I first heard Brian speak at an American Psychological Association (APA) conference in the early 1980s. I knew immediately that his presentation had completely altered the course of my career.

My research at that time was devoted to vocational skill training and supported employment. Although this research program was successful, there was a definite disconnect between my research and clinical practice. Clinically, I directed two outpatient clinics in Pediatrics and the Center for Disabilities and Development at the University of Iowa that focused on children (with and without developmental disabilities) and adults (with developmental disabilities) who displayed severe challenging behavior. In my research programs, I had a strong knowledge base in skill training that allowed us to train most clients to complete job tasks successfully. In contrast, my knowledge base for assessing and treating challenging behavior was lacking. I had no idea what could be done in a 90-min outpatient clinic appointment, especially because most families came to the clinic only once or twice.

During his talk, Brian introduced the audience to the concept of function and how function could be the basis of treatment. I had never heard of “functional analysis” as an assessment procedure and had only rarely used multielement designs. I found myself taking pages of notes on both the procedures and the analysis of those procedures, and for the first time in my career, I was excited to conduct the assessments in the clinic. I remember calling my colleague, Wendy Berg, and discussing how important it was for us to bring Brian to Iowa. He was the best presenter I had ever heard, and I knew that for us to conduct these evaluations in our clinics, the medical staff would have to be “on board.” Who better than Brian to present Grand Rounds and describe functional analysis to the pediatrics faculty and staff? Later that day at APA, I asked him if he would spend three days presenting Grand Rounds and consulting with faculty, staff, and students. We had about $75 to pay him for this multiday commitment. He immediately agreed.

And so began my 30-year career as a function-based researcher. But it was not simply procedures I learned from Brian. It was how to be an original empirical researcher—Brian's term for describing his work—practicing in a medical setting. Brian's research and clinical practice at the John F. Kennedy Institute (later, renamed the Kennedy Krieger Institute) were fully integrated, and we followed that model for the remainder of my career. We embraced “unknowns” as research challenges. For example, after many mistakes, we launched our brief functional analysis procedures and published our results. He taught me how to blend teaching into my research and clinical programs. He described how graduate students and interns could help expand our services while learning from more senior students, staff, and faculty. Again, I followed this teaching model for the remainder of my career.

Yes, Brian could be very critical, and more often than I would like to admit had “corrective feedback” for me to consider. But he was also the most supportive person in the field as we developed our clinical research program. For example, he agreed to serve as the discussant on our first symposium presentation on brief functional analysis at the Association for Behavior Analysis International. He had injured his knee, and so he sat in the front row with his leg extended while we presenters sat on a stage directly in front of him. Linda Cooper presented our most “radical” work, our brief functional analysis conducted with typically developing children. She described how we conducted the assessments within 90 min, with single-data-point conditions and with the manipulations involving antecedent variables and appropriate behavior. I clearly remember his immediate “thumbs up” reaction to her and then saying that he was pleased to see how far we could take his original model and still make it work. He mentioned something similar in a letter of support he wrote for my promotion to Full Professor.

Hundreds of us could have written similar comments about Brian. I am not sure how anyone could have had a more positive influence on the field of applied behavior analysis. He was, without a doubt, the premiere original empirical researcher of his generation in applied behavior analysis. In fact, if you look at his impact factor and compare it to former presidents of APA, you could make the case that he was one of the top empirical researchers in all of psychology.

我第一次听到 Brian 的演讲是在 20 世纪 80 年代初的美国心理学会 (APA) 会议上。我立即意识到他的演讲完全改变了我的职业生涯。

我当时的研究方向是职业技能培训和支持就业。尽管这个研究计划很成功，但我的研究和临床实践之间存在明显的脱节。在临床上，我指导了爱荷华大学儿科和残疾与发展中心的两个门诊诊所，重点关注表现出严重挑战性行为的儿童（有或没有发育障碍）和成人（有发育障碍）。在我的研究项目中，我在技能培训方面拥有强大的知识基础，使我们能够培训大多数客户成功完成工作任务。相比之下，我缺乏评估和处理挑战性行为的知识库。我不知道 90 分钟的门诊预约能做什么，尤其是因为大多数家庭只来诊所一两次。

在演讲中，布莱恩向观众介绍了功能的概念以及功能如何成为治疗的基础。我从未听说过“功能分析”作为评估程序，也很少使用多元素设计。我发现自己对手术和这些手术的分析做了几页笔记，这是我职业生涯中第一次，我很高兴能够在诊所进行评估。我记得打电话给我的同事温迪·伯格，讨论了将布莱恩带到爱荷华州对我们来说有多么重要。他是我听过的最好的演讲者，我知道我们要在诊所进行这些评估，医务人员必须“参与其中”。谁能比 Brian 更好地向儿科教职员工介绍大查房并描述功能分析？那天晚些时候，在 APA，我问他是否愿意花三天时间介绍 Grand Rounds 并向教职员工和学生提供咨询。我们有大约 75 美元来支付他这个多天的承诺。他立即同意了。

我作为一名基于功能的研究员，就这样开始了 30 年的职业生涯。但这不仅仅是我从布莱恩那里学到的程序。这是如何成为一名原创的实证研究人员——布莱恩用来描述他的工作的术语——在医疗环境中实践。布莱恩在约翰·F·肯尼迪研究所（后来更名为肯尼迪·克里格研究所）的研究和临床实践完全融为一体，我们在余下的职业生涯中都遵循这种模式。我们将“未知”视为研究挑战。例如，在多次错误之后，我们启动了简短的功能分析程序并发布了我们的结果。他教我如何将教学融入我的研究和临床项目。他描述了研究生和实习生如何帮助扩大我们的服务，同时向更多高年级学生、员工和教员学习。在我余下的职业生涯中，我再次遵循这种教学模式。

是的，布莱恩可能非常挑剔，而且经常有“纠正反馈”供我考虑，这比我愿意承认的要多。但在我们开发临床研究项目时，他也是该领域最支持的人。例如，他同意担任我们在国际行为分析协会举办的首次简明功能分析研讨会演讲的讨论者。他的膝盖受伤了，所以他坐在前排，伸着腿，而我们主持人则坐在他正前方的舞台上。琳达·库珀介绍了我们最“激进”的工作，即我们对典型发育儿童进行的简短功能分析。她描述了我们如何在 90 分钟内使用单数据点条件以及涉及先行变量和适当行为的操作进行评估。我清楚地记得他立即对她做出了“竖起大拇指”的反应，然后说他很高兴看到我们可以把他的原始模型带到多远，并且仍然能够发挥作用。他在一封为我晋升正教授而写的支持信中提到了类似的内容。

我们数百人可能会对布莱恩写过类似的评论。我不确定如何才能对应用行为分析领域产生更积极的影响。毫无疑问，他是他这一代应用行为分析领域首屈一指的原创实证研究者。事实上，如果你看看他的影响因子并将其与 APA 前任主席进行比较，你就可以证明他是所有心理学领域最顶尖的实证研究人员之一。