I hope that everyone using ABA to help their child with autism has already signed up for the December 2 conference with Dr. Mark Sundberg. That conference, where Dr. Sundberg will speak about the VB-MAPP assessment tool, is sold out. But that doesn't mean it's too late to hear Dr. Sundberg speak, along with other excellent behavior analysts. The annual conference of the Maryland Association for Behavior Analysis (MABA) still has seats available.
I have been attending the MABA conference annually since 2006. Usually, I'm one of 2 or 3 parents there. I think that's unfortunate because I always learn something that I can bring home to improve my daughter's ABA program. (Well, maybe the year they talked about Behavioral Economics would be a stretch, but almost always.) This year they have the most exciting line-up of speakers I've ever seen there, so I encourage everyone to make this the year you check it out.
The full schedule of speakers is here. Dr. Sundberg alone is a reason to attend. Any of us who have used ABA programs or sent our kids to schools that apply B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior owe a huge debt to Mark Sundberg. While Skinner's book Verbal Behavior is fascinating, it doesn't tell you the first thing about how to help a child with autism. Sundberg, his colleague James Partington and their teacher Jack Michael took the ideas in that book and figured out how to apply them to help our kids. The result, published in Sundberg and Partington's book Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities, is a masterpiece of applied science and my daughter's education would not have been the same without it. I attended a conference with Dr. Sundberg in Fairfax a few years ago. He's a lively and engaging presenter too.
