Behavioral Gerontology SIG

By Zoe Lucock


About the BG SIG:
Behavioral gerontology, the application and philosophy of behavior analysis to the problems of adults age 65 and older, has a long tradition, from Ogden Lindsley’s (1964) chapter on the design of geriatric behavioral prosthetics, and Skinner and Vaughan’s (1983) practical advice on how to compensate for physical decline and enjoy old age, to recent Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis publications on teaching internet skills to older adults and reinforcer selection for individuals with neurocognitive disorders (e.g., Pachis & Zonneveld, 2019; Lucock, Sharp & Jones, 2020). Indeed, behavior analysts across specialties work with older adults.

The Behavioral Gerontology SIG (BGSIG) provides a forum for students, practitioners, and researchers with interests in applying the science, practice, and philosophy of behavior analysis to the problems encountered by adults in later life. Our goal is to promote the development, implementation, and evaluation of behavior analytic solutions to a wide variety of topics of high public health significance in the older adult population. Among these are the self-management for health promotion and disease prevention, functional assessments of and interventions for behavioual changes commonly associated with neurocognitive disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease), aging with a disability, and effective healthcare navigation, including participation in inter- or multidisciplinary teams.

Committee Development:
The BGSIG committee meets every other month to continue to work towards our goals. The 2024 annual business meeting was held in a hybrid format allowing both members and non-members to attend in person, and BGSIG members to attend remotely if they are unable to attend the conference in person.

This year the BGSIG has continued to expand its committee, with 11 members now serving on the committee in a number of established and new roles. Of note this year, the committee has recruited a member of the older adult community to sit on the committee as a consumer representative. We have also welcomed a new training and education coordinator and honorary secretary. We have also made a number of changes internally to improve the functioning of the committee such as creating separate email addresses for each member, generating role descriptions and ensuring everyone has access to the BGSIG SharePoint drive.

Dissemination:
During the past year, the BGSIG has made continued efforts to disseminate behavior-analytic research and clinical practice related to the problems of older adults through our social media channels. As of February 2024, the BGSIG Twitter account had 580 followers, the BGSIG Facebook page had 2600 likes (+300), and the closed Facebook group moderated by the BGSIG committee members had 796 members (11 members). We have also included new features such as “A day in the life of” videos from behavioral gerontologists and anecdotes from their work and “Meet the team” features about our committee members.

The BGSIG website is hosted through ABAI and features a variety of content including blog articles from behavioral gerontologists, lists of relevant resources and journals and details about the SIG. In addition, the website has a “members only” section where BG SIG members can access training resources and videos of previous ABAI conference talks on behavioral gerontology.

The BGSIG has created a mailing list and plans to begin working on disseminating more information via email to people who are interested in behavioral gerontology. Anyone can sign up to the mailing list via
the BGSIG website.

Learning Opportunities:
This year the BGSIG held its first event: a live webinar hosted through Zoom provided by ABAI. Attendees heard the discussion between our training coordinator and Johanna Gildottir discussing how to remain conceptually systematic while working in nursing homes for older adults. This was well received, and further events are in the pipeline. The recording from this webinar is now available for members to watch by logging into their accounts on the BGSIG website.

The BGSIG continues to offer case consultation groups to practitioners in the field on an as-needed basis to BGSIG members—any member can request a peer consultation group by emailing bgsig.training@gmail.com. The BGSIG has published two newsletters over the past year featuring articles from behavioral gerontologists, details of CEU opportunities related to behavioral gerontology and information about our social media videos from behavioral gerontologists.

Finally, the BGSIG has developed a journal club for committee members where we share articles and lead discussions about behavioral gerontology. We will continue to keep this journal club for committee members only at this time, but will consider offering it to all members in the future.

Task Force Development:
This year we have also created a new Insurance Funding Sub-committee. We have recruited a number of prominent and experienced behavioral gerontologists, behavior analysts with expertise in insurance funding and other allied professionals to work together on establishing an understanding of the current routes for funding in behavioral gerontology. Beyond this, we are looking to develop recommendations for behavior analysts to work towards creating clearer and simpler routes to generating funding for behavioral gerontology services in the USA through insurance.

Membership:
The BGSIG currently has 31 members consisting of six affiliate members, 0 early career/transitional members, 0 retired/emeritus members, 17 full members and 8 student members. Over the next year, the BGSIG intends to continue its focus on increasing membership numbers through offering more learning opportunities.

Over the following year, the BGSIG intends to focus on developing more events and resources for members such as hosting live educational events that can then be accessed through the member’s only section of the website after the fact. The BGSIG also is developing a provider list on our website that lists behavioral gerontology practitioners that are available to contact regarding services for older adults.

The BGSIG also reintroduced a financial payment as part of our student award this year and the winner gave a five-minute explanation of their research at the BG SIG business meeting in Philadelphia. We encourage all student members to submit their behavioral gerontology related research to the annual conference next year to be in with a chance of winning!

We welcome all new members to join us at the BGSIG, whether you are working with older adults or just interested in learning more and supporting our work. You can join via the ABAI website through your portal or click the link on our website: bgsig.abainternational.org


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