Individual Courses

Executive Dysfunction in Autism

Implications for Optimizing Applied Behavior Analytic Interventions

This on-demand webinar helps behavior analysts understand the role of executive function in autism and how executive dysfunction can affect the effectiveness of applied behavior analytic interventions. The course emphasizes that skills such as planning, flexibility, inhibition, working memory, initiation, self-monitoring, organization, and emotional control are central to learning, adaptive behavior, and treatment response.

Participants will examine how executive functioning differences can contribute to rigidity, perseveration, difficulty with transitions, inconsistent responding, task initiation problems, weak self-monitoring, impulsivity, and challenges with generalization. The webinar explains why these patterns should not be viewed only as noncompliance or lack of motivation, but may reflect underlying neuropsychological vulnerabilities that need to be measured and addressed directly.

The course reviews neuropsychological assessment tools that can clarify executive functioning profiles in children with autism, including the NEPSY-II, D-KEFS, Executive Control Battery, and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. These tools are discussed as ways to identify specific areas of executive dysfunction, including inhibition, shifting, cognitive flexibility, planning, sequencing, working memory, generativity, perseveration, stereotypy, inertia, and executive discontrol.

The webinar connects assessment findings to ABA treatment planning. Participants will consider how executive function data can inform goal selection, antecedent strategies, instructional design, prompting, reinforcement systems, task analysis, rule shifting, response inhibition, flexible thinking, and generalization programming. The focus is on translating neuropsychological findings into practical ABA goals that improve learning, regulation, independence, and durable behavior change.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: Approximately 76 minutes
CEUs: 1.25 BACB CEUs
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, school-based behavior consultants, educators, and professionals supporting autistic learners with executive functioning, flexibility, regulation, learning, or adaptive behavior challenges

Learning Objectives

• Describe the role of executive function in learning, behavior, self-regulation, and ABA treatment response in autism.
• Identify executive functioning skills that may affect intervention outcomes, including planning, flexibility, inhibition, working memory, initiation, organization, emotional control, and self-monitoring.
• Recognize how executive dysfunction may contribute to rigidity, perseveration, transition difficulty, impulsivity, inconsistent responding, and limited generalization.
• Explain how tools such as the NEPSY-II, D-KEFS, Executive Control Battery, and BRIEF can support executive function assessment and treatment planning.
• Translate executive function assessment findings into ABA goals related to cognitive flexibility, response inhibition, task initiation, working memory, sequencing, planning, and self-monitoring.
• Apply executive function concepts to improve antecedent strategies, instructional design, prompting, reinforcement systems, replacement skill development, and generalization programming.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Beyond the Topography: Brain Systems Behind Stimming, Rigidity, and Emotional Dysregulation

A brain-based ABA webinar on sensory processing, arousal regulation, emotional control, and treatment planning.

Why does a person flap, rock, pace, hum, spin, repeat phrases, seek pressure, or become intensely dysregulated when the environment changes? Why can excitement, anxiety, frustration, and sensory overload sometimes look behaviorally similar? And why do some learners respond well to an intervention in one setting but struggle to generalize that same skill somewhere else?

This webinar helps BCBAs look beneath the visible behavior and understand the neuropsychological systems that shape stimming, repetitive behavior, sensory seeking, rigidity, attention shifting, and emotional regulation in autism.

Stimming is explored as a clinically important window into arousal regulation, sensory modulation, motor rhythm, predictability, emotional control, and self-organization. Participants examine how repetitive movement, sound, sensory seeking, and insistence on sameness may reflect the brain’s attempt to regulate input, manage uncertainty, organize action, or stabilize emotion.

The training translates these concepts into ABA-relevant clinical decisions, including functional assessment, reinforcement systems, antecedent strategies, prompting, replacement skills, parent training, generalization, and treatment planning for complex neurodevelopmental profiles.

Format: 3-part on-demand video course
Length: 68 minutes
CEUs: 1.25 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, autism service providers, school-based behavior consultants, psychologists, and interdisciplinary professionals supporting autistic learners

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Reconsidering Stimming: A Clinical Decision-Making Framework
• Part 2: Stimming Through a Neuropsychological Lens
• Part 3: The Brain Behind Stimming

Learning Objectives

• Describe stimming as a behavior that may support sensory regulation, arousal regulation, attention, communication, predictability, or motor organization.
• Differentiate the topography of a repetitive behavior from its function in a specific context.
• Identify neuropsychological mechanisms that may contribute to stimming, including sensory processing differences, corticostriatal loops, motor circuitry, cerebellar rhythm, autonomic arousal, and executive control demands.
• Use functional assessment to evaluate whether stimming is safe, adaptive, distress-related, regulatory, or meaningfully interfering with daily functioning.
• Apply an ethical decision-making framework to determine when to accept, accommodate, modify, or intervene with repetitive behavior.
• Design ABA supports that preserve the regulatory function of behavior, including environmental modifications, sensory alternatives, communication supports, transition preparation, and safer replacement responses.
• Write treatment goals that prioritize safety, access, communication, self-regulation, dignity, and quality of life rather than appearance-based reduction.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Neuropsychological Assessment and ABA Decision-Making in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

A 3-Part Webinar Series for BCBAs

This 3-part on-demand webinar series helps behavior analysts understand how neuropsychological assessment findings can strengthen ABA treatment planning for autistic learners and individuals with related neurodevelopmental profiles. The series emphasizes that assessment should not be viewed as a single score, label, or isolated test result, but as an integrated clinical profile that connects diagnosis, cognitive functioning, adaptive behavior, language, executive function, sensory processing, emotional regulation, and real-world behavior.

Participants will learn how comprehensive ASD assessment can clarify not only whether diagnostic criteria are met, but also how a learner processes information, communicates, tolerates demands, responds to transitions, retains new skills, interprets social information, and functions across home, school, and community settings. The series highlights how assessment data can help BCBAs move from general treatment planning to more individualized, developmentally informed, and clinically precise intervention design.

