For two printable pages describing how to enroll in, and take, TIBI’s courses, click Course Information. These pages also include information on course fees, and several related topics. (You might also want to look at the “Enrollment/Forms” page, and other pages under the EDUCATION menu.)
NOTE: Updating those “two printable pages,” the syllabi for ALL of these courses now work in conjunction with a “General Parameters and Procedures…” article published in Journal of Behaviorology, volume 18, number 2 (Fall 2015). Click HERE to access this article.
Each of the course descriptions provided here, and the syllabi to which they link, represent updated or new descriptions and syllabi. The 13 updated descriptions and syllabi first appeared in Journal of Behaviorology, volume 19, number 2 (Fall 2016) and the four new descriptions and syllabi first appeared in Journal of Behaviorology, volume 20, number 1 (Spring 2017).
You will find a Course Description for each of TIBI’s current courses by clicking on these links, one for each course; each of these links contains the course name. For the full syllabus of each course, see the link within each course description.
After also examining the “TIBI Current Certificates” page, and perhaps completing the “Certificate Interest Form” on that page, you can use the “Course Enrollment Form” to enroll in a course.
BEHG 100 Child Rearing Principles and Practices
BEHG 110 Introduction to Behaviorology Terminology
BEHG 210 Introduction to Behaviorology I
BEHG 211 Introduction to Behaviorology II
BEHG 330 Companion Animal Training
BEHG 340 Introduction to Verbal Behavior
BEHG 350 Behaviorology Philosophy and History
BEHG 405 Basic Autism Intervention Methods
BEHG 425 Classroom Management and Preventing School Violence
BEHG 430 Resolving Problem Animal Behavior
BEHG 435 Performance Management and Preventing Workplace Violence
BEHG 455 Behaviorological Thanatology and Dignified Dying
BEHG 465 Behaviorological Rehabilitation
BEHG 480 Green Contingency Engineering
BEHG 512 Advanced Behaviorology I
BEHG 513 Advanced Behaviorology II
BEHG 541 Advanced Verbal Behavior
For some academically equivalent courses, please see Prof. Ledoux’s Faculty Web Page.
BEHG 100 Child Rearing Principles and Practices
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 100 Child Rearing Principles and Practices provides students of any age and interest (such as child care or parenting) with the scientific contributions of behaviorology that can instill or enhance the knowledge and skills for caring for (i.e., conditioning) children in effective, pro-active, non-coercive, positive, and loving ways. Behavior management related skills for application in everyday public and personal situations involving children are included.
BEHG 110 Introduction to Behaviorology Terminology
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 110 Introduction to Behaviorology Terminology provides the student with the basic technical vocabulary of the discipline of behaviorology by mainly conditioning terminology responses, emphasizing its laboratory research methods and its experimentally derived principles, concepts, and practices.
BEHG 210 Introduction to Behaviorology I
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 210 Introduction to Behaviorology I is the first of a two–course sequence (BEHG 210 & BEHG 211) that begins to provide both majors and non–major students with an initial introduction to various interrelated components of the natural science of behavior, behaviorology. Going beyond basic terminology, these components involve the interrelations between and among the antecedent and postcedent variables controlling behavior, the range of processes involved in environment–behavior relationships, and the various components of interventions that change and expand behavior repertoires through contingency engineering. These interrelated components include relations with physiology, elaboration of basic research methods, fundamental principles and concepts, and elementary practices, as well as historical and philosophical perspectives and trends.
BEHG 211 Introduction to Behaviorology II
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 211 Introduction to Behaviorology II is the second of a two–course sequence (BEHG 210 & BEHG 211) that provides both majors and non-major students with a continuing introduction to various interrelated components of the natural science of behavior, behaviorology, and represents a minimum prerequisite for all higher level behaviorology courses. The content covered, some through the repetitious expansion typical of natural–science education, includes general applications of the principles and practices of behaviorology focusing on a range of problem prevention and intervention techniques and considerations (e.g., differential reinforcement, shaping, chaining, fading, schedules of reinforcement, and problems with aversive controls) in a range of settings, along with an introduction to advanced topics such as equivalence relations, the value/rights/ethics/morals continuum, verbal behavior, consciousness, personhood, life, death, and reality.
BEHG 330 Companion Animal Training
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 330 Companion Animal Training applies behaviorology in the field of companion animal training. BEHG 330 addresses (a) successful, non–coercive animal training practices, derived from basic principles, that are used by professional animal trainers, and (b) how to teach companion animal owners how to train their companion animal. After reviewing basic principles of behavior within the context of working with non–human animals, relevant practices are differentially applied to the effective training of commonly required behaviors for four representative species: (a) dogs; (b) cats; (c) birds; and (d) horses. The application of these principles, strategies, and practices may be applied to other species of companion animal and indeed non–companion animals with minor variation.
