaker 2: truly is. But there are other times where there are
Speaker 2: just other variables of play that we often miss in
Speaker 2: those types of analyzes. So I would just challenge everybody
Speaker 2: to like think a little bit deeper about the way
Speaker 2: that you do assessment with those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get into some of Handley's specific arguments against
Speaker 1: depending too heavily on those descriptive assessments as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that now. So, for instance, if the
Speaker 2: clinician is observing the individual who tends to bang their
Speaker 2: head on a desk in a classroom. It might be
Speaker 2: the case that when the teacher is busy interacting with
Speaker 2: other students and the individual in question is sitting by themselves,
Speaker 2: they strike their head against the desk. The teacher rushes
Speaker 2: over to stop the head banging from happening, and the
Speaker 2: antecedent is the withdrawn or divided attention, like the attention
Speaker 2: is not there, right, and the behavior is the head
Speaker 2: strike to the desk. And then the consequence is the
Speaker 2: teacher providing direct one on one attention whenever that happens.
Speaker 2: And so this might be the reason the attention is
Speaker 2: the primary reinforcer maintaining self injury to this individual in
Speaker 2: that particular context.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just as an example, like antecedent attention gone behavior,
Speaker 1: headbanging on the desk consequence, they get attention, right, And
Speaker 1: so that ABC assessment there would tell you like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this person wants attention, and that's so they do these
Speaker 1: they act out in this way because when they do that,
Speaker 1: they get the kind of attention they're looking for. Right
Speaker 1: of note, and Handley points this out too, there are
Speaker 1: some drawbacks to this simple direct observation strategy for one thing.
Speaker 1: As Hanley points out, and this is definitely true, most
Speaker 1: people in this individual's life are generally attempting to mitigate
Speaker 1: the circumstance that produced those challenging behaviors. So there are
Speaker 1: often few opportunities to actually observe that behavior happening. Right,
Speaker 1: Like people have figured out, like, here's how to not
Speaker 1: set them off. This person has spent a very long time,
Speaker 1: the individual question here sort of teaching the social environment
Speaker 1: how to not get them pissed off and not engage
Speaker 1: in these behaviors. And those people have learned from that
Speaker 1: and figured out like, let's try and avoid it. And
Speaker 1: so that can actually result in some other complications when
Speaker 1: trying to do an FBA, right.
Speaker 2: So FBAs can actually take a really long time because
Speaker 2: there may be those few opportunities to observe. And I
Speaker 2: think that's something that does happen. I mean I did
Speaker 2: an FBA one time. It was five weeks, yeah, because
Speaker 2: I was told that this person had problem behavior, and
Speaker 2: it was five weeks of collecting data waiting for the
Speaker 2: behavior to occur, and then ultimately the behavior didn't occur.
Speaker 2: That the behavior interest didn't occur at all, Right, or
Speaker 2: happened once. He was a forty five year old man
Speaker 2: that said ass one time, and everybody was like, oh
Speaker 2: oh no, So I was like, he doesn't need services.
Speaker 2: But it was five weeks of observations, of data collection
Speaker 2: of interviews and it yielded zero results. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's a very long time as opposed to
Speaker 1: like the cumulative twenty five minutes that might have been
Speaker 1: spent in a functional analysis. And also, if your target
Speaker 1: behavior is swearing, then pull your head out of your ass,
Speaker 1: people like this is this not? Yeah, grow up, it's
Speaker 1: not that big a deal. All right. Another drawback here
Speaker 1: that is worth considering when you're looking at doing something
Speaker 1: like a descriptive assessment or observational assessment of some sort
Speaker 1: is that there are very very few I'm actually not
Speaker 1: aware of any, but I have not dug into the
Speaker 1: literature in a while, but there are very very few,
Speaker 1: if any, peer reviewed studies that have shown that an
Speaker 1: effective intervention was developed from one of these FBAs from
Speaker 1: this observation alone. That doesn't mean that that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: Like I think that there are plenty of instances where
Speaker 1: there are times that they do develop some effective interventions.
