Enhancing Supervision through Compassion: Registered Behavior Technicians’ Perceptions of their Supervision by Board Certified Behavior Analysts

Identifying potential qualities and corresponding behaviors that contribute to effective behavior analytic service delivery may assist practitioners in strengthening their behavioral repertoire and overall client/family/staff outcomes. Credentialed (Board Certified Behavior Analyst – Doctoral or Board Certified Behavior Analyst) individuals practicing outside of the United States of America, and award-winning behavior analysts in the field, were presented with the Exemplary Behavior Analyst Checklist (EBAC; Zayac et al., 2021) and rated the extent to which they believed exemplary behavior analysts display each quality and engage in the associated behaviors. Respondents also selected a “top 10” list of the qualities they believe are important to being/becoming an exemplary behavior analyst. Comparisons of these rankings are made to prior research on the EBAC along with a discussion about the implications for training and continued applications of the EBAC in the field. Limitations of the current studies are identified as well as useful recommendations for future research.

In the United States school system, there is an increasing number of students who need behavioral support. Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) utilize the science of applied behavior analysis and are uniquely qualified to provide such support. However, for many reasons, BCBAs may not have the knowledge and skills to capitalize on their services in schools, including collaboration skills that can result in goals, intervention procedures, and outcomes that are not socially and ecologically valid. The current article provides a transdisciplinary model of school-based collaboration for BCBAs to maximize the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in schools. Adapted for school-based BCBAs from Boyer and Thompson's (2014) transdisciplinary model, the current model includes the elements of (a) extending BCBAs’ knowledge regarding school systems, (b) establishing rapport with team members, (c) enriching team members’ understanding of everyone’s role and expectations, and (d) exchanging feedback and praise.

Behavior analysts are not recognized or regulated as a distinct profession in Europe. For the most part, European behavior analysts adhered to the standards set by the U.S.-based Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). However, the BACB certification has not been recognized officially in any European jurisdiction. The recent decision by the BACB to discontinue eligibility of non-U.S. residents to apply for the BCBA exam by the end of 2022 has brought the issue of professional regulation outside of the United States into sharp focus. This article offers a snapshot in time of professional recognition of behavior analysts in 21 European countries. It stems from the Erasmus+ funded EuroBA project and its Professional Advisory Group (PAG). The EuroBA project aims to develop common standards and competences for behavior analysts to facilitate national regulation and mutual recognition across Europe.

Chapter 1 - Introduction to applied behavior analysis, ethics, and core ethical principles

The importance of family engagement in their children’s education and treatment is emphasized by researchers, professional organizations, and legislatures. Providing services with caregivers via telepractice has gained more support and is becoming especially timely due to the current pandemic and social distancing requirements. Professionals, such as board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs), who work with caregivers with children with disabilities may benefit from receiving professional development on strategies for building better rapport with caregivers and coaching them to bring about maximum clinical efficacy. The current pilot study replicated an earlier study by Meadan et al. to examine the effects of the Coaching Caregiver Professional Development (CoCarePD) intervention package, in which BCBAs received training and coaching from researchers via telepractice, on their caregiver coaching practices. A single-case, multiple-probe design study across three BCBAs was conducted, and findings support a functional relationship between the CoCarePD and BCBAs’ use of coaching practices.

Researchers and clinicians have successfully demonstrated the use of telehealth in supporting parents to conduct functional analyses (FAs) and subsequent functional communication training (FCT). We replicated and extended previous research by utilizing telehealth to train an existing Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Behavior Specialist to support parent implementation of behavioral procedures. Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) coached the existing Behavior Specialist via telehealth, who in turn trained and supported parents to conduct FAs and implement FCT in a community clinic. In four children, 3 years of age and younger, the function of challenging behavior was successfully identified according to a multielement research design. Challenging behavior reduced, and the selected appropriate communication response increased for all participants, evaluated using an AB research design. This study provides initial evidence that parents in rural settings can successfully implement assessment and intervention procedures with the support of an existing ECSE Behavior Specialist receiving coaching from BCBAs via telehealth.

The increasing demand for behavior analytic services and the number of individuals pursuing credentials to provide these services evoke questions regarding certification and how the requirements for becoming a Board Certified Behavior Analyst® (BCBA®) compare with those for other professions. In this paper, we compared licensure and board certification requirements across similar behavioral health professions (i.e., behavior analysis, clinical social work, educational psychology, marriage and family therapy, and clinical psychology) and found that the minimum requirements for certification of behavior analysts were commensurate. We discuss the implications of our comparisons for practitioners, consumers, and the field and offer some recommendations for future consideration.

Risk-benefit analyses are essential in the decision-making process when selecting the most effective and least restrictive assessment and treatment options for our clients. Clinical expertise, informed by the client's preferences and the research literature, is needed in order to weigh the potential detrimental effects of a procedure against its expected benefits. Unfortunately, safety recommendations pertaining to functional analyses (FAs) are scattered or not consistently reported in the literature, which could lead some practitioners to misjudge the risks of FA. We surveyed behavior analysts to determine their perceived need for a risk assessment tool to evaluate risks prior to conducting an FA. In a sample of 664 Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA-Ds), 96.2% reported that a tool that evaluated the risks of proceeding with an FA would be useful for the professional practice of applied behavior analysis. We then developed an interactive tool to assess risk, which provides suggestions to mitigate the risks of an FA and validity recommendations. Subsequently, an expert panel of 10 BCBA-Ds reviewed the tool. Experts suggested that it was best suited as an instructional resource for those learning about the FA process and as a supporting resource for early practitioners' clinical decision making.

