Wayne Fisher, PhD

Wayne Fisher, PhDWayne Fisher, PhD, is the Henry Rutgers Endowed Professor of Pediatrics in the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a core faculty member of the Brain Health Institute. He is also the inaugural director of the Rutgers University Center for Autism Research, Education, and Service (RU-CARES), a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctoral level (BCBA-D), and a licensed psychologist. He was previously a tenured professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where he built clinical-research programs in autism and developmental disabilities with international reputations for excellence. Fisher’s methodologically sophisticated research has focused on several intersecting lines, including preference assessment, choice responding, and the assessment and treatment of autism and severe behavior disorders, that have been notable for the creative use of concurrent schedules of reinforcement, which have become more commonplace in clinical research primarily as a result of his influence. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in over 30 different behavioral and/or medical journals, including: the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis; Psychological Reports; American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities; Pediatrics; the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders; the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics; and The Lancet. Fisher has had near-continuous federal grant support for his research for over 20 years. He is a past editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, a past president of the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (SEAB), and a fellow in the Association for Behavior Analysis International. His is the recipient of (a) the Bush Leadership Award; (b) the American Psychological Association (APA), Division 25 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Behavioral Research; (c) the UNMC Distinguished Scientist Award; (d) the University of Nebraska system-wide Award for Outstanding Research and Creativity Activity; (e) the SEAB, Don Hake Translational Research Award from Division 25 of the APA, and (f) the Outstanding Mentor of Graduate Students Award from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Research Publications

Select Publications

  • Fisher, W. W., Luczynski, K. C., Blowers, A. P., Vosters, M. E., Pisman, M. D., Craig, A. R., Hood, S. A., Machado, M. A., Lesser, A. D., & Piazza, C. C. (in press). Randomized clinical trial of a virtual-training program for teaching applied-behavior-analysis skills to parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.
  • Owen, T. M., Fisher, W. W., Akers, J. S., Sullivan, W. E., Falcomata, T. S., Greer, B. D., ... & Zangrillo, A. N. (2020). Treating destructive behavior reinforced by increased caregiver compliance with the participant's mands. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. First published online: 19 January 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.674
  • Fisher, W. W., Fuhrman, A. M., Greer, B. D., Mitteer, D. R., & Piazza, C. C. (2020). Mitigating resurgence of destructive behavior using the discriminative stimuli of a multiple schedule. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 113(1), 263-277. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.552
  • Fisher, W. W., Felber, J. M., Phillips, L. A., Craig, A. R., Paden, A. R., & Niemeier, J. J. (2019). Treatment of resistance to change in children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 52(4),974-993. https://doi: 10.1002/jaba.588
  • Fisher, W. W., Retzlaff, B. J., Akers, J. S., DeSouza, A. A., & Kaminski, A. J. (2019). Establishing initial auditory-visual conditional discriminations in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 52, 1089–1106. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.586
  • Briggs, A. M., Fisher, W. W., Greer, B. D., & Kimball, R. T. (2018). Prevalence of resurgence of destructive behavior when thinning reinforcement schedules during functional communication training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 51, 620-633. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.472
  • Saini, V., Fisher, W. W., & Retzlaff, B. J. (2018). Predictive validity and efficiency of ongoing visual-inspection criteria for interpreting functional analyses. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 51, 303-320. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaba.450/full
  • DeSouza, A. A., Fisher, W. W., & Rodriguez, N. M. (2018). Facilitating the emergence of convergent intraverbals in children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 52, 28-49. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.520
  • Fisher, W. W., Greer, B. D., Mitteer, D. R., Fuhrman, A. M., Romani, P. W., & Zangrillo, A. N. (2018). Further evaluation of differential exposure to establishing operations during functional communication training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 51, 360-373. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jaba.451
  • Fisher, W. W., Greer, B. D., Craig, A. R., Retzlaff, B. J., Fuhrman, A. M., & Lichtblau, K. R. (2018). On the predictive validity of behavioral momentum theory for mitigating resurgence of problem behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 109, 281-290. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jeab.303

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