Speaker 1: It is just very underrepresented in the published scientific literature
Speaker 1: in the extent to which it is effective. So it's
Speaker 1: not to say that it doesn't ever work, but the
Speaker 1: science just right now seems to not really back that
Speaker 1: up as a very valid strategy for conducting this assessment right.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, FBAs are not
Speaker 2: validated and notoriously fickle in their reliability. And that's just
Speaker 2: how well they predict the extent to which the future
Speaker 2: circumstance will again produce the behavior, and that the putative
Speaker 2: reinforcer will be available and provided such that it can
Speaker 2: be reasonably concluded to maintain the behavior. Now, this is
Speaker 2: the thing I think is really important for everybody to
Speaker 2: hear when we talk about this. FBAs are an important
Speaker 2: process that we engage in for our work. As a
Speaker 2: general rule, how people conduct FBAs differs from every single
Speaker 2: behavior analyst and how they're in the assessment battery and
Speaker 2: the tools they use and how they approach, and that
Speaker 2: that's part of why it's so fickle, is like everybody
Speaker 2: does it a little bit differently. They use the same tools,
Speaker 2: but they do it a little bit differently, and they
Speaker 2: do not produce causal relations. They always produce a hypothesis
Speaker 2: for what we think the function is, and that we
Speaker 2: can never confirm it through a standard descriptive assessment FBA process.
Speaker 2: We have to we can only confirm functions through the
Speaker 2: functional analysis process and can never confirm it through a
Speaker 2: standard FBA process because it's all observational and.
Speaker 1: It's always full of ads.
Speaker 2: Oh, so many ads.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. Yeah, so we're just ended on
Speaker 1: the note that it's very important one too, And I
Speaker 1: hope I didn't undermine too terribly by that segue that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this, you get a hypothesis, you don't get a
Speaker 1: confirmed function, and you could potentially attempt to validate that
Speaker 1: by applying said intervention and seeing do we see some
Speaker 1: shift in the behavior? But it doesn't actually mean you
Speaker 1: have identified a clear function. It just means you've identified
Speaker 1: a possible reinforcer maybe, or you've otherwise arranged some circumstances
Speaker 1: to have mitigated the instance in which this behavior might occur,
Speaker 1: which does I think speak to the fact that you
Speaker 1: nessy doesn't necessarily always change the motivation for that behavior,
Speaker 1: like the reason for it happening, and therefore is still
Speaker 1: there's some ethical considerations around is this person getting their
Speaker 1: needs met. But let's move on from the descriptive or
Speaker 1: observational portion of this and move on to the other
Speaker 1: thought of how well behavior could be assessed using just
Speaker 1: those questionnaires, those interview tools that are structured. There have
Speaker 1: at this point been a handful of various open and
Speaker 1: close ended questionnaires and standardized interview tools that have been
Speaker 1: developed and standardized to attempt to create valid and reliable
Speaker 1: inquiries that may yield useful insight as to what may
Speaker 1: be maintaining those challenging behaviors. And again we're like, these
Speaker 1: are the people who are around this when it occurs,
Speaker 1: They've seen it all the time. Maybe if we just
Speaker 1: ask the right types of questions we can get enough information.
Speaker 1: And the thinking is that if we administer the same
Speaker 1: questionnaire to a handful of people, then the people who
Speaker 1: are closest to this individual, and then use their answers,
Speaker 1: we can actually make some determines about likely functions of
Speaker 1: that behavior because they can we sort of set it
Speaker 1: up so they can tell us what are the circumstances
Speaker 1: when that behavior occurs, what happens after the behavior occurs,
Speaker 1: and it's not those aren't the exact questions, but they
Speaker 1: are set up in an attempt to create an opportunity
Speaker 1: to assess possible behavior functions just by interviewing the people
Speaker 1: who around when that behavior has happened right exactly.
Speaker 2: And while these have demonstrated some utility and clinical settings
Speaker 2: for many people in many ways, they also come with
Speaker 2: some caveats that they're unreliable. Questionnaires are often unreliable because
Speaker 2: different raiders will give different answers to the same questions,
Speaker 2: and sometimes the same raider will give different answers if
Speaker 2: the questionnaires administered at different times, and notoriously, people are
Speaker 2: terrible self reporters, So you know, there's there's also that
Speaker 2: piece too, where people are reporting on a phenomenon that
Speaker 2: they're very close to they may give different answers depending
Speaker 2: on how the question is worded. I mean, it's really
Speaker 2: kind of fascinating. I think it was like even one
Speaker 2: of the questionnaires that's often used. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you talk about this with the functional analysis screening tool.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I did not bring up any specific ones.
