A Behavioral Analysis of Problem Solving: Session 282 with Judah Axe

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

Quick, what's 47 minus 12? What did you have for breakfast the day before yesterday? When is the next leap year? Hit pause real quick and try to answer these.

Don't worry, I'm not going to hold you to your answers. What's more important is the processes you went through derive them. If you find this sort of thing interesting, then this is the podcast for you!

Dr. Judah Axe joins me in Session 282 to discuss a behavioral interpretation of problem solving. Judah is a Professor in the Department of Behavior Analysis at Simmons University, and along with Drs. Paul Alberto and Anne Troutman, he is the author of Applied Behavior Analysis for Teachers. Here are just some of the topics we hit on:

• What, in behavioral terms, constitutes a problem?
• How Skinner first conceptualized problems and problem solving.
• How self-talk, visualization, and other private events play a role in problem solving.
• How we both wished we had stronger backgrounds in Developmental Psychology.
• A quick review of Blooms Taxonomy.
• Current educational practices that potentially impede the development of higher order problem solving.
• Some topics that Judah may discuss at the upcoming Verbal Behavior Conference.
• How to determine if or when to teach problem solving skills.
• How improvisation might be fostered.
• The role of developing rules.
• The challenges of studying problem solving.

Here are some resources we discussed:

• The Verbal Behavior Conference.
• Marckel, Neef, and Ferreri (2013). A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF TEACHING IMPROVISATION WITH THE PICTURE EXCHANGE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM TO CHILDREN WITH AUTISM.
• Park and Gaylord-Ross (1989). A problem-solving approach to social skills training in employment settings with mentally retarded youth.
• Mann and Karsten (2020). Efficacy and social validity of procedures for improving conversational skills of college students with autism.
• Axe, Phelan, and Irwin (2019). Empirical Evaluations of Skinner’s Analysis of Problem Solving.
• Talk Aloud Problem Solving.
• A sampling of LeBlanc and Carr's work in the area of problem solving.
• Michael (2017). What Every Student of Behavior Analysis Ought to Learn: A System for Classifying the Multiple Effects of Behavioral Variables.
• Spiral bound atlases.

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