The first session focuses on neuropsychological assessment of ASD, including the role of developmental history, direct observation, caregiver and teacher reports, adaptive behavior measures, cognitive and language testing, sensory assessment, executive function tools, emotional and behavioral measures, and differential diagnosis. Participants will review why ASD diagnosis requires converging evidence rather than reliance on one test alone.

The second session examines how NEPSY-II findings can help BCBAs move from identifying the function of behavior to understanding the conditions under which behavior is most likely to occur. Participants will consider how attention, inhibition, shifting, language processing, working memory, memory, learning, and social perception can affect task demands, transitions, verbal instructions, prompt dependence, escape behavior, and instructional design.

The third session reviews neuropsychological assessment tools that are especially relevant for ABA treatment planning, including tools related to autism symptoms, executive function, attention, adaptive behavior, language, memory, social cognition, emotional functioning, and cognitive flexibility. The course emphasizes ethical boundaries, collaboration with licensed clinicians, and the appropriate use of assessment findings to inform ABA programming without overstepping diagnostic scope.

Format: 3-part webinar series
Length: 3 hours, 20 minutes
CEUs: 4 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, school-based behavior consultants, autism service providers, and professionals involved in ABA treatment planning for autistic learners and individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Neuropsychological Assessment of ASD
• Part 2: From Function to Conditions: Integrating NEPSY-II Findings into ABA Decision-Making
• Part 3: Neuropsychological Assessment Tools for BCBAs

Learning Objectives

• Describe why ASD assessment requires converging evidence from developmental history, direct observation, rating scales, adaptive functioning, cognitive and language profiles, sensory features, and differential diagnosis.
• Identify major assessment domains that may inform ABA treatment planning, including adaptive behavior, communication, executive function, attention, memory, social cognition, sensory processing, and emotional regulation.
• Explain how assessment findings can clarify treatment intensity, communication supports, reinforcement systems, caregiver training needs, adaptive goals, and intervention priorities.
• Use NEPSY-II findings to identify the conditions under which behavior is more likely to break down, including verbal load, working memory demands, processing speed, transitions, inhibition demands, and cognitive flexibility requirements.
• Differentiate escape from work from escape related to cognitive overload, language demands, memory limitations, processing speed, or weak self-regulation.
• Translate neuropsychological findings into ABA strategies such as simplifying language, using visual supports, externalizing working memory, slowing task pace, modifying antecedents, shaping delay tolerance, and explicitly teaching flexibility.
• Recognize ethical boundaries for BCBAs when using or interpreting assessment data, including when collaboration with licensed psychologists, neuropsychologists, or other clinicians is required.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

From Calm to Crisis

Using ABA and Neuropsychology to Understand Sudden Emotional Dysregulation in Autism

This 1-CEU on-demand webinar helps behavior analysts better understand why some autistic individuals may appear regulated one moment and then quickly become overwhelmed, distressed, or unable to regain emotional control.

The course uses an integrated ABA and neuropsychological lens to examine rapid emotional escalation, including situations where the visible trigger may seem small, the escalation appears sudden, or recovery takes longer than expected. Participants will consider how executive functioning, sensory processing, anxiety, communication demands, emotional regulation, reinforcement history, and internal overload may interact in real time.

The webinar builds on established ABA principles while adding neuropsychological concepts that can strengthen case conceptualization, functional assessment, and intervention planning. Special attention is given to antecedent conditions, setting events, motivating operations, delayed recovery, replacement skill deficits, and the way positive excitement can sometimes produce dysregulation similar to frustration or distress.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: 50 minutes
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, ABA agency leaders, school-based behavior consultants, and autism service providers

Learning Objectives

• Identify neuropsychological factors that may contribute to sudden emotional dysregulation in people with autism.
• Analyze rapid emotional escalation using ABA concepts, including antecedents, setting events, motivating operations, reinforcement history, and skill deficits.
• Understand how sensory overload, executive dysfunction, anxiety, communication demands, frustration, and excitement can contribute to emotional breakdowns.
• Recognize why positive events can sometimes trigger dysregulation in the same way as negative or frustrating events.
• Develop individualized prevention and intervention strategies that support regulation, communication, coping, and recovery.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Memory and Learning in ABA

Neuropsychological Foundations of Skill Acquisition and Retention

This 2-part on-demand webinar series helps behavior analysts understand how memory systems affect learning, skill acquisition, retention, maintenance, generalization, and prompt dependency in ABA practice. The series connects foundational neuropsychology with direct clinical application, emphasizing that some learners may appear to acquire skills during structured teaching but fail to retain, retrieve, or generalize those skills over time.

Part 1 introduces memory-based learning disability as a common but under-recognized profile in which children with average or above-average intelligence may show intact phonological skills and adequate attention in low memory-demand settings, yet struggle to consolidate and retain new academic material across hours or days. The session examines hippocampal-dependent declarative memory, declarative and non-declarative memory systems, accelerated forgetting, recall versus recognition patterns, and differential diagnosis from ADHD, dyslexia, and intellectual disability.

Part 2 focuses on why memory matters in ABA. Participants will examine how working memory, episodic memory, encoding, retrieval, prospective memory, executive dysfunction, cognitive load, and relational learning affect ABA outcomes. The webinar emphasizes that inconsistent responding, prompt dependence, rapid skill loss, poor generalization, and difficulty with multi-step tasks may reflect memory and executive function demands rather than noncompliance or lack of motivation.

