University Series 032 - Rider University

Shauna Costello (00:01):

You're listening to Operant Innovations, a podcast brought to you by ABA Technologies. This week on the University Series, we're speaking with Dr. Frances Perrin-English from Rider University. Dr. Perrin-English is a behavior analyst in and the coordinator for the Master's in Applied Psychology, Applied Behavior Analyst concentration program. She earned her Bachelor's in Psychology from Stockton College, her Master's in Education in Applied Behavior Analysis from Temple University and her PhD in Educational Psychology from Temple University in 2009. Prior to joining the Rider team in 2012, she spent 15 years working at Bancroft's Linden program where she completed her supervised field placement and moved into a behavior analyst role for seven years before taking on the role of clinical director. Her clinical and research interests include functional assessment methodology and treatment development for severe challenging behavior, staff training in a number of translational research topics, including behavioral economics in preference assessments. Without further ado, Dr. Frances Perrin-English and Rider University.

Shauna Costello (01:13):

Today we are here with Dr. Frances Perrin from Rider University. Thank you so much for talking with me today.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (01:21):

Thank you so much for having me.

Shauna Costello (01:23):

I'm going to pass it over to her to give a general overview of the program.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (01:30):

So Rider University is located in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. We are a program that offers a verified course sequence. It typically takes our students about two years. We also have a program where our undergrad students who are in the psych department, or perhaps even, in sometimes from the education departments, can matriculate early into our graduate program giving them an opportunity to, we call it the four plus one. That's probably a little bit of a misnomer, especially now that we need 2000 hours of experience, but essentially they get to take two of our electives while they are still undergrads and then can finish the program out once they are officially graduate students. And our program was started in 2011. I came on board in 2012. So we've had quite a number of students who have come through our two year program at this point and so we've grown. When I first started, it was myself and one other behavior analyst faculty who actually isn't with us anymore, but since I've been there, we've added in Dr. Matt Costello and Dr. Rob Eisenhower to round it out to the three of us.

Shauna Costello (02:53):

That kind of brings us to one of the next questions. Who are the faculty and what kind of research is going on at Rider?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (03:04):

I'm going to start with Dr. Matt Costello. He's been on board for.. oh my goodness. I don't even know how many years now. About six years, I think he's been with us. Matt's great. He teaches, and I'll sort of touch on what classes we each teach, because I think that ties in to what's going on. Matt teaches our principles of learning class and he also teaches some of the undergrads behavior analysis and regular psych courses. He also teaches a course on behavior analysis or behavior analytic approaches to addictions and that's one of his primary areas of interest, is research related to addiction. He focuses primarily on gambling analysis and interventions. For that, he does have a gambling lab. We have slot machines and other casino games, we have operant chambers with gambling programs and he's been doing some collaboration with local organizations. So the research that he's doing, he has some experimental research, some translational and some applied. Another line of research that he is working on is with one of our psych faculty, Dr. Michael Carlin. They've been looking at statistical compliments to visual analysis and so the two of them co-developed an effect size for single case designs. And they're continuing to do some research on modeling and how it's used. Some pretty interesting and complicated stuff going on with him. Dr. Rob Eisenhower, I think this is his third year with us at this point. He's looking at some different things. He's looking at applied research that examines efficiency and efficacy of variations on visual support. So things like video modeling and video prompting for acquiring functional skills, both vocational and social for individuals with autism. He and myself are collaborating on some applied research that looks at response efforts in terms of distance of stimuli during preference and reinforcer assessments. That's something that I started with my dissertation and it sort of went in line with some of the things that he'd been doing with his previous research. So it's a really good collaboration. He's looking at leisure skills, stationary moving, alone, social, electronic, non-electronic with adults. So we're starting to get into sort of focusing on some of the adults. We have another project going on that I can talk about a little bit too. Then he's also got a basic or experimental line of research in typically developing adults. College age students that look at the relationship between object proportions such as length relative to participant characteristics, such as the hand span and how they can make choices and then how that can be conceptualized in terms of matching or deviations from matching.