The practice of behavior analysis has become a booming industry with growth to over 30,000 Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who primarily work with children with autism and their families. Most of these BCBAs are relatively novice and have likely been trained in graduate programs that focus primarily on conceptual and technical skills. Successfully working with families of children with autism, however, requires critical interpersonal skills, as well as technical skills. As practitioners strive to respond efficiently and compassionately to distressed families of children with autism, technical skills must be balanced with fluency in relationship-building skills that strengthen the commitment to treatment. The current article provides an outline of important therapeutic relationship skills that should inform the repertoire of any practicing behavior analyst, strategies to cultivate and enhance those skills, and discussion of the potential effects of relationship variables on treatment outcomes.

Successfully working with families of children with autism requires technical behavior-analytic skills and critical interpersonal relationship-building skills. Taylor, LeBlanc, and Nosik (2018) suggested that many Board Certified Behavior Analysts might have been trained in graduate programs that focus primarily on conceptual and technical skills with little coverage of skills related to building therapeutic relationships. The current paper provides the results of an online survey of the precredential and postcredential training experiences of behavior analysts. The majority of behavior analysts surveyed indicated that they received no explicit didactic training or reading assignments on relationship-building skills in their graduate coursework in behavior analysis. Approximately half indicated that their practical experience supervisor provided guidance and mentoring on these skills. The majority of behavior analysts indicated that it is very important or extremely important that professional training programs develop formal training in this area.

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (2020) guides our practice and our professional responsibilities, and some certificants of the BACB may experience possible conflict between engaging in ethical practice and organizational policies at their place of employment (Greeny et al. Behavior Analysis: Research & Practice, 22(4), 368-381, 2022). An ethics coordinator (Brodhead & Higbee, Behavior Analysis in Practice, 5(2), 82-88, 2012), ethics committee (Cox, Behavior Analysis in Practice, 13(4), 939-949, 2020), or ethics network (LeBlanc et al., Behavior Analysis in Practice, 13(4), 905-913, 2020) could help mitigate such conflict. In this article, we described the formation of our organizational ethics network, based on the network developed by LeBlanc et al. (Behavior Analysis in Practice, 13(4), 905-913, 2020). We also reported on the use of our ethics hotline during the first year of the network, showcasing the possible cross-level and cross-departmental collaboration with occasional organizational change that occurred related to situations submitted to the ethics hotline. We concluded with our reflections and considerations for other practitioners or organizations who want to establish an ethics network.

This chapter describes ethical considerations for behavior analysts when providing applied behavior analysis (ABA)-based services for adults with autism spectrum disorders. The framework for this chapter is based on the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, the need for consent for services, funding of adult services, related legal and regulatory matters, and evidence-based procedures.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to and highlight some particularly enlightening arguments described by Rosenberg and Schwartz (2019). First, I emphasize the importance of the role of culture in ethical analysis and describe how the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (2014; hereafter referred to as the BACB Code) unintentionally underplays the importance of culture. Second, I express support for the model of ethical analysis proposed by Rosenberg and Schwartz and explain how their model provides an excellent and much-needed framework for the observation (and subsequent study) of ethical decision-making in behavior-analytic practice. Finally, I go all in and join Rosenberg and Schwartz in their call for scholars to critically analyze and discuss the BACB Code and to challenge the status quo (or call into question those who do). Such a discussion is healthy for our science and understanding of ethics and behavior analysis.

The field of behavior analysis is growing rapidly, and high-quality supervision is essential to producing thoughtful and effective Board Certified Behavior Analysts. There is little empirical information about the behaviors that supervisors engage in to support trainees in developing critical skills. Therefore, our purpose in this study was to survey supervisors (n = 317) about their supervision practices to better understand how frequently they engage in recommended supervision practices and whether the frequency with which they engage in recommended practices is related to demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that there is wide variability in the extent to which individual supervisors engage in recommended practices, and that supervisors engage in practices more frequently for which there are concrete guidelines and supports in place (e.g., behavioral skills training). We discuss the implications of our results for supporting supervisors to engage in recommended practices and for future research.

Supervision is paramount within applied behavior analysis. This is particularly true in the case of Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs®) and trainees (i.e., those accruing hours and experience to become BCBAs). Given the importance of supervision in shaping future BCBAs (and subsequently the field of applied behavior analysis), researchers have emphasized supervision practices as they relate to BCBAs and trainees. However, what type of work is occurring in this area, such as empirical intervention studies or provision of supervisory recommendations through discussion-style articles, needs to be clarified. Therefore, we conducted the first and most comprehensive systematic review of supervision research related to BCBAs and trainees. Results indicated that most of the articles and work pertaining to BCBA supervision are discussion-style articles, with several survey studies and few empirical intervention studies. We discuss implications and areas for future supervision research.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00805-0.