The series translates memory science into practical ABA programming. Participants will learn how to reduce working memory load, strengthen encoding, build retrieval practice into instruction, use spaced retrieval and distributed practice, vary contexts and instructors, apply external memory supports, and distinguish memory-related performance failures from motivation or reinforcement issues.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 4 hours, 45 minutes total
CEUs: 5 BACB CEUs
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, school-based behavior consultants, educators, and professionals supporting learners with autism, neurodevelopmental conditions, learning difficulties, memory challenges, or inconsistent skill retention

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Memory-Based Learning Disabilities: A Common Syndrome Without a Pigeonhole, Dr. Goldberg, 3 hours
• Part 2: Why Memory Matters in ABA, Dr. Vanetta LaRosa, 1 hour, 45 minutes

Learning Objectives

• Describe how memory systems influence skill acquisition, retention, maintenance, generalization, and independence in ABA programming.
• Identify features of memory-based learning disability, including intact basic skills in low-demand settings with difficulty consolidating and retaining new material over time.
• Differentiate memory-related performance failures from motivation, noncompliance, skill deficits, or reinforcement problems.
• Explain how working memory, episodic memory, encoding, retrieval, prospective memory, executive function, and cognitive load can affect learner performance.
• Recognize ABA data patterns that may suggest memory-related barriers, including prompt dependency, rapid forgetting, inconsistent responding, skill loss after delays, and poor generalization.
• Apply memory-informed ABA strategies, including task simplification, visual supports, external memory aids, rehearsal, self-instruction, spaced retrieval, distributed practice, varied exemplars, and retrieval probes.
• Design programming that strengthens encoding and retrieval from the start of instruction rather than treating generalization and maintenance as separate later phases.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Neurobehavioral Regulation in ADHD and Tourette’s

Implications for ABA Practice

This 2-part on-demand webinar series helps behavior analysts understand neurobehavioral systems involved in social perception, impulse control, motor regulation, exploratory behavior, tics, and self-regulation in ADHD, Tourette’s, and related neurodevelopmental profiles.

Part 1 focuses on facial expression recognition in children with ADHD. Participants will examine how children with ADHD may process emotional facial cues differently, including relatively preserved responses to happy faces and weaker, less consistent responses to negative emotional cues such as anger. The session explains how differences in neural activation, timing, and stimulus salience may affect social cue detection, discrimination, response latency, and consistency.

Part 2 examines Tourette’s and ADHD through a neuropsychological lens. Participants will consider how ADHD may be overdiagnosed when hyperactivity is conflated with excessive exploratory behavior, and how Tourette’s, frontal-lobe syndromes, Parkinson’s disease, and fronto-striatal regulation may be related. The session reviews distinct Tourette’s profiles associated with left versus right fronto-striatal dysregulation, including presentations dominated by tics versus excessive exploratory behavior.

Together, the sessions help BCBAs translate neurobehavioral findings into applied behavior analytic strategies. The course emphasizes careful assessment of stimulus control, emotional cue discrimination, response inhibition, timing, consistency, motor regulation, diagnostic confusion, and the conditions under which behavior may reflect regulation difficulty rather than willful noncompliance.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 4 hours total
CEUs: 4.0 BACB CEUs
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, school-based behavior consultants, educators, and professionals supporting individuals with ADHD, Tourette’s, autism, tic-related behaviors, impulsivity, or social-regulatory challenges

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Decoding Emotions: Neurobehavioral Insights into Facial Expression Recognition in Children with ADHD, Dr. Vanetta LaRosa, 1 hour
• Part 2: Tourette and ADHD: A New Look at an Old Quandary, Dr. Goldberg, 3 hours

Learning Objectives

• Describe neurobehavioral systems involved in social perception, facial expression recognition, impulse control, motor regulation, and self-regulation.
• Explain how children with ADHD may show uneven processing of emotional facial cues, including stronger responses to positive expressions and weaker responses to negative expressions.
• Identify how reduced stimulus salience, delayed response latency, and inconsistent neural timing may affect social cue responsiveness.
• Apply ABA concepts such as stimulus control, discrimination training, multiple exemplars, response latency, consistency, conditional discrimination, prompting, and generalization to emotion-recognition programming.
• Differentiate hyperactivity from excessive exploratory behavior and explain how this distinction may affect diagnostic interpretation in ADHD and Tourette’s.
• Describe how fronto-striatal dysregulation may contribute to different Tourette’s profiles, including tic-dominant and exploratory-behavior presentations.
• Use neurobehavioral concepts to improve case conceptualization, social cue teaching, response inhibition supports, motor regulation strategies, and individualized ABA intervention planning.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Executive Function in Preschoolers

Assessment, Interpretation, and ABA Intervention Mapping

This 2-part on-demand webinar helps behavior analysts understand executive function development in preschool children and apply preschool assessment findings to ABA treatment planning. The course focuses on early skills such as inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, shifting, self-control, planning, emotional control, and task initiation.

Part 1 reviews executive function assessment in preschoolers, including developmentally sensitive tasks such as snack delay, gift delay, day and night tasks, bear and dragon tasks, Shape School, reverse categorization, multi-location search, and other performance-based measures. Participants will learn how these tasks help identify early strengths and challenges in inhibition, delay tolerance, rule switching, working memory, attention, and self-regulation.

Part 2 focuses on preschool assessment in neurodevelopmental disorders, including how to interpret cognitive, language, adaptive, observational, and social communication data for ABA planning. The session emphasizes the difference between a child’s underlying cognitive capacity and performance constraints such as receptive language limits, expressive language delays, reduced initiation, task demands, motor demands, attention, and cognitive flexibility challenges.