Shauna Costello (06:33):

Yeah, that's really interesting. And then we have you as well.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (06:38):

You have me. My main research interests have to do with functional analysis. Before I came to Rider, when I was working clinically, everything that I was doing was with some severe problem behavior, functional analysis, interventions, obviously for that, and then preference and choice. So that's where our collaboration comes in and then more recently, and this is what I've been trying to get students involved with lately is applying behavior analysis to physical activity. So increasing physical activity, what are some of the better ways to get people to start moving, basically.

Shauna Costello (07:19):

It's really interesting to hear all of the different faculty and what they're researching, because for some people might have never even heard of Rider and they're like, "what's actually going on there?" And I always like to say, you can only learn so much from a website, but there's such a wide array of different opportunities with the faculty there, it seems.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (07:45):

Yeah. I think one of our, and you'll see this a little bit in our coursework too, the students that are coming to us are... we don't have a clinic onsite. So everything we're doing is with collaboration with clinics and other organizations in the local area. The students are getting all of their experience hours working at some of these places and some that obviously we don't have relationships with, but when they come to us, they're typically interested in working with the autism population. For the most part. There are some exceptions to that and our goal is to really show them that behavior analysis has so much more to offer, right? So we have the class that Dr. Costello teaches in focusing on addictions. I teach a class on behavior analytic approaches to physical activity. We really want to show them that this can be applied in many other ways and try to spark that interest so that, understandably, you might be getting your experience hours with this very specific population, but at some point you might make the decision to go do something else with this degree.

Shauna Costello (09:00):

Right. I can personally relate to that as well. Right after my master's program, I went straight into an autism clinic. That's what I did. Now I'm getting the question constantly, "How did you get your job? Your job seems so out there and how did you get this?" So I can't even tell you how I got it. I just saw it and I applied, but still though, now being in this job, all of these things that you're talking about are things that I'm looking for. How can I also start connecting with these professionals in the field who are doing this research so that we can create these professional courses to then expand on it. So not only for your students, but I mean, professionals in the field to need this as well. Need people who have this experience and who are doing this in the real world. It's really, really neat to see the wide array. Just a plethora of research interests. With all of the faculty, and you talked about some of the classes that are being taught at Rider, what are some of the other student experiences, whether it's with classes or with the community practicum sites? What are the partnerships that you mentioned?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (10:21):

Yeah. Probably the first thing I should talk about is our community partnerships. We have partners in big ways and small ways with some local places. Some formally, some less formally. Our biggest collaboration is with Bancroft. Bancroft is an organization that has been in New Jersey for over a hundred years, but they serve individuals throughout the lifespan with developmental disabilities and brain injury. I had worked at Bancroft prior to coming to Rider. Our partnership with them actually offers their staff the full Master's program on Bancroft's campus. So every year we start one cohort in the fall down there. I say down there because it's half an hour, 40 minutes, but we take up to 20 of their staff into that cohorts. They apply exactly the same way any other application is. Everything comes through Matt, Rob and I sit and interview all of them and we select, you know, up to 20 that will go into the cohorts. Our primary contact person down there is Dr. Tracy Kettering. She's been working there for, I think almost 10 years. She helps set up this opportunity and so the rest of the courses down there are taught by some other Bancroft behavior analysts. We do actually have some other people coming in as on an adjunct basis to teach down there. Rob Eisenhower teaches one course down there every year. So we run that cohort through. That cohort, while we have an optional thesis in our program that students can do, we are now having all of the Bancroft students do the thesis option because we can control that a little better. Most of us are acting as thesis advisors for that group down there. Initially, we had some people choosing to do that and now that we've sort of made the determination that everybody's going to go through that model. Now we've had to pull people in to serve as thesis advisors for them, but I think it's a great opportunity. Most of the students down there have experience working with problem behavior due to the nature of a lot of individuals who are served by Bancroft, especially in the residential programs. So two, we're trying to expand for those of them who are working in the residential section, we're having them look at things like skill building. Trying to encourage them to do things like that, versus somebody who might be working in the education program might be looking at something besides skill building in terms of their thesis questions. Again, trying to expand their areas of knowledge of behavior analysis and how it works. Some of them are interested in not doing their Thesis with individuals with disabilities. One of my thesis students for this year is doing physical activity and decided to do it with typically developing adults. Obviously COVID plays a little bit of a role in that because if they choose to do somebody that's not an individual served by Bancroft and there's probably a little more flexibility in case restrictions get put in place again.

