Students win multiple awards at behavior analysis conference

Nine Salve Regina students from the undergraduate psychology program and graduate behavior analysis program recently attended the Massachusetts Professionals in Behavior Analysis (BABAT) annual conference, taking home two awards for their posters and presentations.

“Every year, BABAT attracts presentations from prominent researchers from around the world,” said Dr. Cody Morris, assistant professor and graduate program director for behavior analysis. “Students attending the conference get a chance to meet and learn from leaders in the field of behavior analysis, and students who present at BABAT get an opportunity to share and discuss their research with these leaders.”

Although Morris has attended the conference previously, this was the first BABAT experience for his students. Salve Regina was well represented, accounting for 35% of the student poster presentations. Hannah Grey ’21, ’22 (M) and graduate student Jacob Oliveira won first place in the poster competition, and Tatiana Pullar ’22 (M) won the only honorable mention of the event.

Hannah Grey ’21, ’22 (M) and graduate student Jacob Oliveira won first place in the poster competition.

“Several conference attendees approached me during the poster session to rave about the quality of the students’ research and the professionalism of their presentations,” Morris said. “I was delighted by how well all of the students presented and felt very honored to be involved with each of their presentations. The students deserve to feel gratified in their collective accomplishment – not only did they represent Salve exceptionally well, but they also shared important research that can help improve the treatment for highly vulnerable populations, such as individuals with severe developmental disabilities.”

The topics that the students presented included strategies related to teaching sight words to children with developmental disabilities, assessing and treating problematic behavior, data collection integrity and state licensing laws for behavior analysis.

Gray and Oliveira’s poster, “The Effects of Using Compound Stimuli to Train Sight Words,” investigated effective stimulus presentation methods for teaching students to identify sight words. “The basis of the project is adhere caution when teaching sight words using compound stimuli and to assess it before wasting time teaching a skill with faulty stimulus control,” Oliveira said.

“Participating in BABAT was a fantastic professional development opportunity to network and get feedback from other professionals in the field as I begin my journey as a professional in the field of behavior analysis,” Gray said. “It is always an honor to attend these conferences and represent Salve and the behavior analysis program.”

This experience was made possible through the Sister Jane Gerety Experiential Learning Fund.

Tatiana Pullar ’22 (M) won the only honorable mention of BABAT.