Dr. RuthAnne Rehfeldt is the Executive Director for Clinical Services at Emergent Learning Centers. She is also an adjunct instructor for Endicott College. Ruth Anne is a Contextual Behavior Scientist whose current interests focus on cultivating Prosocial repertoires in autistic individuals and persons with other developmental disabilities. Her research on Prosocial is currently of three veins: 1) establishing basic cooperation, social, and leisure skills in individuals with severe developmental disabilities and the concomitant effects on indicators of happiness; 2) investigating the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on values-driven social behaviors related to friendship and relationship-building; and 3) examining the relationship between deictic relational operants (often understood as perspective-taking) and prosocial behavior. Ruth Anne is a passionate lover of classical music, and as a musician herself has as a secondary interest exploring the role of relational responding in music.

Dr. Rehfeldt has published nearly 300 articles and book chapters in behavior analysis, most of which have focused upon language interventions for persons with developmental disabilities and have encompassed Relational Frame Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. She co-edited a book with Yvonne Barnes-Holmes entitled, “Derived Relational Responding: Applications for Learners with Autism and other Developmental Disabilities (2009),” a text entitled, “Applied Behavior Analysis of Language and Cognition,” with Mitch Fryling, Jonathan Tarbox, and Linda Hayes as co-editors (2020), and a recent text with Traci Cihon and Erin Rasmussen as co-editors entitled, “Women in Behavior Science: Observations on Life Inside and Outside the Academy” (2023). Dr. Rehfeldt served as the Editor and business manager for The

Psychological Record for 12 years, a journal started by J. R. Kantor and for which B. F. Skinner was one of the first editorial board members. She is or has been an editorial board member for a number of prominent behavior analytic journals, including Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Ruth Anne has held a number of leadership positions within the Association for Behavior Analysis International, including serving as Program Chair for the ABAI Annual Autism Convention for a number of years, an at-large representative on the ABAI Council, and ABAI and SABA Presidents. Dr. Rehfeldt was a Professor in the Behavior Analysis and Therapy program at Southern Illinois University for twenty years, where she won a number of teaching and research awards and served as PI on several state and federal autism-related grants. She also served as Professor and Chair at the Chicago School in Chicago. Some recent accomplishments include being awarded Fellow designation for both the Associations for Behavior Analysis International and Contextual Behavior Science, designations awarded for exemplary contributions in the areas of research and scholarship, service, and teaching.