The webinar connects assessment findings to practical ABA intervention mapping. Participants will consider how tools such as the BRIEF-P, Shape School, WPPSI, Leiter-3, Mullen Scales of Early Learning, PPVT, Vineland-3, and ADOS-2 can help identify a child’s learning entry point, strongest processing channel, support needs, prompting plan, instructional modality, communication targets, transition supports, and goals for independence.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar
Length: 50 minutes
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, early intervention providers, preschool consultants, educators, and professionals supporting young children with autism, ADHD, language delays, developmental delays, or other neurodevelopmental conditions

Learning Objectives

• Describe key executive function skills that develop during the preschool years, including inhibition, working memory, shifting, self-control, planning, and emotional control.
• Identify developmentally appropriate measures of preschool executive function, including caregiver and teacher ratings, performance-based tasks, delay tasks, inhibition tasks, and rule-switching tasks.
• Explain how tools such as the BRIEF-P, Shape School, and day and night tasks can inform ABA goals related to self-control, delay tolerance, cognitive flexibility, and transition support.
• Differentiate cognitive capacity from performance constraints when interpreting preschool assessment results.
• Analyze discrepancies between nonverbal reasoning, receptive language, expressive language, adaptive functioning, and social communication to identify access barriers and learning entry points.
• Use assessment findings from tools such as the WPPSI, Leiter-3, Mullen, PPVT, Vineland-3, and ADOS-2 to guide instructional modality, response demands, task complexity, prompting, and reinforcement planning.
• Translate preschool assessment data into ABA intervention targets that support communication, spontaneous initiation, flexible responding, independence, generalization, and participation in daily routines.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

PDDBI Case Vignettes, Scoring, and Interpretation for BCBAs

This 2-part on-demand webinar introduces behavior analysts to the practical use of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory, or PDDBI, as a tool for understanding autism-related behavioral, social, communication, adaptive, and maladaptive patterns.

Participants will learn how the PDDBI is structured, scored, interpreted, and applied in BCBA practice. The course reviews parent and teacher forms, adaptive and maladaptive domains, T-score interpretation, composite scores, validity considerations, and the importance of comparing behavior patterns across home and school settings.

Part 1 focuses on the PDDBI framework, including how the measure captures both strengths and challenges across domains such as social pragmatics, expressive and receptive language, learning and memory, social approach, rituals, resistance to change, sensory responding, arousal regulation, fear, and aggression. Participants will learn how PDDBI profiles can support treatment planning, progress monitoring, caregiver collaboration, and interdisciplinary decision-making.

Part 2 focuses on case applications and clinical interpretation. Through case vignettes, participants will practice moving from item ratings to raw scores, T-scores, severity statements, functional hypotheses, and ABA treatment recommendations. The session emphasizes interpreting PDDBI patterns as structured hypotheses that should be confirmed through direct observation, caregiver and teacher reports, ABC data, and functional behavior assessment.

The webinar highlights how elevated scores in areas such as rituals, sensory responding, arousal, fear, anxiety-related rigidity, or social communication difficulties can guide further assessment and individualized intervention planning. Participants will review examples involving autism, language delay, sensory dysregulation, anxiety-related avoidance, rigid routines, and cross-setting differences between home and school.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar
Length: 50 minutes
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, autism service providers, school-based behavior consultants, and professionals working with children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delays, complex behavior profiles, or interdisciplinary evaluation teams

Learning Objectives

• Describe the basic structure of the PDDBI, including parent and teacher forms, adaptive domains, maladaptive domains, and composite scores.
• Interpret PDDBI T-scores accurately, including the different meanings of high scores in adaptive versus maladaptive domains.
• Identify clinically meaningful PDDBI patterns related to language, social pragmatics, rituals, sensory responding, arousal regulation, fear, aggression, and social approach.
• Compare parent and teacher ratings to identify cross-setting differences and plan for generalization, environmental adjustments, and caregiver collaboration.
• Use PDDBI findings to generate functional hypotheses that can be tested through direct observation, ABC data, and functional behavior assessment.
• Translate PDDBI score profiles into ethical ABA recommendations, including functional communication training, tolerance training, exposure hierarchies, sensory supports, transition supports, reinforcement strategies, and progress monitoring plans.
• Recognize ethical boundaries when using PDDBI data, including the need to avoid standalone diagnosis and to collaborate with psychologists or other qualified professionals when diagnostic interpretation is involved.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Enhancing Communication and Learning for Individuals with Hearing and Dual Sensory Impairments

A neuropsychology-informed and behavior-analytic teaching webinar for BCBAs and interdisciplinary professionals working with complex disabilities

This on-demand webinar examines how hearing loss and dual sensory impairments affect communication, learning, attention, social interaction, behavior, and access to instruction. The training is designed for professionals who support individuals with hearing impairment, combined vision and hearing challenges, and complex developmental or neurodevelopmental profiles.

The webinar integrates neuropsychological and behavior-analytic perspectives to help clinicians and educators understand how sensory access shapes learning. Participants will consider how reduced or inconsistent auditory and visual input can affect language development, concept formation, imitation, joint attention, memory, emotional regulation, social understanding, and independence.

Rather than viewing communication or behavioral challenges in isolation, the training emphasizes how sensory processing demands, environmental barriers, and limited access to incidental learning can influence skill acquisition and behavior.

Special attention is given to practical intervention planning. Participants will examine how to adapt instructional design, prompting, reinforcement systems, communication supports, environmental arrangements, visual and tactile cues, task analysis, and generalization programming for learners with sensory impairments.

The webinar also addresses the ethical importance of not misinterpreting reduced access, delayed responding, atypical communication, or inconsistent performance as noncompliance, lack of motivation, or inability.

The focus is on helping BCBAs and related professionals collaborate more effectively with families, teachers, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, occupational therapists, vision specialists, and school teams. Participants will leave with a stronger framework for supporting communication, learning, self-advocacy, adaptive behavior, and meaningful participation for individuals with hearing and dual sensory impairments.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: Approximately 53 minutes
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, ABA program directors, school-based behavior consultants, special educators, teachers of students with hearing or visual impairments, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, school psychologists, LMHCs, social workers, and related professionals supporting individuals with sensory, communication, developmental, or neurodevelopmental needs

