Thursday, Feb. 17 • 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.   (more info.)

Dr. McComas is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota where she directs the Urban Indian Education Partnership with the Minneapolis Public Schools and heads the teacher licensure program in the area of Emotional/Behavior Disorders. In 2009, Dr. McComas was named the Rodney S. Wallace Professor for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Her research is primarily focused on the influence of behavioral mechanisms and social context on severe problem behavior and academic difficulties and the acquisition and persistence of pro-social behavior. She has published research on the influence of establishing operations, stimulus control, schedules of reinforcement, and matching theory on SIB, aggressive, and destructive behavior. Dr. McComas' research has been funded by the NIMH and the U.S. Department of Education. She also serves as Co-PI with her colleague, Frank Symons, on a number of NIH-funded grants on the bio-behavioral analysis of self-injury and pain. She served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and is currently Associate Editor for the Journal of Behavioral Education. Dr. McComas oversees a federally funded Leadership Training Grant in which she is preparing doctoral students to be leaders in the area of Response to Intervention, a three-tiered approach to promoting academic and behavioral success of K-12 students.

Functional Communication Training: Modality and Schedule Effects Short and Long Term
In an attempt to effectively compete with problem behavior, functionally equivalent mands are often taught to individuals who display positively or negatively reinforced problem behavior. Sometimes there exists a mand in the individual's repertoire, raising the question of whether to reinforce the existing mand or establish a new mand. Thus, two or more response options that produce the same functional reinforcer constitute a concurrent operant situation. However, the effects of different schedules of reinforcement and existing vs newly established response options destructive behavior (e.g., self injury) in the short and long-term are not well known. This presentation will involve a brief synthesis and review of the literature on the effects of response modality and reinforcement schedules on mands and destructive behavior as well as a case study demonstrating the effects of reinforcement schedules on the persistence of mands and destructive behavior following FCT.


Glenda Vittimberga, PhD    (top)
1967 - 2004

Glenda Vittimberga was serving on the CalABA Board of Directors as Secretary when she died tragically on February 16, 2004 at age 36. She was a native of Rhode Island and received her bachelor's degree from the University of Rhode Island. Glenda received her master's and doctorate degrees in Clinical Psychology at West Virginia University, where she specialized in assessment and intervention for behavior problems in children with developmental disabilities. She completed a clinical internship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She then joined the outpatient faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a faculty in the Child and Family Therapy Clinic and as co-director of the Communication and Behavior Development Clinic. In 1998, she became Associate Professor at the Charter College of Education at California State University, Los Angeles in the School Psychology Program of the Division of Administration and Counseling. Her responsibilities included teaching courses in applied behavior analysis, individual assessment, and interventions for severe behavior problems. Glenda's research interests focused on the systematic exploration of variables contributing to the efficacy of interdisciplinary communication-based interventions. She was published in many peer-reviewed journals and presented at various conferences, including ABAI and CalABA. Glenda's success as an academician was evidenced by how highly regarded she was by her students and colleagues and by her early promotion to Full Professor in 2003. She was an active participant in service to the university and the community, serving on several boards. Glenda was licensed by the Board of Psychology of the state of California.

Glenda was an esteemed board member, colleague, and friend. In the months following her passing, Drs. Bruno and Jacklyn Vittimberga, Glenda's parents, and the CalABA Board of Directors discussed various ways to honor Glenda's memory. In 2005, the CalABA Board of Directors voted to add a special lecture to its annual conference in Glenda's memory. The 2006 CalABA conference marked the first year for this very special memorial lecture. Each year, the lecture is presented by an invited speaker who either worked closely with Glenda in the field or who works in an area that was of special interest to Glenda.