Speaker 2: No, okay, I bring I want to bring this up
Speaker 2: because I think this is this is an important piece.
Speaker 2: Like there's some studies that show that the functional analysis
Speaker 2: screening tool, the FAST, which is often used as a
Speaker 2: like a screening tool type of assessment. I think they
Speaker 2: found that related to functional analyzes that were conducted after
Speaker 2: a FAST was completed. I think the FAST is the
Speaker 2: most accurate of those types of tools, and it was
Speaker 2: like fifty two percent accurate.
Speaker 1: I remember about being fifty yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like about fifty percent of the time it
Speaker 2: predicts the function. So like that's a questionnaire that is
Speaker 2: like it's a coin flip, right, yeah, yeah, at that
Speaker 2: point exactly. Yeah, it's like this might tell us something maybe,
Speaker 2: but it's hard to tell. Yeah, And to that point,
Speaker 2: like just as you were saying, some studies have directly
Speaker 2: compared some of the questionnaires against an actual experimental functional
Speaker 2: analysis and generally found only moderate correspondence between the experimental
Speaker 2: like actual confirmational analysis and the questionnaire, meaning that those
Speaker 2: questionnaires will tell you one thing, and when you do
Speaker 2: the actual experiment it tells you something different a good
Speaker 2: chunk of the time, right, And of course I always
Speaker 2: had this thought when they were talking about this, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, well, it could be the case that
Speaker 2: the questionnaire is the one that's actually yielding the correct
Speaker 2: and accurate analysis of the behavior function, and that it's
Speaker 2: the FA that is incorrect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now it does. I mean it could be the case.
Speaker 1: It does seem a little bit likely because there is
Speaker 1: substantially more research backing the functional analysis and way more
Speaker 1: of like validated outcomes that exist there. So it does
Speaker 1: make sense that the FA, the standard FA, is the
Speaker 1: tool against which other assessments are compared, such as a questionnaire,
Speaker 1: to determine are these things yielding behavior function? But just
Speaker 1: wanted to throw it out there that it's like when
Speaker 1: compared to an FA, that you'll discriver results. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that but doesn't tell you. That doesn't technically tell you
Speaker 1: which one is right. But given the amount of research
Speaker 1: done validating the use of a standard functional experimental functional analysis,
Speaker 1: that that is the one that it makes sense that
Speaker 1: people will lean on that as the comparison sort of
Speaker 1: match to sample, if you will.
Speaker 2: Sure, because I think it's important to understand like maybe
Speaker 2: like the process by which we get those data, right, Sure, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: you know, with like these questionnaires and like with the observations,
Speaker 2: like we're seeing things play out, but we're not doing
Speaker 2: any sort of like experimental analysis or like manipulating any variables,
Speaker 2: like the functional analysis is the one where we do
Speaker 2: start manipulating or changing some variable in the in the
Speaker 2: environment to see it effect on that response. And I
Speaker 2: think that those that is so that's such a critically
Speaker 2: different process that I think that when we when we
Speaker 2: compare them, it is a little bit like, you know,
Speaker 2: the goal is the same to figure out the function
Speaker 2: of the behavior, but the way that we get that
Speaker 2: information it's just a little bit more robust to the
Speaker 2: functional analysis stage.
Speaker 1: Right now. I fully went into this expecting we get
Speaker 1: through all that we have left to say about functional analyses,
Speaker 1: but there is enough left that I think we actually
Speaker 1: do have content for a whole entire other episode because
Speaker 1: we still have to get into like what do we
Speaker 1: do with the results of a functional analysis? And then
Speaker 1: I teed this up last time and we didn't get
Speaker 1: to it, but sort of getting into the other innovations
Speaker 1: that have happened around functional analyzes, which is specifically synthesized analyses,
Speaker 1: and getting into some of the controversies therein and getting
Speaker 1: into some of our own sort of hot takes on
Speaker 1: some of these issues as well. So rather than drag
Speaker 1: this out into an hour and forty five minute long episode,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and stop here. We'll pause here for
Speaker 1: this episode and we will go into a part four
Speaker 1: to get into those sections as well, which bully for
Speaker 1: everyone here. You know, we got so much content out
Speaker 1: of this topic. I wasn't sure we'd be like it
Speaker 1: this much.