Shauna Costello (14:14):

Well, and I will say too, it's just something I've noticed on a personal stance. My physical activity has decreased significantly. I'm lucky it's dead right now, but I have to charge it, but my watch has become like the bane of my existence, because I'll look at it and I'll be like, "how have you only moved 1000 steps today?"

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (14:36):

Yeah. On the opposite, mine's increased because that was sort of what kept me sane at the beginning. I was home with these two kids that didn't really have school back in the spring and so we'd get up every morning and I'm like, "Let's go, grab the dog, get in the car. We're going to the local park, let's move."

Shauna Costello (14:59):

No, that's really exciting to see that those students are getting a thesis experience because there's almost nothing really compared to it because even if you go through a project track, which is something I'm familiar with as well, like the project versus the thesis track. You don't quite have all of the, necessarily the same requirements or quite as stringent as the thesis track. So I think that being able to have that research experience and learn that research process really kind of gives those students an even additional opportunity.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (15:39):

Yeah. I think another, just an example, my thesis student, who's doing the physical activity, she was reading this article that she wants to sort of replicate. She had some questions about it and I said, "why don't you email the first author?" Right? I'm like, "You're a student. You email this person. I am sure she's going to be thrilled to get the email and respond back to you." Right? I would.That's good. Fortunately, my thesis student has a great personality and she was like, "Yeah, that's a great idea." She wasn't worried about it or concerned. So we had to track this person down, because they're no longer where they were when they wrote this article a few years ago, but we tracked them down, got the email, she sent an email, responded back in a few days and told her some things, right? And said, "Feel free to reach out if you have questions about your project." So that's what I love about this behavioral analysis community. It's small enough that the people are willing to help some random student out.

Shauna Costello (17:01):

You'd be really surprised, right? You'd be really surprised at the response that you will get from them. You will be completely surprised. Even learning those skills as well, especially with communicating with people in the field that you don't necessarily know, but that fosters these networking opportunities that when we have in-person conferences again and things along those lines...

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (17:28):

Right? Yeah, I hope she goes up to this person and introduces herself and says, thank you in person. That would be great.

Shauna Costello (17:34):

So I know we've talked about the Bancroft cohort. Is there the option for the non Bancroft students?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (17:43):

Our regular Rider campus students do have the option to do a thesis and we encourage that. We don't get as many as we'd like, but we've had some, but what we've been able to convince more students to do is the one semester independent study. I think they see that. So we do have an independent study option also, and I think they see that as slightly more manageable. I think when our students are in a situation where they're working potentially 30 to 40 hours a week, some of them are commuting up to an hour to come to us. Granted, that's not relevant right now. Normally, they're taking that commute on as well. So they see sort of the one semester piece as more doable and again, we don't have the same control over all the places that they're working and the oversight that would be nice. It gives them an opportunity to do something that I think supervisors have been more willing to help take on too.

Shauna Costello (18:59):

Yeah. I mean, what does that independent study look like?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (19:05):

Well, basically a smaller version.

