Newsletter
Volume 29 | 2006 | Number 1
Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc.
By James M. Johnston, Ph.D., President, and Gerald L. Shook, Ph.D., Executive Director
The Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc.™ (BACB®) was formed in 1998 to meet the increasing need for a national program to establish credentials for applied behavior analyst practitioners. The timing of its formation was prompted by an opportunity to build on a well-developed certification program administered by the State of Florida. The new BACB entered into an agreement with Florida in 1999 to use the existing examination and administered its first national examination in May 2000. As part of the process of developing a national program, the BACB made arrangements with a number of other states that were using the Florida examination to transfer their state-certified practitioners to the BACB and terminate further state-based certification.
Over the ensuing years, the BACB has accomplished a number of key milestones:
- Established eligibility standards for two levels of certification
- Developed a continuing education program for those who are certified
- Established renewal and recertification standards
- Developed and maintained a comprehensive Web site serving students, certificants, employers, and consumers
- Established the BACB Guidelines for Responsible Conduct for Behavior Analysts©
- Implemented Professional Disciplinary Standards with Review Committee appeal procedures
- Developed a Certificant Registry
- Established systems for approving college and university course sequences and experience practicum
- Conducted an international job analysis to update the professionally-developed examinations’ content
- Implemented revised coursework and experience standards
- Developed a certificant election process for board directors
- Developed and implemented a computer-based testing program and world-wide delivery system
- Responded to certification needs outside of the United States by expanding the international scope of BACB credentials
As a result of these activities, the BACB has been effective in pursuing its mission of developing, promoting, and implementing a national, and increasingly international, certification program for behavior analyst practitioners. As of June 2005, there were more than 4,300 certificants at both Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and Board Certified Associate Behavior Analyst (BCABA) levels. This number does not include the results of the Fall 2005 examination.
The increasing number of individuals certified by the BACB is the most obvious effect of a national certification program. Each of these individuals not only has a distinct professional identity, each is a locus of behavior analytic influence in his or her place of employment, community, and state. A practitioner’s credentials are now the focus of activities by state service systems and employers. These agencies and employers are working to accommodate behavior analytic professionals by establishing positions, revising regulations, and developing new policies that take advantage of access to behavior analytic expertise.
The growing cadre of certificants is partly the result of the BACB’s successful effort to encourage academic programs to develop course sequences that meet the coursework requirements for certification at BCBA or BCABA levels. The BACB has approved 115 university course sequences to date, 15 of which are found in universities outside of the United States. Although it might be expected that universities already offering course work in behavior analysis would seek approval of their course training, many of the approved course sequences were created explicitly to take advantage of the BACB credentials. In fact, some of these new sequences have been developed by a recently-graduated BCBA in his or her first academic position. The fact that applications from new academic programs continue to increase predicts continued growth in the number of certificants.
These training programs are approved by the BACB based on their compliance with a specific minimum curriculum. The curriculum content results from an elaborate and recurring job analysis process. In this process, hundreds of behavior analysts around the world participate by contributing their observations and opinions about what behavior analyst practitioners should know. As a result, the certification program is having a considerable influence on training curricula in the field; however, the BACB course work standards are certainly not intended to serve all aspects of the field’s training needs.
Because many of its initiatives require considerable planning and lead time, the BACB must always focus on long-term development of the certification program. For instance, the BACB has recently initiated a computer-based testing program, which will provide additional testing opportunities and flexibility to prospective certificants. Candidates are now able to take the certification examinations at over 200 sites in the U.S. and over 150 outside of the U.S. The Board is also examining ways of improving service to its certificants, including a means of tracking continuing education activities .on line. Perhaps the most challenging effort currently in the early planning stages is the development of specialty examinations, particularly in the areas of autism and other developmental disabilities. This initiative will require both significant financial resources and time.
The certification program administered by the BACB is having a significant influence on the field of behavior analysis. A credential in applied behavior analysis was badly needed and the success of the BACB presents new opportunities and challenges to the entire discipline.