Notes from a Roving Radical Behaviorist: Behavioral Technology and Also Street Music

Gentle Readers,

BEHAVIORAL TECHNOLOGY

Most therapies for children with autism have no significant evidence to support them, e.g. swimming with dolphins, riding horses, and music, art, massage, brushing, weighted vest, speech, occupational therapies etc, little evidence beyond the occasional anecdote. However, there's one behavioral therapy that's so well documented in peer-reviewed journals that it has now become best practice, and that's bubble therapy. But until now, behavior analysts have only used bubbles that averaged 2.8 inches in diameter. However, as a result of my recent field trip to Paris, that's going to change. One of the new BCBA requirements will be mastery of the four-foot bubble technology. I will expect all my MA and PhD students to be fluent with this technology by the end of the fall semester; unfortunately, it may be too difficult for most undergrads. Please check out our totally awesome demonstration video called King of Bubbles at

http://www.vimeo.com/user968716/videos

And while you’re there, I’ve added a few other quickie vids from my European field trip.

THE COPENHAGEN VOCAL TRIO

You know, it's great to walk down the street and run across a vocal trio singing their hearts out. These musicians were more pleased than any of the other buskers (street performers) when I told them I planned to put them on the internet and make them internationally famous. Check ‘em out; you’ll see what I mean.

THE JAZZ TRIO OF PARIS

A wonderful Hot Club of France update, playing outside the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris.

UNDERGROUND TENOR SAX

I love the reverb he gets in this underground passageway. He reminds me of the great Paul Horn, who traveled around the world recording his saxes and flutes in wonderful acoustic environments. Shot in Paris.

SIX BELLS AND ALL’S SWELL

Except it's raining les chats et les chiens. This video was taken from our Paris apartment window directly across the narrow rue Montmartre from the majestic, 17th century Église Saint-Eustache. Even the powerful audio system of the $200 flip mino HD fails to catch the rich deep resonance of the bell, which we had the opportunity to catch every half hour from 8:00AM to 8:00PM.

INSTRUCTIONS

These are HD videos; so to get the most visual reinforcement/sec, click on the white four-outwardly-pointing-arrows symbol in the lower right corner of the video box to see it fill your whole screen with excellent video quality, we ain’t talkin’ no funky You-Tube quality here.

And, if you’ve managed to read this far, your reward is some still photos of the King of Bubbles, himself, at the bottom of this message. But don’t forget to catch the video of him (it’s even awesomer) at

http://www.vimeo.com/user968716/videos