Shauna Costello (19:05):

Okay.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (19:06):

I know at least from my students, when they've done an independent study, even having them do more of a straight replication, right? Rather than trying to find an article that makes sense, maybe clinically for a client that you're working with and can we answer a clinical question for your students? One of the first ones that I did this way, I had a student coming in and she had all these articles that she was interested in and I was like, "Okay, let's talk about like your main clients, right? Like, what's going on with your main client? What are some of the challenges that they're having right now?" We ended up doing this really straightforward study where she compared interspersed versus massed trials. The data were really cool, right? This particular student did much better when their program Charles trials were interspersed than when they were massed in groups of 10 and it was very simple. I got the opportunity to go in and take some reliability data at the place that she was doing it and it worked out and she ended up having a poster for a local conference. So it was nice. She was able to get it done in one semester.

Shauna Costello (20:30):

No, and that's perfect too, especially with getting that poster. Experience on top of that, and this is something too, that you had previously mentioned when you talked about the on campus cohorts that come through is that Rider is very flexible and it sounds like the classes and the research opportunities can work with those full-time workers and they're coming in as students as well.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (21:04):

Yeah. I think we designed the program or the program was designed because it was before my time, to be done part-time, right? So two classes a semester for two calendar years. We do start a September cohort and a May cohort. So it's two starts per year and all of our courses started either 5:30, 6:00 or 6:30 in the evenings. So students are coming to campus twice a week. Summer courses run seven weeks, so twice a week, but those seven weeks.. one of the things that we have recently done which came about because of the pandemic was we've actually had the RBCS approved as a Hybrid. We've had to create a lot of material on our learning management system on Canvas and we know that our students appreciate the flexibility. So being able to put some content up there that they can work on asynchronously and then still have synchronous meetings on a weekly basis seems to be a good way to go. We changed our sort of approval or our verification to make it more flexible so that an instructor may have the choice depending on what class they're teaching. Rider did go Hybrid this semester. I teach the functional assessment course, and I did have the ability. So while most of our courses were via Zoom. Classes were via Zoom. I did have the opportunity to bring students in for, I think we met three times in person for about 90 minutes each time. We role played preference assessments, we role played reinforcer assessments. We role-played trial based functional analysis in this giant conference room where we're trying to be as socially distanced as possible, but I was able to catch things that I don't think I would have been able to do that same thing via zoom. Even in breakout rooms, right? I would have been in one breakout room and somebody would be messing something up over here. Right? So the ability to sort of be able to travel around this giant room and see things, or have people call me over to the little group, allowed for that. Going forward, these are things that I would do in class anyway, but for these actual weeks I recorded the lectures about preference assessments about reinforcer assessments. So that content is already there and now I will be able to spend more time in person in future semesters doing the role-playing from the model.

Shauna Costello (23:58):

I like that, because you're explaining it probably the best that you can, and you're getting the best of both worlds or trying to get the best of both worlds right now. I know that we've talked about an overview of the program, the faculty, some of the classes, thesis and independent study, and now kind of Rider moving to a Hybrid and maybe that will stay in the future. Who knows. Maybe it'll go back to not necessarily Hybrid.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (24:30):

Right. The flexibility is there.

Shauna Costello (24:34):

Flexibility is nice. The flexibility is very, very nice, but what is the area like? We've had a couple other universities from New Jersey and New Jersey is a huge state for behavior analysis.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (24:49):

It really is.

Shauna Costello (24:49):

A huge state for behavior analysis. Even though it might not look like a huge state, but it is full of behavior analysts. Where is Rider? What's the area like? What can people expect? What can they do?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (25:07):

Lawrenceville is located about 10 minutes from Princeton. We're actually on the same street, Route 206 So you 206 North, you hit Princeton in about 10 minutes. We're sort of right in the middle of the state. We are less than an hour from Philly, probably about 40 minutes. We are about 90 minutes from New York and less than about an hour from the Shore. Right. So we sort of have the best of both worlds, all worlds in our location, right? I would say Lawrenceville is very suburban. Suburban to country. There's definitely certain areas that you go within 10/15 minutes of us, are farm areas. Very low populated. Then there's definitely some more suburbia type areas as you go into Princeton. Then just South of us is Trenton. I think it's lovely. We have lots of social opportunities, social life opportunities for somebody who would be coming from out of state or out of the area. But again, we have a lot of commuters. We have people who are coming. I've had students from New York, I've had students from the Shore area, from South Jersey and from way into Pennsylvania. So we do attract a lot of different individuals from lots of different areas. We've had a few that have actually moved to New Jersey to come to Rider, which is always fun.