Speaker 2: But who to thunk it?
Speaker 1: Who to thunk it? But okay, perfect, Well, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and pause there. And as we're sort of heading
Speaker 1: toward the end of this, for those of you who
Speaker 1: have never listened to us before and this is your
Speaker 1: first time, then way to pick up a spot right
Speaker 1: in the middle. But hopefully you're getting a lot out
Speaker 1: of this. Still, at the end of our each of
Speaker 1: our discussions, we recommend some things. We are people who
Speaker 1: go about the world consuming all kinds of entertainment and
Speaker 1: books and movies and music and experiences, and we just
Speaker 1: like to share those with people, and so we recommend
Speaker 1: them at the end of our discussions, even though they're
Speaker 1: not about the topic we were discussing most of the time.
Speaker 1: And so we'll get to that. And we also, of
Speaker 1: course have the credits. I even have like it's not
Speaker 1: technically a listener mail. But it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: listener mail i'd like to read, so get into that
Speaker 1: as well. But all right, before we go ahead and
Speaker 1: make that transition, is there anything that I forgot you'd
Speaker 1: like to add before and we can get to credits
Speaker 1: and whatnot.
Speaker 2: No, I think we're ready to roll into it.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're close enough that I think let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and do one more quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back for the fun wrap up here
Speaker 1: where we'll get into our recommendations and all that sounds good. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. I apologize for the lack of cleverness around
Speaker 1: my ad segway, but thank you all for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this journey we continue
Speaker 1: to find ourselves on with respect to the weird and
Speaker 1: wacky world and deep dive of behavior functions and functional
Speaker 1: analyzes with behavior analysts. And how many times did I
Speaker 1: say the word behavior and function in this discussion. If
Speaker 1: we were playing a drinking game, everyone would be dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would be very sick. You would be hospitalized, So.
Speaker 1: Don't do that. I would like say thank you so
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Speaker 1: Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Kiara, and Charlie
Speaker 1: for all of your continued awesomeness and support and helping
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Speaker 2: We're beautiful. You're beautiful, and we love you. We're beautiful
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Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson, and our person
Speaker 1: who does the sounds good is Justin. Our audio producer,
Speaker 1: extraordinary God Emperor Penguin, who's so wonderful and great at everything.
Speaker 1: He's a delight indeed, and I think that's what I
Speaker 1: have to say about the credits. Is there anything that
Speaker 1: I forgot?
Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it all.
Speaker 1: Right, let's do a quick kind of a listener mail
Speaker 1: like thing. We'll do an auditory segue to this. This
Speaker 1: is actually it's a review someone left our podcast, but
Speaker 1: it is one of the nicest things anyone has ever
Speaker 1: said about us, and so I want to share it.
Speaker 1: Was quite flattered when I read it. And we're a
Speaker 1: little behind because this is about a month ago. But
Speaker 1: we actually had to record a bunch of episodes ahead
Speaker 1: of time because we had some scheduling conflicts for several
Speaker 1: weeks where we wouldn't be able to record. So we've
Speaker 1: been releasing episodes while not recording them, and now we're
Speaker 1: back on track here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They titled their review informative and fun and said I
Speaker 1: took a class at ASU from my graduate program and
Speaker 1: special education ABA and where someone recommended this podcast, and
Speaker 1: I thought I would give it a try since I
Speaker 1: commute a lot and needed something to listen to. Not
Speaker 1: only is it a psychology podcast, but also speaks on
Speaker 1: daily political issues and horrors that continue to happen in America.
Speaker 1: I enjoy the candid conversation, informative content, and most of
Speaker 1: all that I am learning while listening. Shane Abraham have
Speaker 1: a great dynamic that reminds me a little of John
Speaker 1: Oliver and Last Week Tonight, as the topics are sometimes
Speaker 1: to hear but important. Nonetheless, their username is one six
Speaker 1: for the Bunch Numbers. So anyway, thank you to String
Speaker 1: of Numbers for that very kind and very thoughtful comparison.
