Hi all,
Sorry I have been absent. My wife and baby-to-be are fine, but baby
is impatient like her Daddy and is trying to come out to this world
a little early. That has kept me very busy.
I read the posts on the FIAT and FAPRS. Here's what I can say about
the FIAT.

I have worked on this idiographic system for a very long time, and
it has real advantages and some problems. I am happy to provide it
to those who request if from me specifically. I don't want it on the
website yet. I have had the great fortune of woring with Jonathan
Kanter on the FAPRS and FIAT, and I look forward to years of
collaboration with him and with all FAP-minded people out there. I
think what we are trying to do is unique and very important to the
field of behavioral therapies, if not psychotherapy.

Herein is the problem; what we are doing is unique and actually
requires a very thoughtful approach to the question of assessment
and measurement. The issue of parametrics is a tough one, and I have
been fortunate in the kind of job I have that I can explore these
issues and still have a job to go to without having to solve them
and publish quickly.

The FIAT is, at risk of tooting my own horn,
the most innovative assessment idea I have worked on. It seeks to
create unique tailored individual assments using a common language
for problems but attempts to retain the idiographic analysis of each
person.

In other words, the FIAT is attempting to capture what is important
about
behavior analysis and behavioral assessment, more specifically
funcitonal analysis and provide a common language to do this. At
least, I am trying to do this by starting with FAP. I have already
started using it for interpersonal problems assessed and treated
bheaivorally and congitive behaviorally (you heard it here, I am
still involved with the C part of CBT) including depression and
PTSD.

Now the big problem we all know about (as does Haynes, not
necessarily Hayes, and others) is that funcitonal and idiographic
analyses creat apples and oranges comparison problems. This means
that standard approaches to psychometrics such as basic measures of
reliability will struggle.

Here is the point I want to make though: This is a problem with the
metrics we imported into psychotherapy research. Reliability MUST be
addressed differently for this kind of work. The failure of the FIAT
to get reliability at this stage is possibly the insturment, but
also the metric we use to assess the instrument. In no way am I
saying the instrument is unflawed. It is being revised as each
researcher tries to use it.

I am saying that our measures of reliability are flawed. I spent 3
years creating a questionnaire version of the FIAT, we call (not so
cleverly) the FIAT-Q. This instrument has great psychometrics with
respect to internal consistency and convergent and disciminant
validity. I began to write it up and realized the FIAT-Q actually
gets me and the users further away from the purpose of the FIAT,
namely idiographic assessment. Instead, the insturment is attempting
to be normed, and is, in essence, nomothetic. I only use the Q as a
set of quesitons to get me to the FIAT and the ongoing assessment of
my clients.

OK, so that was a lot. To summarize:
Idiographic hard
FIAT good, but challenges exist
Standard, nomothetic assessments not bad, but not good for behavior
analysts
FIAT Q good by normal standards, bad for us

Now, I should say, "any thoughts?"

Glenn