Shauna Costello (26:49):

Well, and yeah, and that's something I wanted to say too. I've mentioned this on a couple of the other New Jersey episodes, but I've been to New Jersey and it wasn't what I expected.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (27:02):

We are the garden state for a reason.

Shauna Costello (27:05):

Right.It's not just named that. It was actually beautiful and being over there on the East coast, like you mentioned, you are very close to all of these different things. You're really close to mountains if you really want to get to the mountains. You're really not that far from it. If you want a big city, you're really close. You want a beach? Great. Just head right over. I was pleasantly surprised by New Jersey. I will say that. We've kind of covered a lot. The one thing we haven't covered yet, you kind of mentioned it when we were talking about the different cohorts, but what does the application and or interview process look like?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (27:53):

We do have an interview as part of our application process. Applicants complete an online application process, and once admissions compiles everything, we do ask for two letters of recommendation. I like applicants who can get both, depending on their age, right? We do have some older applicants, but if you're coming right out of undergrad or have more recently been an undergrad, I think it's really important to have a professor from your undergrad, write a letter to speak to how you are as a student. Because then we get some information about that maybe what you were doing as an undergrad, a professor that you were interacting with a lot. Then if you've got work experience, if you've got experience in behavior analysis, which most of our applicants do, then we're really looking for a letter of recommendation from a supervisor. Preferably a behavior analyst that can speak to what you have been doing and how are you, if you're working in an RBT or similar type position. How are you doing in that position? So it's good to sort of have that picture and then there's a statement of interest or goals and objectives. I can't remember how admissions specifically words it, but again, as I read those, I'm looking, "Do you know what ABA is? Do you know what behavior analysis is? That's really what we're looking for. That's going to get you the interview, right? So that there's something going on, right in that combination of things that are going to get you the interview. Our application process does specify an undergrad GPA of 3.0, but I will dig, right? So I will dig and look to see, "Did you have that really awful freshman year?" and you climbed your way back out, but it might still be hovering just under there. I might look at  psych versus other classes, especially if you've been working in the field, right? And that's a big key. Definitely for somebody who's had a lot of work experience and may have gone to school 10 years before, I'm less concerned about the GPA. I may bring it up in the interview and talk a little bit about how your work experience might have changed. How you might be in the classroom now, but then the interview, we don't take too long in the interview. Usually around half an hour to speak to applicants. Again, we're looking to see, "Can you talk about behavior analysis or where is your sort of comprehension about it?" And can you talk about what you want to do with it? Those are the big pieces.

Shauna Costello (30:57):

I know that for the two different start dates for the cohort.. When are those application deadlines?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (31:05):

That's a great question. I think for May, we're looking for a February 1st deadline, and I think it's April 1st for September. We do really sort of have rolling admissions. So we'll cap both cohorts at 20. We've never had anywhere close to that in our May cohort. Whatever reason that tends to be a smaller cohort. Anywhere from 6 or 7 to about 13 or 14. We'll take up to 20 for the fall, but again, depending on who we speak to, who sort of fits. Some years we've made that decision by June or July. Other years, we might still do an interview in August. It really depends.

