scholarly journals An ontology to support evidence-based Functional Behavioral Assessments

Author(s):  
Davide Taibi ◽  
Giuseppe Chiazzese ◽  
Gianluca Merlo ◽  
Luciano Seta

The term Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) refers to a set of multiple assessment strategies aimed to identify specific antecedents and consequences that maintain a target behaviour (Du Paul, 1996). In the context of FBA, standards and protocols to support the data exchange between researchers, health professionals and therapist are under-represented. Moreover, there is a need for sharing common actions and assessment practices in order to improve the application of the FBA. To meet these goals, we propose the definition of an FBA ontology as a tool to describe three specific aspects related to individual, behavioural and assessment data in different contexts of everyday life such as school, family and social environments. The individual data include: diagnoses, medications, school information, discipline referrals and other events, thus providing a comprehensive overview of the individuals and the network of support people with specific roles that collaborates on the individual’s care. The behavioural data include the description of an individual´s target behaviour, and information about places and settings in which the behaviour occurs. The assessment gathers structural behavioural data collections, according to systematic direct observation, and in compliance to the ABC model (antecedents, behavior, and consequences) commonly used in the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for identifying behavioural functions, and designing intervention plans. This data is relevant in supporting statistical analysis in order to evaluate the efficacy of the behavioural treatments. Moreover, the FBA ontology provides a complete model that enables integration and interlinking with other Linked Open Data datasets and repositories thus supporting the sharing of appropriate resources such as behavioural patterns, effective intervention strategies, and behavioural treatments. Finally, the ontology provides the basis for the designing of software applications to support the functional assessment processes. This ontology has been applied in the framework of the WHAAM (Web Health Application for ADHD Monitoring) project, aimed to promote the FBA approach to the behavioural treatment of ADHD children. References: DuPaul, G. J., & Ervin, R. A. (1996). Functional assessment of behaviors related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Linking assessment to intervention design. Behavior Therapy, 27(4).

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Taibi ◽  
Giuseppe Chiazzese ◽  
Gianluca Merlo ◽  
Luciano Seta

The term Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) refers to a set of multiple assessment strategies aimed to identify specific antecedents and consequences that maintain a target behaviour (Du Paul, 1996). In the context of FBA, standards and protocols to support the data exchange between researchers, health professionals and therapist are under-represented. Moreover, there is a need for sharing common actions and assessment practices in order to improve the application of the FBA. To meet these goals, we propose the definition of an FBA ontology as a tool to describe three specific aspects related to individual, behavioural and assessment data in different contexts of everyday life such as school, family and social environments. The individual data include: diagnoses, medications, school information, discipline referrals and other events, thus providing a comprehensive overview of the individuals and the network of support people with specific roles that collaborates on the individual’s care. The behavioural data include the description of an individual´s target behaviour, and information about places and settings in which the behaviour occurs. The assessment gathers structural behavioural data collections, according to systematic direct observation, and in compliance to the ABC model (antecedents, behavior, and consequences) commonly used in the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for identifying behavioural functions, and designing intervention plans. This data is relevant in supporting statistical analysis in order to evaluate the efficacy of the behavioural treatments. Moreover, the FBA ontology provides a complete model that enables integration and interlinking with other Linked Open Data datasets and repositories thus supporting the sharing of appropriate resources such as behavioural patterns, effective intervention strategies, and behavioural treatments. Finally, the ontology provides the basis for the designing of software applications to support the functional assessment processes. This ontology has been applied in the framework of the WHAAM (Web Health Application for ADHD Monitoring) project, aimed to promote the FBA approach to the behavioural treatment of ADHD children. References: DuPaul, G. J., & Ervin, R. A. (1996). Functional assessment of behaviors related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Linking assessment to intervention design. Behavior Therapy, 27(4).