Learning Objectives

• Analyze sensory, communication, motor, medical, and neuropsychological variables that may affect learning and behavior in complex disabilities.
• Differentiate skill deficits from access or performance constraints related to stimulus detectability, response effort, processing speed, fatigue, pain, device status, seizures, or communication modality.
• Describe how hearing aids, FM systems, AAC, tactile cues, object cues, visual supports, and multimodal prompting can support communication and participation when matched to the learner’s sensory and motor profile.
• Apply an expanded FBA framework that includes auditory, visual, tactile, motor, medical, neurological, and communication-access variables.
• Design functional communication systems that allow learners to request, reject, protest, ask for help, ask for repetition, request a break, repair communication, and express discomfort.
• Use access-first intervention strategies for learners with hearing loss, deaf-blindness, dual sensory impairment, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, spina bifida, and related complex profiles.
• Develop ABA goals and data systems that measure regulation, engagement, communication efficiency, device tolerance, response form, cue access, reinforcement access, and treatment responsiveness over time.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Biological Bases of Behavior in Neurodevelopmental Conditions

This on-demand webinar provides an advanced, clinically oriented introduction to the biological and neuropsychological foundations of behavior in neurodevelopmental conditions. Designed for BCBAs, educators, psychologists, and related clinicians, the training connects brain systems, development, learning history, sensory processing, environmental context, and adaptation to the behavioral patterns often seen in autism, ADHD, learning disorders, and related neurodevelopmental presentations.

The course reviews major brain-behavior systems, including frontal control networks, limbic and diencephalic systems, neuronal communication, electrical signaling, neurotransmitter regulation, sensory and motor systems, memory and learning networks, and basal ganglia-dopamine pathways. Participants will consider how these systems influence attention, arousal, emotion regulation, impulsivity, rigidity, motivation, learning, repetitive behavior, and behavioral escalation.

A major emphasis is placed on moving beyond diagnosis alone. The webinar explains why the same outward behavior can arise from different neuropsychological pathways and why assessment should consider mechanism, context, and functional pathway, not just symptom labels. Participants will learn to ask how cognition, language, attention, executive function, sensory processing, motor planning, adaptive functioning, medical variables, sleep, stress, and learning history may interact to shape behavior.

The webinar translates biological and neuropsychological concepts into practical ABA decision-making. Participants will examine implications for functional assessment, antecedent design, reinforcement selection, prompting, skill acquisition, generalization, behavior change hypotheses, assessment interpretation, and respectful clinical language that avoids blame, fixed-deficit assumptions, or single-cause explanations.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: 32 minutes
CEUs: 0.5 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, educators, psychologists, clinical supervisors, school-based consultants, and professionals supporting individuals with autism, ADHD, learning disorders, and related neurodevelopmental conditions

Learning Objectives

• Describe how brain systems, developmental processes, learning history, sensory processing, and environmental context interact to influence behavior.
• Identify major biological systems relevant to behavior, including frontal systems, limbic and diencephalic systems, basal ganglia circuits, sensory and motor systems, neurotransmitter systems, and arousal networks.
• Explain how biological variables can influence attention, motivation, emotional regulation, impulse control, cognitive flexibility, learning, and behavioral escalation.
• Differentiate diagnosis-based interpretation from mechanism-focused case formulation in autism, ADHD, learning disorders, and related neurodevelopmental profiles.
• Recognize that the same observable behavior may reflect different pathways, including sensory overload, executive dysfunction, anxiety, motor demands, working memory limits, arousal dysregulation, or reinforcement history.
• Apply neuroscience-informed ABA concepts to functional assessment, antecedent strategies, reinforcement selection, prompting, skill acquisition, generalization, and behavior change planning.
• Use respectful clinical language that describes neurodevelopmental differences, processing profiles, support needs, and functional impact without reducing behavior to blame or fixed deficits.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Decoding Emotions: Neurobehavioral Research on Facial Expression Recognition in Children with ADHD

This webinar reviews neurobehavioral research on how children with ADHD process emotional facial expressions and what these findings may mean for clinical practice, education, and behavior intervention. Using the study by Ichikawa et al. (2014) as a foundation, the training examines hemodynamic brain responses to emotional faces measured through near-infrared spectroscopy and connects these findings to attention, emotion recognition, social interpretation, self-regulation, and behavioral presentation in children with ADHD.

Participants will explore how differences in emotional face processing may affect peer interactions, classroom behavior, frustration tolerance, social problem-solving, and the interpretation of social cues. The webinar also considers how ADHD-related differences in attention, inhibition, arousal, and executive functioning may influence how children recognize, organize, and respond to emotional information in real time.

A central ethical theme of this webinar is the importance of not misunderstanding children with ADHD. When emotional misreading, delayed processing, impulsive responding, or poor inhibition is interpreted only as rudeness, defiance, lack of empathy, or intentional noncompliance, children may receive interventions that do not match the actual source of the difficulty.

This training emphasizes the ethical responsibility of clinicians and educators to consider neurodevelopmental factors, avoid overpathologizing or blaming the child, and use assessment-informed intervention planning that is compassionate, accurate, and individualized.

The focus is on translating neurobehavioral findings into practical clinical questions for BCBAs, psychologists, educators, LMHCs, social workers, and interdisciplinary professionals working with individuals with ADHD and related neurodevelopmental differences. Participants will consider how emotional processing findings may inform observation, assessment interpretation, intervention planning, social skills instruction, antecedent supports, reinforcement systems, environmental modifications, and collaboration with families and school teams.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: 50 minutes
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, psychologists, educators, LMHCs, social workers, school-based consultants, clinical supervisors, and interdisciplinary professionals supporting individuals with ADHD and related neurodevelopmental differences

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Brain Injury Rehabilitation and ABA

Neurobehavioral Assessment, Functional Treatment Planning, and Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Support

This 2-part on-demand webinar series helps behavior analysts understand traumatic and acquired brain injury through both neuropsychological and behavior-analytic frameworks. The series examines how brain injury can affect attention, memory, processing speed, executive function, communication, sensory-motor functioning, fatigue, awareness, emotional regulation, and behavior across different stages of recovery.

Part 1 provides a comprehensive overview of traumatic brain injury, including closed, open, and blast injuries, as well as common causes such as motor vehicle accidents, workplace injuries, military exposure, and sports-related trauma. The webinar reviews mechanisms of injury, including diffuse axonal injury, contre-coup injury, and neurometabolic cascade, along with cognitive characteristics, recovery patterns, long-term outcomes, and forensic issues commonly associated with TBI.