Shauna Costello (31:57):

Yeah and that's nice to hear too, though with the rolling admissions. I'm hearing that more and more and more from universities now as well. There's still those few big ones that are like, "Nope. By December 1st or December 15" and then there's a very daunting interview weekend after that. I'm liking this rolling admission thing and just from what I've heard from you today too, Rider is very flexible. They want to work with you. It sounds like you and the team really want to find people who are passionate about behavior analysis. About not even necessarily just clinical behavior analysis because of all of the faculty's interest in their research interests. And they really want to be able to kind of tailor not only the application and the interview process to those potential students, but also once they get into the program to really see okay, "what do you want to research?" Maybe you start off thinking clinical behavior analysis, but then once you start working with the faculty more, that can easily switch. So that's been really neat to hear as well.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (33:11):

Thank you. Yeah. I think our goal is to really train students to be good scientist practitioners. We know that the majority of our students are probably not going to go to PhD programs. Though we've had a number that have, but we want them to understand that they can do a really good job at changing people's behavior with their degree, with their certification once they've gotten that under their belt, right? Some of our graduates have been really successful. We have a number who have started their own companies and what's really cool now is that our program has been around long enough that some of our early graduates are actually supervising our current students. I think that's the coolest thing to see is that we've done a really good job with these people and now they're helping us train the next group of students. It's sort of fun when you're in class and your student brings up somebody's name and you're like, "Yup, yup. You know, they came to Rider, we trained them." We know that only a small portion of what you learn as a behavior analyst happens in the classroom, right? Being able to and because we don't have the clinic or anything like that, we push people out and say, "really get a good quality experience" and we talk to them a lot about what that looks like. So when we know that we can send someone to somebody that has been through the program already, we know that they're in pretty good hands, right? Especially now that they've trained a number of people and you're like, "okay, so you're good as a supervisor as well." And that's a huge piece.

Shauna Costello (34:59):

Well, that's neat too, because that's also showing though that your students who have graduated and moved on to these supervisory roles, that they also believe in the Rider program and they enjoyed their time in it. And they want to make sure that they're also supporting the current students and faculty that are in it as well. To continue to keep Rider what that same reputation is creating these science practitioners as well. So that's really, really neat to see. I know I enjoy supervising. It was something that I didn't necessarily think I would fall into, but I love it. I'm assuming that also happened for some of them.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (35:42):

Yes.

Shauna Costello (35:42):

We've covered a lot so far. Is there anything else? I want to make sure to ask. Is there anything else that you want to make sure to talk about?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (35:53):

I do. I want to talk a little bit about our partnership with PCDI. Princeton Child Development Institute.

Shauna Costello (36:00):

Yes, please!

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (36:00):

They are just down the road from us and our partnership with them is a little bit different. Any time we do a formal partnership through Rider and a program, and this is across Rider. Not just for behavior analysis programs, but those staff working at those organizations get a tuition discount. It's usually around 20%. So when we do that formal partnership, anyone who works at Bancroft can come to Rider and get a tuition discount. Anyone who works at PCDI and it doesn't have to be in the ABA program, it could be any undergrad or graduate. I think it's a really cool opportunity that Rider offers, because they're really big on community partnerships. PCDI, Dr. Greg MacDuff is the director over there and we initially set it up so that we could do a joint speaker series. So we do have a speaker series with them. We've had a number of local and a little more distant. Our first speaker that we pulled in was Dr. Phil Hinelein. He's from Temple University. He was one of my professors both in my master's and doctoral program. He sat on my dissertation committee when I was still a student and I was attending talks over there. It was great. It was great for him to come up. I don't even remember what he spoke on right now. It was a few years ago at this point.