BEHG 340 Introduction to Verbal Behavior
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 340 Introduction to Verbal Behavior builds, using a programmed instruction format, on the basic coverage of verbal behavior that was covered in BEHG 211. The course introduces students to the behaviorological analysis of language as verbal behavior. Covered topics include such fundamental concepts as (a) differentiating verbal and non–verbal behavior, (b) the verbal community, (c) mediated reinforcement, (d) the basic verbal behavior relations called mands, tacts, intraverbals, and codics and duplics (and the subtypes of these last two), (e) various extensions of these elementary verbal operants, (f) the most common variables of which verbal operants are a function, (g) some of the ways these variables combine in the multiple control of complex verbal behaviors, (h) response products, (i) point–to–point correspondence, (j) formal similarity, (k) thematic and formal controls over verbal behavior, and (l) the ways the verbal community conditions verbal responding under the control of covert stimuli.
BEHG 350 Behaviorology Philosophy and History
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 350 Behaviorology Philosophy and History starts with an in–depth treatment of the philosophy of science, not only of the natural sciences in general (i.e., naturalism), but also of the behaviorology discipline in particular (i.e., radical behaviorism). The course traces the development of this philosophy since the early 1900s, comparing and contrasting it with other philosophies of the times, examining its role in the emergence of the behaviorology discipline, and considering its implications for experimental and applied work at the individual and cultural levels. Then, the course covers an in–depth treatment of the history of the emergence of behaviorology as a discipline.
BEHG 405 Basic Autism Intervention Methods
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 405 Basic Autism Intervention Methods provides students with basic contingency engineering practices and skills needed for successful interventions with autistic and other developmentally disabled individuals. Topics include (a) the evaluation of different approaches for effectiveness, (b) effective training curricula and programs, (c) home–based and center–based settings, (d) the different roles of professionals, para–professionals, and school systems involved in autism intervention efforts, (e) the organizational and legal supports available to autistic children and their families, (f) the roles of different autism treatment team members, (g) the organizational and legal interactions between families with autistic children and their local schools, and (h) some answers to the most common questions asked by parents of autistic children. Examination of actual autism training curricula, programs, practices, data sheets, settings, and case histories are integral parts of the course.
BEHG 425 Classroom Management and Preventing School Violence
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 425 Classroom Management and Preventing School Violence covers the application of behaviorology to non-coercive classroom management skills and their relation to preventing school violence. After reviewing the role that punishment and coercion play in prompting violence of all types through all levels of society, the course focuses on the use of effective, non-coercive behaviorological skills for classroom management that school teachers and staff can personally implement—especially in the classroom, but also in the cafeteria and gym, and on the bus and playground—to reduce and prevent the occurrence of all kinds and levels of school violence while also enhancing the effectiveness of instruction. These skills replace the unscientific emphasis on coercive “discipline” practices, thereby preventing the violence that such practices may themselves induce. Then, the course focuses on the various recommended school–wide policies and procedures for deterring the actual occurrence of school violence in situations where violence has become likely.
BEHG 430 Resolving Problem Animal Behavior
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 430 Resolving Problem Animal Behavior applies behaviorology in the field of working with companion animals at an advanced level. BEHG 430 addresses (a) functional behavioral assessment of problematic behavior exhibited by companion animals including, but not limited to, dogs, cats, birds, and horses, and (b) the construction and implementation of non–coercive contingency management plans to resolve problematic behaviors. After reviewing basic principles of behavior, within the context of working with non–human animals, functional behavior assessment is covered in detail, including a functional diagnostic system. Forms are provided for student use. Next, the basic strategy for constructing a non–coercive contingency management plan based on the behavior replacement model is addressed, followed by coverage of behaviorological procedures applied to resolving problematic animal behavior. Teaching human clients to participate in intervention protocols is also covered. The material in this course is applicable to resolving problematic behavior of any non– or minimally language–exhibiting species (including wild animals and humans who exhibit few or no language skills). In the last two weeks of the course, the student will require access to a companion animal (and basic training supplies) for the final, hands–on, assignment.
BEHG 435 Performance Management and Preventing Workplace Violence
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 435 Performance Management and Preventing Workplace Violence covers the application of behaviorology to non–coercive workplace management skills and their relation to preventing workplace violence. After reviewing the role that punishment and coercion play in prompting violence of all types throughout society, the course focuses on the effectiveness of the non–coercive skills that performance management applies in the full range of workplace settings to replace the unscientific emphasis on coercive management practices thereby preventing the violence such practices may themselves induce. The course also compares, applies, and evaluates various recommended policies and procedures for deterring the actual occurrence of workplace violence in various workplaces (e.g., industrial, manufacturing, organizational, marketing, financial, institutional, or retail business settings).
