Introduction of Dr. Susan Friedman and the ABC’s of behavior
by Brenda Collins
There are times in your life when you meet a person and realize at that moment your life will be better because of the encounter. One such person is Dr. Susan Friedman, PhD. Dr. Friedman is a professor of psychology at Utah State University. I had the great fortune of meeting Susan last fall (2003) when she was a guest speaker at our local bird club. I was so impressed with what she had to say that I wanted to learn more from her. She suggested that I take her on-line coarse called Living and Learning with Parrots (LLP). What an amazing class! LLP is a seven week coarse that teaches the Science of Applied Behavior Analysis. Susan started this program with the hope to provide companion parrot owners with the tools needed to successfully live with their birds. Being an owner of four parrots herself, she was aghast at the abundance of incorrect and many times dangerous advice floating around the parrot community. Most of the "popular" parrot behavioral training techniques are based on personal recipes, untested stories and out-right myths. Many of the current "Parrot Behaviorlists" totally ignore the validated scientific facts of behavior.
Susan teaches the ABC's of Behavior. It is neccessary to understand that all behavior has function. There is never just behavior; there is always a cause or Antecedent that influences a Behavior, and a Consequence that reinforces or maintains the behavior. Through her coarse, Susan teaches the tool of Functional Analysis (FA). The value of FA with our birds is that it allows us to determine the function of our parrot's behavior by identifying the antecedents and consequences related to the bird's behavior. Once that is done we can go about changing those antecedents and/or consequences (with positive reinforcement) in order to change or prevent problem behaviors in our birds. Many times what we discover through FA is that it's not the bird we need to change, but ourselves.
Now it is time to turn you over to the real teacher! Susan graciously has given me permission to post some of her articles. I sincerely hope that you read her articles and spread the word, so more parrot owners can benefit from Susan's teachings. I highly recommend you sign up for Susan's LLP coarse. You'll come away forever changed in how you interact with your parrots.
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