This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the extant Greek and Latin letter collections of late antiquity (ca. 300-600 C.E.). Bringing together an international team of historians, classicists, and scholars of religion, it illustrates how letter collections advertised an image of the letter writer and introduces the social and textual histories of each collection. Nearly every chapter focuses on the letter collection of a different late ancient author—from the famous (or even infamous) to the obscure—and investigates its particular issues of content, arrangement, and publication context. On the whole, the volume reveals how late antique letter collections operated as a discrete literary genre with its own conventions, transmission processes, and self-presentational agendas while offering new approaches to interpret both larger letter collections and the individual letters contained within them. Each chapter contributes to a broad argument that scholars should read letter collections as they do representatives of other late antique literary genres, as single texts made up of individual components, with larger thematic and literary characteristics that are as important as those of their component parts.


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-173
Author(s):  
Roxane Saint-Bauzel ◽  
Audrey Pelt ◽  
Laura Barbier ◽  
Valérie Fointiat

Abstract Initiated by Davis and Knowles (1999), the-disrupt-then-reframe technique is based on the linking of two moments in time. First of all, slipping an unexpected element into a communication situation that is likely to provoke a disruption in communication. Once this disruption has been achieved, proposing a target behaviour by insisting on the benefit that the individual could derive from it. We wanted to verify that this technique, effective in American, Dutch, and Polish contexts and naturally dependent on the culture of individuals and the communication norms which prevail there, could be effective in a French context. In accordance with the literature, our results show that when the two phases of the technique are linked, a greater persuasive effect is observed. A theoretically interesting way to interpret the effectiveness of the technique is proposed.


Author(s):  
Saket Kunwar

On April 26, 2015, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale occurred, with epicentre at Barpak (28°12'20''N,84°44'19''E), Nepal. Landslides induced due to the earthquake and its aftershock added to the natural disaster claiming more than 9000 lives. Landslides represented as lines that extend from the head scarp to the toe of the deposit were mapped by the staff of the British Geological Survey and is available freely under Open Data Commons Open Database License(ODC-ODbL) license at the Humanitarian Data Exchange Program. This collection of 5578 landslides is used as preliminary ground truth in this study with the aim of producing polygonal delineation of the landslides from the polylines via object oriented segmentation. Texture measures from Sentinel-1a Ground Range Detected (GRD) Amplitude data and eigenvalue-decomposed Single Look Complex (SLC) polarimetry product are stacked for this purpose. This has also enabled the investigation of landslide properties in the H-Alpha plane, while developing a classification mechanism for identifying the occurrence of landslides.


Author(s):  
Wolfram Rollett ◽  
Hannah Bijlsma ◽  
Sebastian Röhl

AbstractThe aim of this volume was to give a comprehensive overview of the current state of the research on student perceptions of and student feedback on teaching. This chapter provides a resume of the important theoretical considerations and empirical evidence the authors contributed to this volume. First, evidence concerning the validity of student perceptions of teaching quality is discussed, highlighting the quality of the questionnaires used and accompanying materials provided by their authors. In the next step, empirical findings are summarized on student and teacher characteristics that can influence important processes within the feedback cycle. Subsequently, it is emphasized that the effectiveness of student feedback on teaching is significantly related to the nature of the individual school’s feedback culture. Furthermore, it is argued that the efficacy of student feedback depends on whether teachers are provided with a high level of support, when making use of the feedback information to improve their teaching practices. As the literature review impressively documents‚ teachers, teaching, and ultimately students can benefit substantially from student feedback on teaching in schools.


First Break ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Turchaninov ◽  
N. Zakharova ◽  
J. Hubbard

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrike Bannink ◽  
Nicole Geschwind

Positive CBT integrates positive psychology and solution-focused brief therapy within a cognitive-behavioral framework. It focuses not on reducing what is wrong, but on building what's right. This fourth wave CBT, developed by Fredrike Bannink, is now being applied worldwide for various psychological disorders. An introductory chapter explores the three approaches incorporated in positive CBT. Next, the book presents research into the individual treatment protocol for use with clients with major depressive disorder by Nicole Geschwind and colleagues at Maastricht University. The last chapters describe two 8-session treatment protocols for positive CBT, one for use with individuals and one for use with groups. The treatment protocols provide therapists with a step-by-step guide on how to apply positive CBT with individual clients and in group therapy. This approach goes beyond symptom reduction and instead focuses on the client’s preferred future, on finding exceptions to problems and identifying competencies. Topics such as self-compassion, optimism, gratitude, and behavior maintenance are explored. In addition to the protocols, two workbooks for clients are available online for download by therapists.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S289-S289
Author(s):  
Maria Christensen ◽  
Carmen Lim ◽  
Sukanta Saha ◽  
Danielle Cannon ◽  
Finley Presley ◽  
...  