BEHG 455 Behaviorological Thanatology and Dignified Dying
Brief Course Description:
After reviewing the role that punishment and coercion play in prompting violence of all types throughout society, BEHG 455 Behaviorological Thanatology and Dignified Dying focuses on the scientific knowledge and skills needed to replace some subtle, residual violence, visited on society members suffering terminal illness, with scientifically informed practices that allow retention of human dignity for all parties in these circumstances, but especially for the dying individual, during the social death, person death, and body death of the terminal–illness process. Answering the question of how we can improve end–of–life interactions between the dying and society, between the increasing numbers of the terminally ill and their survivors, between ourselves and our loved ones in these difficult times, is an integral course component, as is a range of scienti?cally grounded alternative, proactive, dignity maintaining practices. Which professional group (e.g., medical doctors or nurses, hospice personnel, funeral directors, and/or behaviorologists) might best organize these improvements and new practices is explored, along with some problematic medical ethics. The historical context, and social contingencies affecting new practices, are included in the consideration of how to move from old to new practices.
BEHG 465 Behaviorological Rehabilitation
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 465 Behaviorological Rehabilitation provides students with the application of behaviorological considerations to help improve human interactions and success rates in institutional rehabilitation settings such as prisons. After reviewing the problems generated by the, sometimes unnecessary, coercion that too often informs many practices in such settings, the course examines the value of replacing the unscientific emphasis on coercive practices with effective, comprehensive, and systematic science–based practices for more successful rehabilitation of both adult and youth offenders. The course takes a data–based orientation to the general design and management of correctional institutions, and the training and professionalism of staff in those settings, as an integral course component.
BEHG 480 Green Contingency Engineering
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 480 Green Contingency Engineering addresses global problems in a format that allows the student to carry out considerable self–guided analyses and explorations into topics of particular interest to them within the context of an appropriate foundational science. After covering the role of coercion in prompting many levels of violence throughout society, from interpersonal and family interactions, through educational and workplace situations, to international and cultural relations—violence that interferes with problem solutions (see Sidman, 2001)—and while emphasizing non–coercive policies across all levels of society in solving problems, this course probes the range of actual and potential behaviorological applications to the behavior components of a wide range of global problems and solutions, starting with solutions reported in the natural science of behavior literature, and proceeding to design, and if possible test, not only extensions to such solutions but also new solutions to accessible aspects of as yet unaddressed planetary or cultural problems. The focus is on improving cultures and the potential for human and planetary survival.
BEHG 512 Advanced Behaviorology I
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 512 Advanced Behaviorology I is the first course of a two-course sequence (BEHG 512 & BEHG 513) covering, in detail, the variables of which the behavior of humans and other animals is a function, as discovered from the natural science perspective and with emphasis on increasingly complex human behavior. Included is not only a range of pertinent and accessible environment–behavior functional relations, but also the naturalistic philosophical foundations of the behaviorology discipline (i.e., the natural science and technology of environment–behavior relations) as well as the research methodology involved in discovering the independent variables in these relations and engineering them into sophisticated applications and interventions beneficial to humanity and other animals.
BEHG 513 Advanced Behaviorology I
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 513 Advanced Behaviorology II is the second course of a two-course sequence (BEHG 512 & BEHG 513) covering, in detail, more of the variables of which the behavior of humans and other animals is a function, as discovered from the natural science perspective and with emphasis on increasingly complex human behavior. Included is not only more of the range of pertinent and accessible environment–behavior functional relations, but also more of the naturalistic philosophical foundations of the behaviorology discipline as well as the research methodology involved in discovering the independent variables in these relations and engineering them into sophisticated applications and interventions beneficial to humanity and other animals.
BEHG 541 Advanced Verbal Behavior
Brief Course Description:
BEHG 541 Advanced Verbal Behavior, based on the principles and practices of the natural science of behavior, takes students through the full range and depth of verbal behavior analysis especially as presented by B. F. Skinner in his original book on the topic. It also takes the student through the most notable critique of Skinner’s work on verbal behavior and through the most notable response to that critique, providing the student with a comprehensive exposure to the topic of verbal behavior, studied from a natural science perspective. This course covers the textbook, which features extensive examples, applications to literature concerns, and detailed explanations of exceptions, ambiguities, controversies, and implications (all with further comprehensive sets of examples)