Speaker 1: Being compared to John Oliver is extremely flattering to me. Yes,
Speaker 1: So that was very very sweet of you, and I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I also appreciate people who find a love of learning
Speaker 1: as we do, and that's kind of what we're up
Speaker 1: to in this discussion. So hopefully this has been insightful
Speaker 1: as well what we've been talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, and thank you for the kind words.
Speaker 2: Anytime you all want to share nice words with us,
Speaker 2: that'd be super cool. Yeah, we love that.
Speaker 1: We're here for it, do you get Yeah? All right, Grevy,
Speaker 1: Well let's go ahead and transition then to the fun
Speaker 1: part here of our recommendations and yeah, cue the music.
Speaker 2: Recommendations. I am going to recommend a place that is
Speaker 2: it's maybe a little bit difficult to get to if
Speaker 2: you're in the States, but you can at the very
Speaker 2: least still donate money to this place, which I think
Speaker 2: is cool. And so that is a place called the
Speaker 2: Bonarong Wildlife Sanctuary in Hobot, Tasmania. So I bring this
Speaker 2: place up because I think this is such a great
Speaker 2: example of how sanctuary should be set up and I
Speaker 2: think it's really cool. So this place was a fairly
Speaker 2: small plot of land in Tasmania, which is the most
Speaker 2: southern state of Australia. It's the Island. And for those
Speaker 2: of you who don't know, the wildlife in Australia is
Speaker 2: very ridiculous. I was just there for a work trip
Speaker 2: and I got to experience it. But I say ridiculous
Speaker 2: because it's just so unique compared to the rest of
Speaker 2: the world. It's just so so different. We found this
Speaker 2: wildlife sanctuary kind of like haphazardly. It was last day
Speaker 2: we were there and we're like, let's go check this out,
Speaker 2: let's see what let's see what this is all about.
Speaker 2: And we get there and it was perfect. It was
Speaker 2: exactly like I said, what a wildlife sanctuary should be.
Speaker 2: Lots of local animals, they have twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: care for the animals in terms of like not only
Speaker 2: care but for rescues, so like they have a hotline
Speaker 2: where people can go pick up animals for rescues, so
Speaker 2: it is a rescue as well. They have a hospital
Speaker 2: on site that they can do surgery for the animals
Speaker 2: and make sure they're cared for, like especially when they
Speaker 2: come in with like burns or broken limbs and all that.
Speaker 2: And they do educational tours, so you buy a ticket
Speaker 2: and they do tours for free. The folks that work
Speaker 2: there take you to every animal habitat. They explain the
Speaker 2: animals and what they do and what they are all about,
Speaker 2: and it's just super fascinating. So to give you an
Speaker 2: idea of what they have at this sanctuary, they have
Speaker 2: Tasmanian devils. They have a huge area for forester or kangaroos,
Speaker 2: which are quite tall in person. You don't realize how
Speaker 2: tall kangaroo is until it stands up next to you
Speaker 2: and tries to eat food out of your hands. But lovely,
Speaker 2: lovely creatures. There were bare nosed wombats, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: I fell in love with one named Pebbles, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to bring her home to her and spend time
Speaker 2: with her. She was very interesting. They short beaked a kidna,
Speaker 2: which if you've never seen the kidna, it's like if
Speaker 2: an ant eater were a hedgehog.
Speaker 1: It looks what I was actually gonna say, Like I
Speaker 1: pulled up the website and they got it and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, kidd does and yeah, they that is
Speaker 1: a good way to describe it as an ant eater hedgehog.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the one they had only had three legs,
Speaker 2: so like it would like kind of like drop its
Speaker 2: butt when it was walking, and I loved it. So
Speaker 2: they have batongs, they have gliders, they have qualls, and
Speaker 2: they have like a bird place too. So they've got cockatoos, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, are just wild there, just like cockatoos
Speaker 2: are just flying all over the place. Sure there are
Speaker 2: frog mouths, which are really cool birds of prey. There
Speaker 2: was a cape Baron geese walking around that had a
Speaker 2: condition called angel wing, which meant that couldn't fly very well.
