Vermont ABA

By Megan Mayo

Vermont Association for Applied Behavior Analysis (VtABA), established in 2004, continues to fulfill its mission to support the growth of behavior analysis in Vermont. The current board consists of 10 members, including one student member. Our current membership is 170 professionals and 13 students.

VtABA hosted various events in person and online in 2023 and into the new year. Every January, we hold our annual meeting and offer our members a full-day CEU event at no cost. In 2023, Dr. Justin Garwood, an education researcher from UVM, presented “Inclusive strategies for Youth with Behavior Problems” and “Ways to Avoid Burning Out.” Dr. Siri Ming provided the training, “Starting from Psychological Flexibility: RFT, ACT, and Behavior Analytic Practice” this January. Our annual meeting and training are now online to honor the treacherous driving conditions of rural Vermont in the winter.

We also host an annual state conference each May. In 2023, the conference was in our state capitol, Montpelier. Peter Gerhart presented “Assent and Social Validity” and “Developing Meaningful Skills in Autistic Learners.” Our in-person, single-day, single-track conferences provide an opportunity for our community to network and learn in a collaborative environment.

This year, 2024, is our 20th anniversary as an association, and we are planning an enhanced conference experience. We will hold the conference at the Sugarbush Resort on May 10th, a beautiful location in Vermont’s Mad River Valley. This year will feature multiple national and local presenters and our first-ever poster session.

VtABA has provided a multitude of learning and collaboration opportunities in 2023, most are included with membership. In October, we launched the VtABA Book Club, a bimonthly online meeting to discuss memberchosen ABA literature and is free for members. We also hosted a free online ethics CEU opportunity for members in October. The team from the podcast ABA Inside Track presented “The Ethics of Collaboration.” Lastly, we donated the use of our online platform to The Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council. We assisted them in hosting an all-day workshop with Dr. Patrick McGreevy on his framework and curriculum, Essentials for Living.

2023 was an active year for VtABA; this energy will continue into 2024. The year began with the publication of “A Survey of the State of the Field of Applied Behavior Analysis in Vermont” in Behavior Analysis in Practice (Mayo & Hoffmann, 2024). VtABA was proud to assist in this project and hopes to continue to support Vermont practitioners and researchers in their different endeavors. Our Vice-Chair, Megan Mayo, presented a paper at ABAI in Philadelphia, “Moving ABA Towards Greater Social Validity and Acceptance within Minority Identities and Vulnerable Populations,” and was excited to connect with representatives from other chapters to discuss ways to help Vermont become more active in the larger ABA community. We plan on boosting our online presence and connection with the local and broader ABA community through increased content on our website and reviving our newsletter. We are scheduling workshops with Adam Hockman from WiderReach to help us with this goal. For more information on our chapter and what we’re working on, check out the following:
Website: www.vtaba.org
Facebook: VT ABA (Nonprofit)
Instagram and Threads: @vt_aba