David Leach

The changing age structure of the population and its potential impact on government provisions for healthcare has focused attention on the development of appropriate policies and services. In particular, there has been an emphasis on preventative measures. Hence significant resources are being directed towards research and other initiatives, such as media campaigns, that aim to encourage older people to adopt healthier and more active lifestyles. However, improving the wellbeing of older people involves arranging supportive contexts for behaviour change, including their self-management of more active behaviours. This symposium outlines the development and evaluation of a comprehensive, home-based intervention founded on behaviour change principles that targeted increasing healthy activities in older people. Papers will describe components of our Back for Action Program (BAP) specifically, selecting and measuring the type and frequency of daily activities, evaluating generalized benefits to health and wellbeing, and assessing the utility of feedback, behaviour activation and self-management as behaviour change strategies. Single-case studies will be presented to illustrate the implementation of the bap in a West-Australian community. These four papers provide a novel perspective on ways of increasing the ‘healthy aging’ activities of people over 70 years.

Despite considerable resources being directed towards healthy living initiatives and mass media campaigns urging older people to adopt more physically active lifestyles, 75.2% of Australians over the age of 65 were considered “sedentary” in a recent National Heath Survey (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). Improving the health and wellbeing of older people involves arranging supportive contexts and self-management of more physically active behaviours – an area that has received surprisingly little attention by behaviour analysts.This paper explores mainstream, approaches to increasing the healthy activities of older people, gives the rationale for a comprehensive, home-based behavioural program, and presents a behaviour analytic perspective as it pertains to the future of health promotion and healthy living initiatives for older people.

ADHD remains controversial in both its diagnosis and its treatment. Currently, diagnosis and assessment of ADHD rely on the use of questionnaires, rating scales, evaluation based on DSM-IV criteria, and continuous performance tests, all of which have their own weaknesses. This paper reports on the development of the Test of Attention Impulsivity and Hyperactivity in Children (TAIH-C), a standardised, behaviour based assessment of attention impulsivity and hyperactivity in children with ADHD. We present individual and group data on children independently diagnosed with ADHD and nonADHD classroom peers, to validate the implementation of the TAIH-C as a valuable tool in both diagnosing ADHD and designing precise.

The TAIH-C measures impulsivity and hyperactivity independently. The two impulsivity measures are based on research into the measurement of temporal discounting. Essentially they assess the psychological construct of impulsivity, which we define as the preference for smaller, more immediate reinforcers over larger, delayed reinforcers. The two scales assess impulsivity and its opposite, self-control in the context of choice between positive reinforcers and choice between negative reinforcers. Measures of hyperactivity are taken under the standardised conditions of the attention tasks (as described in paper one) using a micro­ processing motion detection device. In this paper, the performance on both impulsivity scales, and on the hyperactivity measures, of children independently diagnosed with ADHD are compared to those of non-ADHD peers.

The Test of Attention Impulsivity and Hyperactivity in Children (TAIH-C) measures auditory and visual attention independently. The measures are based on a multifactorial model of attention, incorporating General Alertness, Sustained Attention Vigilance, Selective Attention and Divided Attention. They are designed to be free of academic knowledge; culture, gender and age bias. Practice effects are minimal and the attention tasks increase incrementally in difficulty. The two attention scales of the TAIH-C are designed to discriminate between children ranging in age from 6-16 years. In this paper, the performance on both attention scales of children independently diagnosed with ADHD is compared to that of non-ADHD peers.