Part 2 focuses on how ABA can support brain injury rehabilitation when treatment is medically informed, cognitively realistic, environmentally specific, and coordinated across disciplines. Participants will examine functional assessment, operational definitions, direct measurement, four-term contingencies, antecedent modifications, reinforcement, replacement skills, prompting, fading, shaping, task analysis, generalization, crisis prevention, caregiver collaboration, and ethical boundaries within interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams.

The series emphasizes that behavior after brain injury should not be interpreted only as noncompliance, refusal, or lack of motivation. Changes in behavior may reflect pain, fatigue, sleep disruption, medication effects, seizure activity, cognitive overload, sensory-motor difficulty, slowed processing, memory impairment, poor awareness, reduced initiation, emotional dysregulation, or the person’s current stage of recovery.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 4 hours, 37 minutes total
CEUs: 5.5 BACB CEUs
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, behavior analysts, clinical supervisors, rehabilitation professionals, neuropsychology-informed clinicians, school-based consultants, educators, caregivers, and interdisciplinary team members supporting individuals with traumatic or acquired brain injury

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Traumatic Brain Injury, Dr. Goldberg, 3 hours
• Part 2: Brain Injury Rehabilitation and ABA, Dr. Vanetta LaRosa, 1 hour, 37 minutes

Learning Objectives

• Describe major types, causes, and mechanisms of traumatic and acquired brain injury, including closed, open, blast, diffuse axonal, contre-coup, and neurometabolic injury patterns.
• Identify common cognitive and neurobehavioral effects of brain injury, including attention, memory, processing speed, executive function, communication, sensory-motor functioning, fatigue, awareness, and emotional regulation changes.
• Explain how recovery stage, medical stability, pain, fatigue, sleep disruption, medication effects, seizure activity, and cognitive overload can alter the interpretation of behavior.
• Differentiate noncompliance or refusal from behavior influenced by neurological status, medical variables, slowed processing, memory impairment, reduced initiation, poor awareness, or sensory-motor demands.
• Apply function-based assessment methods in brain injury rehabilitation, including operational definitions, direct measurement, four-term contingencies, setting events, and medically informed hypothesis development.
• Design ABA interventions that are medically informed, cognitively realistic, environmentally specific, and coordinated with interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams.
• Select appropriate antecedent supports, replacement skills, reinforcement systems, prompting, fading, shaping, task analysis, and generalization strategies for individuals recovering from brain injury.
• Recognize ethical and practical boundaries for BCBAs working in brain injury rehabilitation, including when collaboration with physicians, neuropsychologists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, nursing staff, counselors, and caregivers is required.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

The Whole Learner in ABA: Ethics, Neuropsychology, and Psychoeducational Assessment for Better Programming

This 2-part professional training series is designed for behavior analysts who want to strengthen their ability to use clinical, neuropsychological, and psychoeducational information ethically and effectively in ABA practice. Together, the webinars help BCBAs, BCaBAs, clinical supervisors, school-based behavior analysts, and interdisciplinary team members move beyond isolated behavior plans and develop more informed, person-centered programming based on the whole learner.

The first webinar focuses on the ethical integration of neuropsychological, psychological, psychiatric, medical, developmental, and psychoeducational information into ABA treatment planning. Participants will learn how the BACB Ethics Code supports collaboration, scope of competence, referral, consultation, individualized treatment, and responsible use of assessment findings.

The training emphasizes how behavior analysts can ethically use information from neuropsychological reports without stepping outside their professional role, while still appreciating how executive functioning, attention, memory, language, sensory processing, emotional regulation, neurological history, and diagnostic complexity may affect behavior and learning.

The second webinar provides a practical introduction to understanding common psychoeducational scores and how they may inform ABA programming. Measures such as the WISC and Woodcock-Johnson are reviewed in terms of what their scores can mean for instructional planning, task analysis, prompting, reinforcement, goal selection, accommodations, generalization, and progress monitoring.

Participants will learn how to understand score types commonly found in reports, including standard scores, percentile ranks, confidence intervals, index scores, cluster scores, age equivalents, and grade equivalents, while recognizing the ethical limits of interpretation.

Across both trainings, the central goal is to help behavior analysts use existing evaluation data more thoughtfully, collaboratively, and ethically. These webinars do not train BCBAs to diagnose, administer psychological tests, or replace neuropsychologists or psychologists. Instead, they teach ABA professionals how to understand the treatment relevance of assessment findings, ask better interdisciplinary questions, collaborate more effectively with evaluators and school teams, and design goals that reflect the learner’s cognitive, academic, adaptive, emotional, and neurodevelopmental profile.

This series is especially relevant for practitioners working with autistic learners, students with learning disabilities, ADHD, intellectual disability, executive-function weaknesses, language delays, emotional or behavioral concerns, complex developmental profiles, or school-based support needs.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 2 hours, 45 minutes
CEUs: 3 BACB CEUs
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, clinical supervisors, ABA program directors, school-based behavior analysts, interdisciplinary team members, educators, and professionals supporting learners with autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, intellectual disability, executive-function weaknesses, language delays, emotional or behavioral concerns, or complex developmental profiles

Learning Objectives

• Describe how clinical, neuropsychological, psychoeducational, medical, developmental, and diagnostic information can inform ethical ABA treatment planning.
• Identify BACB Ethics Code considerations related to scope of competence, collaboration, referral, consultation, individualized treatment, and responsible use of assessment findings.
• Explain how executive functioning, attention, memory, language, sensory processing, emotional regulation, neurological history, and diagnostic complexity may affect behavior, learning, and treatment response.
• Recognize the ethical limits of using neuropsychological and psychoeducational reports in ABA practice, including the distinction between using assessment findings and diagnosing or administering psychological tests.
• Interpret common psychoeducational score types at a practical level, including standard scores, percentile ranks, confidence intervals, index scores, cluster scores, age equivalents, and grade equivalents.
• Describe how findings from measures such as the WISC and Woodcock-Johnson may inform instructional planning, task analysis, prompting, reinforcement, accommodations, goal selection, generalization, and progress monitoring.
• Use assessment information to ask better interdisciplinary questions and collaborate more effectively with psychologists, neuropsychologists, school teams, educators, medical providers, and caregivers.
• Design ABA programming that reflects the learner’s cognitive, academic, adaptive, emotional, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental profile.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Ethics in Neuropsychology-Informed ABA Practice

