Dr. Robert Isenhower

Robert W. Isenhower, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP), where he teaches graduate courses in the MABA, MAP, and Clinical PsyD programs. He also serves as the Director of Graduate Student Training at the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center (DDDC). In this role, Dr. Isenhower oversees the BACB-supervised fieldwork program and coordinates clinical training systems that prepare graduate students to deliver high-quality, evidence-based services across educational and clinical settings. He earned his doctorate in experimental psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2010. He has over 10 years of graduate teaching experience and more than 15 years of experience working with autistic individuals and others with developmental disabilities across clinical, school, and home-based settings.

Dr. Isenhower is a behavior analyst whose work focuses on assessment and instructional practices for these populations, as well as staff training systems that support high-quality service delivery. His scholarship emphasizes integrating experimental rigor and applied relevance, with an emphasis on developing practical tools and systems to support learner outcomes, treatment integrity, and staff performance. He is particularly interested in approaches that enhance quality of life, promote meaningful engagement, and are responsive to the contexts in which services are delivered.

Dr. Isenhower’s work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Analysis in Practice, Journal of Behavioral Education, and Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. He has presented invited talks, workshops, and symposia at state, national, and international conferences, including those hosted by the Association for Behavior Analysis International, the New Jersey Association for Behavior Analysis, and Autism New Jersey.

In addition to his academic and clinical training roles, Dr. Isenhower currently serves as President-Elect of the New Jersey Association for Behavior Analysis, where he is engaged in initiatives to expand access to training, strengthen mentorship pipelines, and promote a more culturally and contextually responsive workforce. Across his roles, he is committed to advancing the scientist-practitioner model through integrated research, graduate training, and professional leadership.

Dr. Isenhower’s translational research program centers on advancing the science and application of behavior analysis to improve meaningful, socially significant outcomes for autistic individuals with high support needs. His work focuses on developing assessment and intervention systems that enhance sustained engagement, skill acquisition, and quality of life, particularly among historically underrepresented populations.

A primary area of his research involves the development of component-based leisure and engagement assessments to identify environmental and task variables that support durable, self-directed participation. This work integrates aspects of preference assessment, stimulus control, and environmental arrangement to better understand how engagement can be established and maintained over time.

A second line of research focuses on advancing preference and reinforcer assessment methodologies, including the use of progressive response effort and behavioral economic approaches to evaluate reinforcer value and choice-making. This work aims to refine how practitioners identify and validate effective reinforcers under ecologically relevant conditions.

Dr. Isenhower also examines instructional design within discrete-trial and structured teaching formats, with an emphasis on stimulus control, error correction, and the efficient establishment of complex repertoires. Complementing this work, he studies the application of behavioral skills training (BST) to improve staff performance, treatment integrity, and the acquisition of clinically relevant professional skills, with attention to scalable and sustainable training models.

Across these areas, his research is guided by a commitment to bridging basic and applied science and to developing tools that are both experimentally sound and feasible for implementation in real-world educational and clinical contexts.

LaRue, R. H., Isenhower, R. W., & Iannaccone, J. (2026). Assessment and intervention for individuals with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In Clinical and organizational applications of applied behavior analysis (pp. 97–114). Academic Press.

Isenhower, R. W., LaRue, R. H., Budge, J. L., & Maraventano, J. C. (2025). A component-based leisure activity assessment for adults with autism spectrum disorder: A preliminary investigation. Behavior Analysis in Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-025-01071-y

Lauderdale-Littin, S., Isenhower, R. W., Sloman, K. N., & Dashow, E. (2024). Using programmed schedules of reinforcement to increase the variability of reinforcer delivery in classroom assistant-implemented variable ratio schedules. Behavior Analysis in Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-024-00963-9

Kodak, T., Bergmann, S., Cordeiro, M. C., Bamond, M. J., Isenhower, R. W., & Fiske, K. E. (2022). Replication of a skills assessment for auditory–visual conditional discrimination training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 55(2), 622–638. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.915

Delisio, L. A., & Isenhower, R. W. (2020). Using video prompts to promote independent behavior in students with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Special Education Technology, 35(3), 167–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162643419836415

Fiske, K. E., Isenhower, R. W., Bamond, M. J., & Lauderdale-Littin, S. (2020). An analysis of the value of token reinforcement using a multiple-schedule assessment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 53(1), 563–571. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.610

Isenhower, R. W., Delmolino, L., Fiske, K. E., Bamond, M. J., & Leaf, J. B. (2018). Assessing the need for active student response during error correction in discrete trial training. Journal of Behavioral Education, 27(2), 262–278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-017-9284-7

Dr. Isenhower’s expertise lies at the intersection of applied behavior analysis, behavioral assessment, instructional design, and professional training systems. His work focuses on preference and reinforcer assessment methodologies, including the development of novel approaches to evaluating reinforcer value and choice-making. His scholarship also emphasizes the development of component-based and environmentally informed assessment strategies to support sustained engagement and improved quality of life for autistic individuals with high support needs. His work also incorporates concepts from ecological psychology, particularly affordance-based perspectives, to examine how environmental features and task variables influence engagement and functional behavior.

His expertise extends to instructional design within discrete-trial and structured teaching formats, with strengths in stimulus control, error correction, and the efficient establishment of complex repertoires. In parallel, he has significant experience in applying behavioral skills training (BST) to improve staff performance, treatment integrity, and the acquisition of clinically relevant skills across educational and clinical settings. His work spans school- and clinic-based settings and adult service contexts, with a focus on translating behavioral science into practical, scalable systems that support both learners and practitioners.

In addition, Dr. Isenhower has extensive experience in graduate training and supervision, including the design and oversight of BACB-aligned fieldwork systems, competency-based training models, and performance feedback systems. His broader professional work includes program development, implementation support, and leadership within applied service organizations, with a commitment to advancing evidence-based, contextually responsive practices across the field.

Graduate courses include (program affiliation noted in parentheses):

• Theoretical and Philosophical Foundations of Behavior Analysis (MABA)
• Applications of Behavior Analytic Principles: Skills Assessment and Instructional Strategies (MABA)
• Applications of Behavior Analytic Principles: Functional Assessment and Treatment Development (MABA)
• Introduction to Analysis and Single Case Design (MABA)
• Statistical Methods and Research Design (MAP)
• Cognitive and Affective Psychology (Clinical PsyD)

Dr. Isenhower also leads first-year BACB supervision group meetings at the DDDC and serves as a thesis chair and mentor for master’s-level students in the MABA program. 

Professor of the Year for Excellence in Teaching, Applied Department, GSAPP, Rutgers University (2025)