Speaker 2: Her name was Lucy, and she liked to greet all
Speaker 2: the people that would come in and she was very nice.
Speaker 2: But my favorite is that they had these like parrots
Speaker 2: called galas. Yeah, and I'm not saying that with an
Speaker 2: Australian accent. It was ga la h yeaheah. I'm familiar
Speaker 2: and they were very cool too, So yeah, Glas. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it's if you get a chance, please donate to them.
Speaker 2: They're doing really great work. They're doing great conservation work
Speaker 2: and the food was all vegan, so they make sure
Speaker 2: that their their snack bar aligns with their goal and
Speaker 2: mission of saving animals and conserving the environment.
Speaker 1: Very nice, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I realized that you're the galaw clarification was not
Speaker 1: for me, that's for audience, But I was and not
Speaker 1: a super nerd on this, but that is one of
Speaker 1: the It's a really good card in the Wingspan board game.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, that's that's cool. Awesome. Well, I now
Speaker 1: I feel like I should have gone first because yours
Speaker 1: was so much more important than mine.
Speaker 2: But there's pretty important too.
Speaker 1: Ban Wong Wildlife Sanctuary. I'm recommending a movie that recently
Speaker 1: came out. It is the new Spider Man movie Brand
Speaker 1: New Day. Yes, oh my god, I love this movie.
Speaker 1: They have just been absolutely nailing it with the Spider
Speaker 1: Man movies in the MCU and regardless of whether or
Speaker 1: not it's MCU. And this one was just so extremely
Speaker 1: fun and well done and I really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Great cast, some big reveals I don't want to spoil
Speaker 1: just yet, but action was fantastic. They did they really
Speaker 1: actually did some more unique ways of showing like Spider
Speaker 1: Man swinging through the city, and like, after all this time,
Speaker 1: they're still finding innovative ways to depict what that can
Speaker 1: and can look like and how cool it is, Like
Speaker 1: it's really neat to see them just continue to push
Speaker 1: the envelope in terms of visual effects, in terms of
Speaker 1: like action, and just such a well done movie, so
Speaker 1: really really enjoyable if you're at all interested in sort
Speaker 1: of superhero action movies. This one was super well done.
Speaker 2: I think there's something really special about Tom Holland because
Speaker 2: I think he does Peter Parker and Spider Man well.
Speaker 2: Like Yes, that's always the challenge of like playing a
Speaker 2: character that has like two stinct personalities, like Batman is
Speaker 2: like that, like you for somebody to be a good Batman,
Speaker 2: you also have to be a good Bruce Wayne right,
Speaker 2: and Tom Holland just does both so well. Like Andrew
Speaker 2: Garfield was a really good Spider Man. Yeah, but he
Speaker 2: was too cool. He was Peter Parker. He was very cool,
Speaker 2: and that was not you know, the case. And Toby
Speaker 2: Maguire is also another example of like a good Peter
Speaker 2: Parker and a good Spider Man, but he always looked
Speaker 2: a little bit older. I think that Tom Holland does
Speaker 2: a good job of like keeping the youthfulness of Peter
Speaker 2: Parker and being a good Spider Man and like the
Speaker 2: Hubrist that are not the Hubrist, but like the gravity
Speaker 2: that comes along with that character and the tragedy that
Speaker 2: comes along with that character. Yeah. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: it's great. It was such a great movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So all right, Bonnarong, Wildlife Sanctuary and Spider Man
Speaker 1: Brand New Day probably still in theaters at the time
Speaker 1: that this comes out, So go check those things out
Speaker 1: if you're in Australia or just want to go see
Speaker 1: a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Otherwise, we have one more part I think to come
Speaker 1: back to discuss in terms of functional analysies, So catch
Speaker 1: us next week. I think that'll wrap it up with
Speaker 1: what with the amount of content we have left, I
Speaker 1: do look forward to sharing with everyone, but I think
Speaker 1: that's what we have to say. Anything that you like
Speaker 1: to add that I forgot before we wrap up.
Speaker 2: Dope, not today.
Speaker 1: All right, this is Abraham and it's Sheene. We're out.
Speaker 2: Siya.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD.
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome
Speaker 2: day