Abstract Background About a third of the world’s population will develop a mental disorder over their lifetime. Having a mental disorder is a huge burden in health loss and cost for the individual, but also for society because of treatment cost, production loss and caregivers’ cost. The objective of this study is to synthesize the international published literature on the economic burden of mental disorders. Methods Systematic literature searches were conducted in the databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, EconLit, NHS York Database and PsychInfo using key terms for cost and mental disorders. Searches were restricted to 1980 until May 2019. The inclusion criteria were: (1) cost-of-illness studies or cost-analyses; (2) diagnosis of at least one mental disorder (3) samples based on the general population; (4) outcome in monetary units. 13,640 publications were screened by their title/abstract and 439 articles were full-text screened by two independent reviewers. 113 articles were included from the systematic searches and 31 articles from snowball searching, giving a total of 144 included articles. Of these, 41 studies had estimates of the economic burden among people with schizophrenia. Results Information about diagnosis, diagnostic criteria, sample size, age, sex, data sources, study perspective, study period, costing approach, cost categories, discount rate and production loss method and cost unit was extracted. The preliminary results show a substantial variety in the used perspective, methodology, costs components and outcomes in the included studies. An online tool is under development enabling the reader to explore the published information on costs by type of mental disorder, subgroups, country, methodology, and study quality. Discussion To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review synthesizing the economic cost of mental disorders worldwide. The paper will provide an important and comprehensive overview over the economic burden of mental disorders, and the output from this review will inform policy-making.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-26
Author(s):  
Laurie M. Timberlake ◽  
Linda S. Beeber ◽  
Grace Hubbard

BACKGROUND. Between 4% to 70% of inpatients engage in self-harming behaviors and effective interventions are needed to address this population. AIM. This article reviews literature from 2007 to 2017 to address treatment and management strategies specific for the treatment of nonsuicidal self-injury in the inpatient psychiatric setting. METHODS. Cochrane, PsycINFO, PubMed, and CINAHL were searched for relevant articles with 34 studies reviewed for applicability to the question, and 9 parsed into a summary of Findings table. RESULTS. Therapeutic approaches that show promise include cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and mentalization as well as medications that act on the serotonergic, dopaminergic, and opioid systems. Effective models of care aim toward enhancing therapeutic relationships with staff, providers, and most important, encouraging the internal shift toward recovery within the patient. CONCLUSIONS. More research with controlled designs in the inpatient setting is needed, however, regardless of which approach is used, the impact of the individual caregiver on the patient’s recovery is key.


2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agostino G. Bruzzone ◽  
Matteo Agresta ◽  
Jen Hsien Hsu

AbstractThis paper presents the first results of a large-scale-Agent-Based Simulation devoted to simulate individual behaviour inside a medium sized city (600,000 inhabitants). Humans are simulated as Intelligent Individual entities characterized by several attributes created from the Open Data available by means of a multi-layer approach. The work presented is divided into two main parts: the first part aims to describe the multi-layer approach adopted with the inclusion of the social network layer devoted to capture how social networks can be correlated with human activities and how an “Individual Opinion” can changes based on social interactions. The second part is devoted to present a preliminary case study for simulating the propagation dynamics of the individual opinion in the form of an ethical value function. The basic idea is to capture the changes in the individual opinion based on the social interactions predicted by the simulation. Finally, a food choice model for predicting individual choices based on the individual opinion function is presented; the model is based on three parameters: accessibility of ethical shops, price difference with standard products, and ethical value propagation.


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