The cohort of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) master’s students at Utah Valley University (UVU)  had worked diligently all year conducting research, working in lab classrooms, and synthesizing their findings into academic presentations. But it seemed their chances for presenting their work at the ABA International (ABAI) Convention in Denver, Colorado, were unlikely due to distance.

But salvation came in the form of a road trip when UVU ABA professors and cohort mentors Drs. Caleb Stanley and Jane Carlson checked out two UVU vans so the grad students could attend the convention from May 27-29. Stanley and Carlson acted as drivers on the nearly 500-mile journey to the Colorado Convention Center for the ABAI Convention. There, the ABA students presented their studies, networked with industry professionals, and learned the latest research in ABA fields.

The trip aimed to help the future ABA practitioners become more well-versed in their prospective field and give them the knowledge to assist individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disabilities.

“The purpose of this [convention] is for professionals in the field to get together and allow them to share research and share a lot of the work that's going on in the clinical world,” Dr. Stanley said. “This allows clinicians and researchers to stay up to date on modern and contemporary  best practices in the field.”

"It's such a great opportunity for students because it's the largest event for our profession that occurs worldwide every year,” Dr. Carlson said. “Our students have an opportunity to be introduced to, and interact with, the giants in the field of behavior analysis who are at the conference every year and meet some of the people who wrote the textbooks that they're using in classes or who have pushed articles that they're reading in their classes.”

Students reported an overwhelmingly positive experience following the convention. Second-year student Julie Harrison made the best of her three days by attending as many symposiums and presentations as possible.

“[The experience] was very engaging,” she said. “We were able to ask the presenters questions during the panel discussions. There [were] also a lot of different types of sessions, some that were more like case study presentations, and others were called panel discussions where there would be a panel of various people.”

Program graduate Mikayla Campbell had her hands full during the weekend, presenting four posters on her research in ABA and chairing a symposium on relational frame theory, which looks at how people learn and relate to stimuli.

“My time at the convention was very inspiring because I feel like ABA is like a newer field compared to other fields like psychology that have been like around for a very long time,” Campbell said. “But it is growing, and so it's just really inspiring to see just so many people come to come together and then bring all their ideas and present presentations and posters and things like that. I loved [the] collaborative environment; it was just inspiring to see just so many people trying to progress and push the field to be better and provide the best care for clientele.”

One of Campbell’s posters presented her research on behavior skills, which showed a training she conducted with parents of children with autism on how to properly engage in pairs with their child without overstimulating them with too many questions.

“Sometimes questions are great for kids, right? And kids love to be asked questions,” she said. “But for this particular child, she was still learning how to answer questions; so, it would be like someone coming to talk to you and build a relationship with you and saying, ‘We’re going to get to know each other by doing calculus.’ It just doesn't go well.”

Campbell plans to start her clinical psychology Ph.D. Program at Missouri State University in the fall.

Though the eight-hour trek to the mile-high city had its ups and downs, all participants expressed their gratitude for Drs. Stanley and Carlson’s sacrifice in taking them to the ABAI convention. Dr. Carlson said that it’s opportunities such as these that help her and her colleagues help their students find success in their future careers.

“I really think it offers our students opportunities to make personal connections that can be so helpful as [they’re] beginning their professional careers,” she said. “We've had students make connections that lead them into Ph.D. programs and students who have gone to work with people in the field from connections that they've made through these kinds of activities. It's a great bridge, I think, for our students.”