How's everyone really feeling. Teaching the emotion words of fear and anger to autistic children belongs in serious BCBA study because it shapes whether behavior-analytic decisions stay useful once they leave a clean training example and enter language assessment, teaching sessions, caregiver coaching, and natural communication routines.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Oregon Association for Behavior Analysis
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Teaching learners emotion-word recognition can lead to enhanced emotional intelligence and positive social outcomes. Many teaching strategies and research studies utilize facial expressions as the main indicator for teaching emotion recognition, yet facial expressions may not be the most salient feature of the context when it comes to recognizing emotions. This presentation outlines the development, implementation, and results of a study using instructional design methodology to teach the emotion-words, fear and anger, without reliance on facial expressions. Utilizing animated video clips, three autistic individuals were taught emotion-word recognition and identification of the corresponding contingency. Indices of assent for all participants were also incorporated and analyzed across all sessions. Future directions related to teaching emotion-word recognition, corresponding contingencies, and problem solving will also be detailed.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
Jillian Baldwin is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst-D in Massachusetts. She received her undergraduate (BA in Psychology) from Stonehill College and her graduate (MS in Applied Behavior Analysis) from Western New England University through their partner program with New England Center for Children. She graduated in 2025 with her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis from Endicott College. Jillian has worked in ABA programs since 2007 and received her BCBA certification in 2012. Her experience has included working in residential, day programs, public schools, in-home, and in-clinic settings in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon. Currently, Jillian is a Consulting Specialist with New England Center for Children where she works in public school settings. She also is an adjunct professor with Endicott College and Simmons University. Her research interests include teaching emotion recognition and problem solving through a contingency analysis and the application of the constructional approach.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
280 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
256 research articles with practitioner takeaways
You earn CEUs from a dozen different places. Upload any certificate — from here, your employer, conferences, wherever — and always know exactly where you stand. Learning, Ethics, Supervision, all handled.
No credit card required. Cancel anytime.
All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.