| Abstract: The use of clinical decision models is not entirely new to the field of psychology and behavior analysis, as demonstrated over 25 years-ago by Axelrod, Spreat, Berry, and Moyer in their chapter of Behavior Analysis and Treatment (1993). In this chapter, the authors outline a brief decision model to assist clinicians in selecting and implementing appropriate treatment procedures suited to address the individual needs of a client. In recent publications, decision models have been used to assist clinicians in utilizing effective treatment programming (Ferraioli, Hughes, and Smith, 2005), selecting measurement systems (LeBlanc, Raetz, Sellers, and Carr, 2016), consideration of factors which influence parent decisions regarding treatment (Carlon, Carter, and Stephenson, 2013), and navigating collaboration with other professionals (Brodhead, 2015). In addition to the individual clinical applications of decision models, the field of behavior analysis as a whole is experiencing a rapid demand for qualified individuals to serve various clinical populations. In 2018, Burning Glass released their analysis of the labor market data for the field of behavior analysis and found there has been an 800% increase in the demand for individuals who hold a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA/BCBA-D) certification as well as a 995% increase in demand for individuals with a BCaBA certification (Burning Glass, 2018). With this significant increase in demand for certified behavior analysts, it is critical our training and production of new behavior analysts consider not only behavior analytic research, but the research and tools utilized by other fields, such as physical therapy, speech language pathology, and medicine. The purpose of this paper presentation is to demonstrate the value of decision models for supporting patient-centered decision-making in behavioral medicine. |