Hey everybody. As was said, I'm Robert Perry Cruz, and we are here today to talk about why behavior analysts should study attendance, the example of school refusal, with thanks to

Freeman Hayes and Wilson for their why behavior analyst should study emotions.

So we already had a great introduction, so we don't need to belabor the point too long on who we are.

But there we are at a previous Thompson Center event.

We want to say big thanks again to the Thompson Center for inviting us back.

Every year we've done a talk, we say, I wonder if this is the one where they realize they don't

have to keep inviting us back, but hopefully that won't be the case today.

So we're very happy to be here to talk about a subject that many of you, show of hands,

how many of you came here because you actively are

supporting families and schools with school attendance problems and you're hoping to get all the

answers today? Okay, we got a good amount of hands. All right. How many of you came because you

said, I've never heard of this, I just want to hear about what the heck this is and why I, as

a behavior analyst or practitioner

and related field should know about it.

Okay, so mostly people who've heard about it some and then some who have never heard about it

before.

So great, that's our goal today.

For us, how did we learn about school attendance problems?

Jackie and Diana, I don't want to answer for you, but I'm

pretty sure you learned about it because I said, hey, this is a problem I'm having, and then we

talked about it, and then we had done a couple episodes about it in the past on the show.

For me, it was like many of you, hey, there's a giant problem. I work in a school system,

...