About you
In your practice, you observe actual behavior and experimentally manipulate variables, and document changes in behavior. You aim to provide effective, efficient, evidence-based services. You relish watching and reporting as behavior shifts when you change the environment.
And yet, you notice that some behavior does not respond to direct contingency management procedures. You suspect that some of the people you work with – parents, staff, autistic people – are talking to themselves in ways that blind them to relevant contingencies. You may even notice this in your own behavior. You want to know how to bring about change in behavior that lasts. Changes with impact.
About us
ACT Now ABA provides professional development courses to working behavior analysts and academics. We offer courses in Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACTr), an evidence-based applied behavior analytic approach to assessment and intervention that helps bring socially important, observable, measurable behavior under the control of relevant direct contingencies.
Our courses involve tons of behavior skills training (rationale, modeling, rehearsal, feedback), shaping, and chaining. We use the principles of learning in our courses to help you learn be psychologically flexible and to bring about impactful changes in your clients’ behaviors.
About all of us together
Behavior analysis is a young science and applied behavior analysis is even younger. At times, we’ve ignored the voices of those we care most about. Our concerns about mentalism, or the notion that there is something fundamentally different about covert behavior, has deterred us from formally addressing the complex behaviors of those who are able to talk covertly to themselves. In that, we’ve often invalidated the very people we serve. ACT Now ABA is dedicated to a collaborative, assent-based, trauma-informed, culturally attuned approach to offering ABA services to people everywhere.
Tom Szabo (he/they) is a peer-reviewed ACT trainer, board certified behavior analyst, and a behavior analysis professor. Tom received his masters and doctorate degrees at University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied under W. Larry Williams and Steven C. Hayes. Over the last fifteen years, Tom has focused his practice on teaching people ways to ignite psychological flexibility in their personal lives and with others in clinical practice, schools, board rooms, shop floors, and community centers. He has developed iterations of ACTr for autistic people, their parents and caregivers, siblings, and staff members. His research focuses on the development of ACTr functional analysis and treatment that addresses issues related to race, gender, class, ethnicity, neurodiversity, disability, language, and dialect. With the Commit & Act Foundation, Tom has trained therapists in Sierra Leone working with individuals who’ve committed acts of gender-based violence and he is currently conducting funded research on ways to reduce intra-familial violence. He has published empirical and conceptual papers, as well as several book chapters and a new book, ACT and Applied Behavior Analysis: A Practical Guide to Ensuring Better Outcomes Using Acceptance and Commitment Training, published by New Harbinger Press.
Dr. Jonathan Tarbox is the Co-Founder and Program Director of the Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis program at the University of Southern California, as well as Director of Research at FirstSteps for Kids. Dr. Tarbox is the past Editor-in-Chief of the journal Behavior Analysis in Practice, a Board Member of the ABA Task Force to Eradicate Social Injustice, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Women in Behavior Analysis (WIBA) conference. He has published five books on applied behavior analysis and autism treatment, is the Series Editor of the Elsevier book series Critical Specialties in Treating Autism and Other Behavioral Challenges, and an author of over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters in scientific texts. His research focuses on behavioral interventions for teaching complex skills to individuals with autism, Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT), and applications of applied behavior analysis to issues of diversity and social justice. Dr. Tarbox is proud to have multiple neurodivergent family members and is working hard to become a more effective ally to the Autistic community.
Kendra Thomson (she/her) is an Associate Professor in Applied Disability Studies at Brock University, and is a doctoral level board certified behavior analyst. Kendra received her PhD in Psychology (ABA specialization) at the University of Manitoba and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health lab at York University. Broadly, Kendra’s research interests include evaluating evidence based training mechanisms for improving quality of life for people with neurodevevelopmental disabilities and their families and/or supports. Kendra and her students have conducted research in Acceptance and Commitment Training and she is dedicated to becoming a peer-reviewed ACT trainer.
Brianna Z. Kauer is a Behavior Analyst and Peer-Reviewed Trainer in Acceptance and Commitment
Enasha Anglade is a BCBA who has focused on skill acquisition, behavior assessment and intervention, individualized treatment design, as well as parent and staff training. She has a coaching business and is currently a co-investigator on a study examining ways to assist domestic violence survivors access necessary resources and behavioral training. Resources for victims and children of domestic violence are available in most communities. On the other hand, services for perpetrators of domestic violence are hard to locate. Helping those who have committed acts of domestic violence take responsibility and change their behavior is an important new direction for behavior analysts to pursue.
Madison began her journey with ABA at the University of Nevada Reno, where she served as a research assistant in Dr. Steven Hayes’s lab. She earned a master’s degree in ABA at the University of Southern California under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Tarbox with whom she investigated ACT-based functional analysis methodology with individuals with substance use challenges and collaborated with other mental health professionals treating various mental health challenges. Presently, Madison is pursuing her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Western Michigan University.
Denisha Gingles is a passionate, liberation-centered, counselor and behavior scientist dedicated to the freedom of all oppressed people, with an intentional focus on the Black community. She is a pioneer and creator of sacred spaces that promote wellness, awareness of self, and increasing behaviors that promote valued living. She is the owner of Signature Behavioral Health, a Ph.D. student, and a social justice activist. Her work takes a radically compassionate approach to igniting the behavior change. Ms. Gingles works tirelessly on multiple fronts, including community organizing, providing professional workshops and trainings, scholarly writing, and leadership in scholarly journals, including serving as Guest Editor for Behavior Analysis in Practice.
Louis Busch (ᐋᐧᐋᐧᐦᑌᐃᐧ ᒥᐢᑕᑎᒼ) is a Bear Clan member of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, a registered psychotherapist, and a board certified behaviour analyst. Louis has two decades of experience supporting the recovery journeys of people who find themselves in contact with the mental health and forensic mental health systems. Louis is a Community Support Specialist with the Shkaabe Makwa Centre for First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Wellness and an associate of the Weaving Wellness Centre, which provides culturally-integrated counselling and psychotherapy services to Indigenous Peoples in Ontario, Canada. Louis is past-president of the Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis and a former Director-at-Large with the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts. Louis hopes to contribute to positive social change through the advancement of culturally relevant wellness initiatives that promote the recovery and empowerment of marginalized peoples.
Tyler-Curtis is a certified special education teacher, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, and a doctoral student at the University of Georgia. They hold bachelor’s degrees in both Spanish and special education, a graduate degree in behavior analysis, and have completed graduate coursework in organizational behavior management. They have nine years of experience in applied behavior analysis across a variety of settings (e.g., home, camp, school, clinic) and have been published in several academic journals. Tyler-Curtis’s research spans a wide range of applications including functional communication, developing individual academic interventions, increasing children’s physical activity, changing performance in the workplace, and implementing interventions based on acceptance and commitment training. While they currently focus on applications of behavior analysis in schools, their ambition is to use the power of television to disseminate behavior analytic principles to a national audience, which they began through Lifetime’s show, Leave it to Geege.