Neuroethics, Neurocognitive Diagnosis, and Responsible Use of Assessment Findings

This 3-part on-demand webinar series helps behavior analysts use neuropsychological, psychoeducational, medical, developmental, and diagnostic information ethically and effectively in ABA practice. The series brings together whole-learner treatment planning, responsible interpretation of assessment findings, and broader neuroethical issues in neurocognitive diagnosis and rehabilitation.

The first two parts focus on how BCBAs can ethically integrate clinical, neuropsychological, psychological, psychiatric, medical, developmental, and psychoeducational information into ABA programming without stepping outside their professional role. Participants will review BACB Ethics Code considerations related to scope of competence, collaboration, referral, consultation, individualized treatment, and responsible use of assessment findings.

Participants will also learn how common psychoeducational scores and report findings may inform instructional planning, task analysis, prompting, reinforcement, accommodations, goal selection, generalization, and progress monitoring. Measures such as the WISC and Woodcock-Johnson are discussed in terms of treatment relevance, while maintaining clear ethical boundaries around diagnosis and test interpretation.

The third part introduces neuroethics as a discipline concerned with ethical issues arising from neuroscience and neuropsychology. Participants will examine ethical questions related to neurocognitive evaluation, diagnosis, rehabilitation, clinical uncertainty, assessment content, and the responsibility to bring neuropsychology into neuroethics and neuroethics into neuropsychology.

Together, the series supports more ethical, collaborative, and person-centered ABA practice. The focus is not on training BCBAs to diagnose or administer psychological tests, but on helping clinicians understand the treatment relevance of assessment findings, ask better interdisciplinary questions, and design programming that reflects the learner’s cognitive, academic, adaptive, emotional, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental profile.

Format: 3-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 5 hours, 45 minutes total
CEUs: 6.5 BACB CEUs
Presenters: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa and Dr. Goldberg
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, clinical supervisors, ABA program directors, school-based behavior analysts, psychologists, educators, interdisciplinary team members, and professionals supporting learners with autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, intellectual disability, executive-function weaknesses, emotional or behavioral concerns, or complex developmental profiles

Included Sessions

• Part 1: Ethical Integration of Neuropsychological and Clinical Information in ABA Practice, Dr. Vanetta LaRosa, 2 hours 10 minutes
• Part 2: Understanding Psychoeducational Scores for ABA Programming, Dr. Vanetta LaRosa, 35 minutes
• Part 3: Neuroethics and the Ethics of Neurocognitive Diagnosis, Dr. Goldberg, 3 hours

Learning Objectives

• Describe how neuropsychological, psychoeducational, medical, developmental, and diagnostic information can inform ethical ABA treatment planning.
• Identify BACB Ethics Code considerations related to scope of competence, collaboration, referral, consultation, individualized treatment, and responsible use of assessment findings.
• Recognize the ethical limits of using neuropsychological and psychoeducational reports in ABA practice, including the distinction between treatment planning and diagnosis.
• Explain how executive functioning, attention, memory, language, sensory processing, emotional regulation, neurological history, and diagnostic complexity may affect behavior, learning, and treatment response.
• Interpret common psychoeducational score types at a practical level, including standard scores, percentile ranks, confidence intervals, index scores, cluster scores, age equivalents, and grade equivalents.
• Describe how assessment findings from tools such as the WISC and Woodcock-Johnson may inform instructional planning, prompting, reinforcement, accommodations, goal selection, generalization, and progress monitoring.
• Define neuroethics and explain its relevance to neuropsychology, neurocognitive assessment, diagnosis, rehabilitation, and clinical decision-making.
• Identify ethical issues that may arise from the substance and content of neurocognitive evaluation and rehabilitation.
• Use interdisciplinary collaboration to ask better clinical questions and design ABA programming that reflects the learner’s cognitive, academic, adaptive, emotional, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental profile.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

From Scores to Supports: Using Psychoeducational Data for Antecedent-Based ABA Programming

This companion webinar teaches behavior analysts how to use psychoeducational assessment data to design more proactive, compassionate, and individualized ABA supports. Rather than viewing cognitive, academic, language, memory, or processing scores as separate from behavior planning, the training shows how these findings can help identify antecedent conditions that may increase task difficulty, frustration, avoidance, escape-maintained behavior, or emotional escalation.

Participants will learn how information from psychoeducational evaluations can guide antecedent strategies such as visual supports, reduced language load, pacing adjustments, task modification, priming, choice-making, environmental arrangement, instructional scaffolding, and proactive teaching of replacement skills.

The webinar emphasizes how learning and processing weaknesses can affect how a learner responds to demands, transitions, directions, academic tasks, social expectations, and performance feedback.

The goal is to help practitioners move from simply reacting to problem behavior toward designing environments that reduce unnecessary barriers, support skill acquisition, and make ABA programming more person-centered and prevention-focused.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: 35 minutes
CEUs: 0.5 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, supervisors, school-based behavior analysts, and ABA practitioners working with learners who have complex profiles involving autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, language delays, executive-function weaknesses, intellectual disability, anxiety, or academic underachievement

Learning Objectives

• Identify how psychoeducational assessment data can inform antecedent-based ABA programming.
• Describe how cognitive, academic, language, memory, and processing weaknesses may contribute to task difficulty, avoidance, escape-maintained behavior, or emotional escalation.
• Use assessment findings to select proactive supports such as visual supports, reduced language load, pacing adjustments, task modification, priming, choice-making, and instructional scaffolding.
• Explain how learner profiles may affect responses to demands, transitions, directions, academic tasks, social expectations, and performance feedback.
• Design prevention-focused ABA supports that reduce unnecessary barriers and improve access to instruction, reinforcement, communication, and skill acquisition.
• Apply psychoeducational information ethically to support treatment planning without diagnosing, administering tests, or exceeding the behavior analyst’s scope of competence.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Hidden Sensory Worlds: Synesthesia, School Distress, and Neuropsychology-Informed ABA Supports

What if a student’s school refusal is not refusal at all, but a response to a world that feels louder, brighter, more layered, and more neurologically demanding than adults realize?

