Many congratulations to the team of behaviour analysts at the Calthorpe Academy in Birmingham who have been recognised in last week's OFSTED inspection. In just over a year the school has moved from "special measures" to "good" with a rating of "outstanding" for the Effectiveness of leadership and management.
 

The inaugural SF-DDARIN lecture was held on the evening of Monday 10th April at the 2017 meeting of the EABG London Conference of Behaviour Analysis. We were pleased to invite Dr Corinna Grindle to present:


We can teach you that too! Using Behaviour Analysis to teach reading, maths and writing to children with autism.

In an authoritative and informative presentation Dr Grindle outlined her current research fostering academic learning for pupils with moderate and severe learning difficulties. She pointed out the paucity of research in this area and the opportunity that exists for behaviour analysts to contribute to an issue that the Department of Education has highlighted as a priority. She discussed some of the challenges faced when conducting research in real world settings and spoke of the need for a systematic approach to applied research that builds an evidence base along a continuum from initial testing through to implementation - something which the field of behaviour analysis has not always paid close attention to.

Dr Grindle is a research practitioner with more than 20 years’ experience working with children and young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism. She chairs the research group of the SF-DDARIN which focuses on educational skills. The SF-DDARIN is delighted to be supporting her work in this area.

One of the goals of the SF-DDARIN is to facilitate high quality implementation research in which there is collaboration between academic and practice communities. As part of this we have established a programme of Masters studentships to enable field/practice based research projects that might not otherwise happen because of a lack of funding.

For more information read here