Shauna Costello (37:59):

Its' okay. Trust me. I oversee all the CES for us too and they'll be like, "Do we have one on this?" and I'm like, "Um.. maybe". It's like there's over 130. I don't know. I completely understand.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (38:13):

Yeah, so we've also had SungWoo Kahng when he first came up to Rutgers. We pulled him over. Although we do have a very, I think New Jersey, like you said before, there's a lot of programs, but I think we're very collaborative in some ways. So that's nice to see. Our last one, which was last January or February... So before all this happened, we had Greg Hanley come do the training for us. He was consulting at PCDI and then we wrapped in the training piece. We've had some great speakers. There's been a few others and I hope that once things settle down and we're able to do more in-person things, we'll be able to start that back up again. Oh, Pat Friman was the other big one. He came and did two days with us. The other piece that was saying, sometimes we have those speakers speak at Rider. Sometimes we have them speak at PCDI. So depending on the number. Pat Friman was a great example, because we did one day, one evening. I think the Friday evening, a smaller group at PCDI and then the next day, a larger, more community, like open to more community people at Rider in a slightly bigger space. We were able to bring more people in. That's been a great opportunity and then the other thing that I wanted to mention was we are more recently starting to talk with Greg MacDuff about planning a certificate in adult programming. So, recognizing that one of the areas that is very much lacking is there's just a dearth of research for adults, right? Our autism population is aging and we don't have a really great set of best practices. Everything from choice and leisure and work experiences, employment, social skills, right? What do we need to do to get these individuals that we're working with in the best place that they can be? We need to train more behavior analysts in very specific adult literature and adult practices. That's sort of one of the projects that we're going to be working on.

Shauna Costello (40:52):

Well, that's so exciting because that was actually, when I was working in the clinical field, I actually really enjoyed working with the teenagers and the young adults. They were just, like hearing them talk, depending on where they were, just hearing them talk about what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go and the jobs they wanted and some of them were like, "I want to go to college" and I'm like, "That's great. There's actually this program I know about that you can apply to that it's more specific to some of the stuff that you will need and things like that." We have all of these clients, like you said, who are aging in and once they get to a certain age, it's kind of like, "Okay, great. Here's the door. See yourself out. We don't have insurance to cover these services for your age group anymore. You're not little anymore. You don't need services anymore."

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (41:55):

Right. That's a big piece of it, right? The funding issue and how funding changes once individuals turn 21. I think that the goal is to have a certificate program that either a student coming into our ABA program could sort of use their electives to do the certificate or, and having it stand alone. So if somebody had already gotten certified, but really wanted some specific training in working with adults, that we would be able to offer that as an add on for them. Greg wants to open up PCDI as a training ground and have people come take some data, do some internship there. They've been doing this for a long time at this point, and the client, most of the individuals that they have that are adults have been there since they were little. So they've learned a lot. I think there's a lot that he can offer us in terms of putting that together.

Shauna Costello (43:05):

Well, that's so exciting, and it's just been really great to hear, just learn on my end too. I really enjoy learning more about the programs that we have around the country, because I know that when I was going into grad school, I was at Western. So it was very easy for me to just throw all my eggs in one basket and stay at Western. I was there and this gets me motivated again, to go back and start learning more and going back for that PhD. Going back and doing different things. I've said this before already, but I'll never stop saying that, but you can really only learn so much from a website and until you really hear about a program and talk to somebody about a program, and I know this time has been a little bit more difficult, because there's almost no visiting. It's usually Zoom or phone calls and this is just another way for people to learn about Rider and learn about the unique things that are going on. So, I mean, thank you so much.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (44:11):

Thank you for talking about what we do.

Shauna Costello (44:15):

And one thing I always ask as well is I typically will put a contact in the description and so, is that all right with you if I include your contact information?

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (44:26):

Yeah. Definitely email. At some point where we're going to update the phone system soon where I can more easily check messages and stuff remotely, but it's not there yet.

Shauna Costello (44:42):

Just send an email if you have any questions.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (44:44):

Just know if you call, I'm not answering.

Shauna Costello (44:48):

Yep. I know for me too email is probably the best way to get a hold of me anyway. So yes, if anybody has any questions, I will of course include your email in the podcast episode description. If you don't have anything else, thank you so much.

Dr. Frances Perrin-English (45:06):

This has been fun.

Shauna Costello (45:07):

Thank you for listening to this episode of the university series. And as always, if you have questions, feedback, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to us at operantinnovations@atabatechnologies.com.