This fast, eye-opening webinar explores how neurodivergent students may experience school distress through hidden sensory-perceptual differences, including synesthesia, sensory hyper-responsiveness, anxiety, executive-function load, and environmental mismatch. Using recent research on neurodivergent school attendance difficulties and peer-reviewed literature on synesthesia and autism, this training helps BCBAs and related professionals think more deeply about avoidance, distress, and classroom participation.

Rather than viewing school avoidance only as escape from work or noncompliance, participants will learn how sensory-perceptual load can function as a powerful antecedent condition. The webinar connects neuropsychological concepts to practical ABA supports, including environmental modification, antecedent assessment, learner self-report, sensory accommodations, and ethical interpretation of behavior.

This concise training is ideal for BCBAs, school-based clinicians, behavior specialists, psychologists, educators, and supervisors who want a fresh, clinically meaningful way to understand neurodivergent distress in school settings.

Format: On-demand webinar
Length: 30 minutes
CEUs: 0.5 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, school-based clinicians, behavior specialists, psychologists, educators, supervisors, and professionals supporting neurodivergent students with school distress, avoidance, sensory differences, anxiety, or classroom participation challenges

Learning Objectives

• Explain how school distress may reflect environmental mismatch rather than simple refusal.
• Describe synesthesia as one example of hidden sensory-perceptual processing differences.
• Identify how sensory load, anxiety, executive-function demands, and classroom stimuli may contribute to avoidance or reduced participation.
• Apply neuropsychology-informed ABA thinking to antecedent assessment, environmental modification, sensory accommodations, and support planning.
• Use learner self-report and observable data to better understand distress, avoidance, and classroom participation.
• Reframe noncompliance through a more ethical, individualized, and neurologically informed lens.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.

Seizure-Related Aggression in Autism: A Neuropsychology and Neurophysiology-Informed Framework for Clinical Interpretation

This 2-part on-demand webinar series helps clinicians interpret aggressive episodes in autism that appear sudden, episodic, atypical, or difficult to explain through a standard behavioral framework alone. The training examines how seizure activity, postictal states, autonomic arousal, altered awareness, and neurological dysregulation may sometimes contribute to aggression-like presentations.

Part 1 explores the neuropsychological and neurophysiological mechanisms that may help explain aggressive episodes that appear to occur out of nowhere. The webinar reviews temporal and frontal-limbic systems, seizure semiology, postictal dysregulation, diagnostic overshadowing in autism, and behavior as part of a broader brain-behavior system involving executive control, arousal regulation, memory, awareness, and state-dependent functioning.

Part 2 translates the larger neuropsychology discussion into direct ABA application. Participants will consider what to observe, what to document, and how to adjust FBA, DBA, and BIP development when seizure-related activity, postictal confusion, altered awareness, or neurological dysregulation may be part of the clinical picture.

The series emphasizes careful clinical judgment while remaining within the BCBA role. Participants will learn to look for patterns such as abrupt onset, unusual gaze or movement changes, autonomic signs, confusion, fatigue, recovery periods, and episodes that do not respond as expected to typical behavioral strategies. The focus is on improving documentation, identifying referral triggers, protecting the learner and staff, avoiding inappropriate demand escalation during possible impaired-awareness states, and collaborating effectively with caregivers and medical providers.

Format: 2-part on-demand webinar series
Length: 55 minutes total
CEUs: 1 BACB CEU
Presenter: Dr. Vanetta LaRosa
Audience: BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, BCaBAs, psychologists, educators, clinical supervisors, school-based consultants, interdisciplinary team members, and professionals supporting autistic individuals with complex, episodic, atypical, or difficult-to-interpret aggression

Included Sessions

• Part 1: When Seizure Activity Looks Like Aggression in ASD, 45 minutes
• Part 2: Seizure-Like Aggression in ASD: An ABA Framework, 10 minutes

Learning Objectives

• Identify features of aggression-like episodes that may warrant consideration of seizure activity, postictal states, altered awareness, autonomic arousal, or neurological dysregulation.
• Describe how temporal and frontal-limbic systems, executive control, arousal regulation, memory, and state-dependent functioning may influence atypical aggressive presentations in autism.
• Recognize clinical patterns such as abrupt onset, unusual gaze or movement changes, autonomic signs, confusion, fatigue, recovery periods, and behavior that does not respond as expected to standard behavioral strategies.
• Differentiate behavior that may reflect seizure-related or postictal phenomena from intentional aggression, noncompliance, escape behavior, or emotional outbursts.
• Apply neuropsychology-informed ABA thinking to improve observation, episode documentation, FBA interpretation, DBA development, and BIP planning.
• Identify referral triggers and collaboration points for caregivers, physicians, neurologists, psychologists, educators, and interdisciplinary team members.
• Use ethical, safety-focused strategies when episodes may involve impaired awareness, including avoiding inappropriate demand escalation and protecting the learner, staff, and peers during unclear events.

Disclaimer

This training is for professional education only. Assessment instruments are discussed only at the level of general clinical purpose and treatment-planning implications. No proprietary test items, scoring forms, protocols, stimulus materials, rating-scale items, or administration procedures are reproduced. Participants should consult official publishers, manuals, and professional standards for authorized test administration, scoring, and interpretation.